Tag: car 54 where are you

Television-End of Seasons and Programs!


     Television Stations across the country end and begin new seasons at different times and they end shows and begin new shows in the same way. Most of what we watch on television is based upon ads for products they can attach to them, the ads as we know pays the bills.  Yet I find it sad when favorite shows complete their runs and go off air and we are left hanging as to what happened to the characters, we watched and loved and laughed at. Funny some of them become so real to us we even imamate them in public places. This happened with shows like Mash, Friends, and many more, and they left holes in television lands viewers hearts.

        Every year in the spring they kill programs without asking the public about them, then they bring new summer ones out in trials and see if they are good enough for renewing. Then we have shows like Desperate Housewifes that ended last night after a 8 year run, House is leaving us too, among other that have left in the past like Monk. To be replaced by live action shows like Survivor and Amazing Race and Big Brother and The Bachlorette and more. The live shows are fun at times but, they get boring for me too. No real plots, no real characters that change each week or show.

       I want to go back in time to the days when we d tube television and black and whites and antennas just to see the shows that went by. Shows I loved, laughed, cried and sat amazed at and wonder why they aren’t on television today. 

       Mutual of Omahas’ Wild Kingdom, Wonderful World of Disney, Soul Train, American Bandstand. Comedies ruled too- I Love Lucy, Car 54 Where are You, My Mother the Car, McHale’s Navy, Carol Burnett, Jackie Gleason, Dean Martin and more. The wholesome shows of yester-years have gone to the graveyard and not come back at all.  We even had war shows, like Combat,The Rat Pack, then we had Mod Squad and The Dukes of Hazard. What happened to Charlies Angels and the likes of it? Television is continuing to change but I wonder if it is for the good or bad. 

        In my book there are channels few really watch, we do in my home, Green Planet, Discovery, History 1 and 2  A&E, USA, and more. The premium channels I could probably do without like HBO,Showtime and Max and such, not enough variety or shows I like on them, but they are in my package for now.

        I find myself leaving shows behind I didn’t want to see go like House and TNT’s The Closer, while shows I wish would leave still stick around. Sadly, the directors, and producers and stations run the shows and what they put on, and we really have no control except to change the channels or shut it all off now a days. What happened to good old-fashioned comedies, and wholesome shows and dramas that made sense without getting too violent or bloody? Maybe someone will read this and understand what I am saying these days.

 

Ever Wonder Why?


Every year, I watch certain programs on Television with my wife and we laugh through them and enjoy the mysteries and dramas and more. Then came in the contest shows and they were fine for a while, then the dating shows and Bachelor shows, but they all have one thing in common, they all have to end sometime.

       Coming to an end, are some shows we have loved for a long time, shows like The Closer, House is now coming to an end, and in the far flung past Mash went bye, bye too. Sadly none will ever match Mash for it’s conclusion, because it’s characters had character, eachand everyone of them. From Hawkeyes to BJ, to Hot Lips and Radar, and even Father Mullchay, Mash hit the hearts of the American public like no other show.

       In the old days television in the 1960s had some of the greatest programming ever. We had comedies like Mchales Navy, My Favorite Martian,Car 54 Where are You? and more. We had Mutual of Omahas Wild Kingdom, Disney and The Wonderful World of Color and more. Music ruled the Air Waves with American Bandstand and Soul Train. Motown was the biggest recording company around, the air tasted and smelled of newness and freshness then and life felt like it was begginning anew always.

      Every time I turn around another show gets cancelled or ends that I enjoyed and I can’t understand why. Shows I loved disappear as fast as they appear, ABC had Defying Gravity, it poofed in less than one season, why? It seems if the audience isn’t huge at the beggining the show won’t last, it’s all based on money of course and that sucks.

       Now House is leaving, Desperate Housewifes is going too, and these shows such as The Closer and more disappear off the screens of homes across America. America does need it’s hereos and villians as well as fun programs again, Seinfeld made us laugh till the end with subjects no one understood at first but shine bright since they aired, yet it too ended. The Fugitive, Combat, all programs in the 1960s that could come back if casted right.

         These days we get Survivor, Amazing Race, The Bachelor and Bachelorette and Losing Weight Shows and Dancing Contests. Then they throw in singing competitions like American Idol and The Voice and now X-Factor. Maybe one such show on the air at a time would work, but three will definitely overload our senses and the air waves and cause some of them to die. Too much of one thing and not enough of another is bad they say, and such is the case with these.

