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| Larry Hagman as Major Anthony Nelson |
"Jeannie" was part of a stable of meticulously constructed
entertainment productions for when boomers were young. They seemed
brainless on the surface. They seemed absurd and off in some child's
dream world. But in fact they were carefully honed by people very
dedicated to the entertainment craft. The brainlessness was an illusion.
There was a method to the madness of those entertainers.
It's the same as with popular songs. "Tiny Bubbles" seems like the
kind of song you could scribble on a cocktail napkin in an idle moment.
It only seems that way. Guys like Hal David wrote songs like that after
years of honing their craft.
The boomers grew up with entertainment so different from today.
There was a fundamental problem: entertainment had to be constructed so
as to appeal to a very wide audience. It was also the age of general
interest magazines like Life and Look. Yes, I realize Life was
resuscitated in later years and may even still exist in some form. But
it's a boutique item now. It gets lost in the vast sea of what we call
the media now. Life and Look were icons in a previous time. They
coincided with television entertainment programs that were highly vapid.
Is this a slam? That's a good question.
You might argue those programs simply entertained. We had "The
Beverly Hillbillies," "Gilligan's Island," "Petticoat Junction" and a
whole lot of other shows that will bring smiles to boomers when
mentioned. Hagman fit right in with his military officer role on "I
Dream of Jeannie." TV then was like a world in which we might all be
forced to eat the same breakfast cereal. It would sustain us but
wouldn't be truly satisfying for a large number of people.
It's easy to just feel nostalgia about it all today. We can even
see re-runs on retro-oriented TV channels. Those channels are of course
just part of a sea of TV entertainment available to us today. I guess
you can watch TV on your laptop too.
I haven't taken the step to get a laptop. I'm reminded of Jim
Bouton being told by a friend that "you're really getting there" with
some fashion tastes. Author/athlete Bouton responded: "Yes, but by the
time I get there, everyone will be someplace else." That's me with tech
stuff.
Young people today would experience culture shock if forced to live
in a world with the minimal media/entertainment options my generation
had. Why, what an analog, retrograde world. There was absolutely no
empowerment for the individual in that old media world. Forget it. The
vast masses of knaves consumed what the entertainment puppeteers in New
York City and Los Angeles laid out for them. I remember when Johnny
Carson moved his late-night show from New York City to L.A. What of the
whole vast nation in between? We were just the consumers - the helpless,
unempowered consumers.
Not that we didn't think we liked it. And none of this is to say
there weren't hints of what was to come. For example, "The Monkees" was a
highly edgy show for its time that touched the irreverence of
hyperactive teens. The teens learned that their least desirable impulses
might have some reinforcement from the performers on TV. The parameters
of earlier sitcoms were breaking down. But "The Monkees" was ahead of
its time. Its model broke down to where it seemed little more than
silly. It met its end.
A better example of what I'm talking about might be "Star Trek."
This was a cerebral and substantial type of show, definitely breaking
through the limitations of that time. That was good and bad. It was good
on the merits of what it was trying to do, but bad in the sense it got
canceled prematurely. Like Life Magazine it would have later
incarnations that capitalized on the established brand.
Today we don't question the power of "Star Trek." But when that
show with the amazing William Shatner was in its original incarnation,
surviving was hardly a given in the media landscape we had then. There
were three major networks. In Minnesota we had the "independent" TV
station of WTCN in Minneapolis. Gil Amundson read us the news in the
evening on WTCN. Mel Jass hosted the movies. "Quaint" hardly describes
all that.
I think the limited nature of the media universe was hard on the
boomers. It might explain some of our psychological challenges. Had
social media existed then, it would have been like a giant pacifier for
the boomers. We consumed entertainment and heaven knows we were targeted
doggedly by marketers.
We were the first young generation to be marketed to in such
unrelenting fashion. Maybe that explains the psychological issues. And
yet we weren't allowed to be collaborators with the kind of media that
came at us. Media were created by cynical and distant puppeteers.
"Flyoverland" became awash in the kind of entertainment they crafted.
They were filling a need. But they were forced, tragically, to try to
create a one size fits all product.
Kids today might be amused watching re-runs on a retro TV channel.
But they'd have a hard time imagining a world in which such fare was our
only choice. You could watch "Gunsmoke" or have a bowl of cereal and go
to bed.
There were trendy shows like "Night Gallery" that kids would
discuss in the school hallways the next morning. But again, we were
merely consumers. The days of using media to establish your own identity
were a long ways off in the future.
My old college advisor (now deceased) once said "you can watch the
Tonight Show every night and never learn anything." Today the Tonight
Show would be past my bedtime. Johnny came out from behind the curtain
(at least on those nights when he didn't have a guest host like Joey
Bishop) at 10:30 p.m. I can't believe I ever felt a need to watch it.
My college advisor had a role in a deposed government of Ethiopia.
Years later when I learned of an area clergy family who had a background
in that country, I thought (based on the details I'd read) there was a
chance the minister would have known my advisor. I ran the name past him
one day. He responded: "I don't know him but my father probably did."
Ah, a reminder of my age! Us boomers are getting that all the time.
Just as with the passing of Larry Hagman of "Dallas," I mean "I Dream of Jeannie."
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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