By Dale Moore |
By Dale Moore |
|
They say that somewhere in the world, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, someone is watching a rerun of “I Love Lucy.” The last episode of that show was filmed 40 years ago in 1961, after 10 years and 180 episodes of production. I can turn on the TV several times a day and laugh and cry at the antics of “The Golden Girls,” which ended production ten years ago. “The Beverly Hillbillies” is still being enjoyed 30 years after production stopped. People now view “The Honeymooners” as a TV Special and find Ralph Cramden as obnoxious, yet pathetic and funny as ever. “Perry Mason” is rerun at least four times a day almost forty years after going off the air in 1966 with 271 episodes. The last episode of “Bonanza” was filmed in 1973. “Murder, She Wrote,” left the airways in 1996 as a regular series, but Jessica Fletcher is still being watched three or four times a day. The list goes on! What is there about these programs that still causes audiences to laugh and cry, that still draws ratings that some new, very expensive shows would die for? It can’t be the sex. Lucy and Ricky had to sleep in separate beds. Ellie May may have been a blond bombshell, but she was better know for her love of kittens than being a sex kitten. While there was always a subtle hint that there may have been a relationship between Perry and Della, we never saw him throw her across the desk in the office and … Well, they just left that part to our imagination! It can’t be the mayhem and gore because Perry Mason won all of his cases but two without a single speeding car chase or blowing someone in half. Jessica Fletcher saw thousands of people murdered, but it was done with taste. I always felt that if I were in a room and she came in, I’d leave quickly because someone was about to die and I didn’t want it to be me. It can’t be the “Adult” rating. There were no four-letter words in any of them, no nudity, nor sex scenes. Maybe the answer is found in terms like “taste,” “imagination,” “laughter,” “audience respect,” “challenge to think,” and “escape.” I’m not sure! But I am sure that if I were the president of a major television network, I would lock my highly overpaid programming staff in a room and make them watch these and other classics till they found an answer. They don’t seem to be doing too well on their own.
And that’s my two cents worth |