      At a time when America is going through it’s financial crisis and economic mess and we are hurting as a nation, television and it’s providers and companies that create shows should make television more entertaining not monotonious! I will always wonder why some of my favorite shows to see on television were ever cancelled, don’t you with yours? Ever Wonder Why?

 

      

Television and Game Consoles


The Television Stations across America have changed so much over my lifetime as to what is on their schedules it is silly and unfair to the viewer. As you flip through the channels with your clicker so to say, ninety percent of all programs are cop shows of one kind or another.  Why is that, I wonder?

      I grew up as a child in the 1960’s. and used to watch shows that were for pure entertainment of the children and parents.  We had shows that were funny, or serious, or about families and characters who were telling actual stories, not crimes. We had shows like Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom, Walt Disney’s Wonderful WOrld of Color, My Favorite Martin, McHale’s Navy, Car 54 Where are You?, and more. Red Skeleton, Jackie Gleason, Carol Burnett ruled the air waves and the all time classic I Love Lucy.  We had American Bandstand, Soul Train and more for music too. But what we had most of all, was variety beyond compare. Variety that would have you staying in front of your television and smiling, laughing or staring in wonder. Television in my parents house was for evenings after school work, or for Sunday Ball Games, or for Special Events, not a babysitter for kids to stare at. The Comedy Teams on television were great ones, The Three Stooges, for one would make everyone laugh. Why now is everything murder,police shows, shootings and violence?

        Some shows today have some entertainment value to them still, but very few. Sadly, American television is turning into newscasts filled not with serious news anymore, but with flub and fillers not worth airing. CNN even has trouble staying hard news twenty-four seven, it brings in silly stuff to fill the hours and minutes to keep going, soft news.

        The HoneyMooners, Jackie Gleason, I Love Lucy, Red Skeleton,Carol Burnett,McHale’s Navy, My Favorite Martin, Wonderful World of Disney, Car 54 Where Are You?. The Munsters, Star Trek, all used imagination to entertain and make people laugh. Children were affixed to watching clean cartoons with lessons, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, Captain Kangaroo, and more.  Nothing is clean wholesome entertainment anymore, it all has some form of nudity, or some form of vulgar language that is slipping through the sensors and getting on TV. I have heard language on Television channels like NBC, CBS and ABC the big three, that would have shocked my parents who were liberals and smart beyond compare. Are American ethics and morals slipping that badly that no one cares anymore?

       As we all know Cable Channels such as HBO, ShowTime, Cinemax, and more were invented to keep adult rated language and programs including nudity off public air waves. Why can’t you just keep it that way, and not spread it to the average channels people love?

       Television has grown now not just from a box that you can watch to have a few laughs or watch a movie on, to big screen eye catchers that people get sucked into watching, draining their attention from their normal jobs to do daily. People stare in awe at these big screens and refuse to shut them down in their homes, ignoring or putting off other things they should be doing. It is a sad, sad world when you walk into someone’s house to say hello and visit and they won’t shut a Television off to see you. Sad isn’t it folks?.

        Another pet peeve of mine lately is the video games industry and their grip on the American kids, and some very simple-minded adults even. Kids and Adults stuck in front of a Television screen staring at a game they are playing, hands locked on controllers. the biggest moving part of their body are their fingers and eyes!. No exercise, no physical exertion and no thinking anything through and doing it manually. Big bumps on couches, chairs and floors getting fatter and heavier day by day. Not caring either what goes on around them, just caring how far the can get in a  game, and if they can win.

       Parents need to wake up and realize having a Game Console like X-box, or Playstation, or WII babysit and entertain your children for days at end is not educating them, teaching them to read and write and do math or science, it is draining their energy and life away. Are we destined to have children who don’t know how to read, add and subtract, or what veggies are or anything else? Closed in children who have no world experience or life outside of the Television and Game Consoles they play and stare at?

       Ask yourselves this, when you look at your children today, are my children staring at a television or computer screen 24/7? Do they play outside, do they perform sports, do they run?. Are they reading a  classic book, or building a puzzle or planting plants or flowers, or helping you maintain your property or homes? Are you teaching them life skills that will make them better adults in society or are you making them, uneducated children who know nothing more than Television shows and video games?. A War can not be won by staring at a monitor or television, a new solution for a problem won’t come from a  game console, a Doctor will not make a medical miracle or help humanity if he doesn’t work, will he? Teach the children right you improve the world, teach them wrong and we get lazy, impolite, non-listening trouble makers in trouble with the law and more!. Think of the world one day, filled with electronic gadgets to make things quicker and easier, but, also with people who still know what it is like to work and save and make things right the old-fashioned way by labor and hands on work. It would be something wouldn’t it?.