What are your kids watching?

I ask because I honestly don’t know. I just spent half an hour trying to find ANYTHING online about what’s airing on Saturday mornings this fall. It used to be that that was when most of the children’s shows came on; I got up early every Saturday and spent far too much of my youth in front of that screen. Now not one of the TV networks’ websites even has a page for Saturday morning. They obviously don’t care; they must figure that kids will watch any old junk without knowing what to expect. It’s enough to make me miss the days when people were always complaining about the quality of children’s TV.

Oh, well. At least they are doing new episodes of “Curious George”. It’s nice to see someone who still looks just as he did when I was a kid. I wish I knew how he does it!

I’ve Got Them on My List 2: Directions

I saw a quote recently: “The illiterate of the next generation will not be the man who cannot read, but the person who does not think.”

So you’re standing on a street corner, directly beneath signs that tell you you are at 12th and Chestnut Streets, and someone walks up looking thoroughly baffled, and asks “How do I get to 13th and Chestnut?”

Or you’re in the hallway of an office bulding, passing a door that is clearly marked “707”, and someone asks “Where can I find Room 710?”

These people can read. They apparently have some idea of what numbers are. But the idea that numbers form any kind of logical progression has never crossed their minds. To them, it’s all random.

What can you do with such people?

Bump, bump, bump…

A random memory surfacing from the ’60s…or maybe not so random, since I was listening to that awesome song “The Shape of Things to Come” from “Wild in the Streets”, the silly cult movie that perfectly captures the paranoia of that decade. I remember sometime around 1968 or so, watching a live news broadcast as Washington, DC police violently dispersed an anti-war protest. One cop had grabbed a young man by his long hair and was dragging him down the stone steps of some big public building, his head whacking against the marble surface of each step, like a sadistic version of the opening scene in “Winnie-the-Pooh”.

And my grandmother’s comment was, “How can they do that to those poor police?”

Tarzan and Jane…Austen

She: “We must counsel dear Teeka to consider her alternatives wisely. While Taug does have the obvious physical appeal of a sleek pelt and mighty fighting fangs, still To-yat is the son of a king ape, and so may have superior prospects.”

He: “I leave such matters entirely to your good graces, my dear. I fear I have made some unwise investments, and am obliged to pay a visit to the city. I shall return in a fortnight, with a hundred golden ingots from the forgotten treasure vaults of Opar.”

She: “And pursued, as likely as not, by the hideous beast-men of that time-lost outpost of Atlantis. I shall make sure to have extra sandwiches on hand – though it would probably be wise not to offer them spirits, as they are notably intemperate.”

I’ve got them on my list…

The world being what it is, this will probably be a regular feature… the kinds of people that we all know, and wish we didn’t… Today we spotlight the species that Chuck Jones might have named Mensroomicus doorpoundibus – the idiot who, finding the door to the men’s room locked from inside, repeatedly tries to force it open, then pounds his fist against it as if that would somehow make the person inside finish instantly and come rushing out. Pause about forty seconds, then the whole process starts again… Hello? What part of “locked bathroom” or “only one toilet” do you guys not understand?

As Lucy van Pelt said, “It takes all kinds to make a world.” And as Charlie Brown astutely replied, “Some kinds we could do without.”

Honkers!

When I was a kid, one of my favorite comic books was “Turok, Son of Stone”, the tale of two Native Americans, Turok and Andar, lost in a valley of dinosaurs (which they called “honkers”). It had everything a comic should have for a little boy; dinosaurs, Indians, and more dinosaurs. I don’t remember any other characters, ever, just these two guys being chased by monsters. What more could you need?
Looking back on it now, certain questions occur that never crossed my nine-year-old mind. Like: Why is it so hard to get out of the Valley of Honkers? With all his awesome knowledge of woodcraft, the idea of “turn around and go back the way we came” apparently eludes Turok. Is he actually the tribal laughingstock – the guy who can’t go to the creek for water without getting lost? Or is he deliberately taking them in circles, knowing that if they ever find a way home, he won’t have his cute teen sidekick to himself any more? (As a boy I had the theory that Andar was his nephew, since why else would a grown man and a kid be hanging out together?) Granted, this lost land seems to be enormous, since they wander it for years without ever finding an exit. It must fill all of Ohio at least. Funny that no one else ever wandered in.
But what the heck. When you’re nine years old, the only thing cooler than dinosaurs is Indians and dinosaurs. Go Turok!

One summer night

Okay, friends keep saying “You should start a blog”, so let’s try it. Expect a lot of rambling, trivia and esoteric stuff. (Naming this blog for the theme song in the dopey old horror movie “The Blob” ought to tell you something…) My internet name is Wersgor, and we have now shaken hands.

Imagine a very hot summer night in 1968. Our family sat sweating in the living room, windows wide open for any chance of a breeze, while the TV presented “The Smothers Brothers Summer Show”, which did not star the Smothers Brothers but a young fellow named Glen Campbell, who had just had his first big hit or two. The guest line-up that night included Bobbie Gentry (“Ode to Billie Jo”) and Mason Williams, whose “Classical Gas” was on the radio constantly that summer. Some of the biggest names and tunes in music that year… and also ’50s rock legends the Everly Brothers, reunited for the first time in years. The entire last act was devoted to a medley saluting “the music of the ’50s”, and they did it proud, tossing off dozens of top hits non-stop, from dance tunes to ballads to novelty songs. Campbell had been Elvis’ second guitar for a couple of years, and had his moves and sound letter-perfect. But beyond the music itself was the joyous response of the studio audience. A Summer-of-Love crowd of shaggy-bearded, long-maned young men in love beads and girls clad in miniskirts, buckskins or garlands of flowers – but these were the songs they had listened to as children, the songs that had made them fall in love with rock’n’roll, and they went wild with nostalgia, cheering each new tune as it clicked in their memories. At the end of the twenty-minute medley they were all on their feet, applauding thunderously. The camera went to the wall monitors to run the comercials, but no one could hear them over the applause. Glen Campbell stepped back onstage to thank the audience and say goodnight, but no one could hear him either. After a moment he smiled, shrugged, and just gestured to each of the guests in turn, prompting even louder cheers. The end titles rolled and the CBS logo came and went, and as it faded the applause was still deafening. It was the longest and loudest spontaneous expression of emotion I’d ever witnessed. It was the night that I myself fell in love with the oldies, and I’ve never forgotten it.

You say you’ll take me anywhere in time or space? You don’t have to ask me twice, Doctor. I know exactly where I want to go.