Present Day
From the synopsis presented on the CW website, the show is about an awkward teen coupled with an exchange student living in his house and their high school adventures in Wisconsin. I couldn't find a more offensive and non-funny show on television. In this particular episode we learn that the main character Justin's fondness for drawing has transformed from his drawing happy rainbow pictures as a preteen to outright pornographic female images as a teenager.
When mom discovers the images during a routine room cleaning, we find that Justin has sketch book upon sketch book of these images. In the usual bumbling dad tradition of the media these days, Dad doesn't really confront Justin about these images at all. In fact, later on in the episode, he tells his son that he dealt with his male puberty urges by drawing the female bosom out of all of the double-o ("oo") words in the books that he read.
In seeking help, he goes to a clinic that is run by a Christian organization that tells Justin that the only way to rid himself of the problem is to come to Jesus and to slap his hand regularly with a ruler whenever he has a sexual thought.
Needless to say I found absolutely no humor in this episode whatsoever. I would have turned away if it were not for the fact that I was thinking about this post and how far TV has sunk in America. Amazing to think but in one episode:
- Parents and adults were once again seen as cartoonish with no moral authority (Moms and Dads are easily manipulated to do the kids bidding);
- The serious challenges of dealing with teen male puberty in the family were boiled down to cheap laughs;
- Christian values (which does have a valuable response to sex and sexuality in the family) and people were caricatured and pictured to seem irrelevant;
- Christians themselves were presented as unfeeling, legalistic, dogmatic people whose only concern was getting converts into the faith;
- Reading classics was belittled as "old school" in our new technological age.
Golden Age
Once Aliens went off the air, the Mrs and I surfed a little more and discovered that The Honeymooners was on and we camped out there for two episodes. There could not have been a more stark contrast between this Golden Age of Television program and the craziness that passes for entertainment today.
I've watched Ralph, Alice, Norton and Trixie for a number of years during my youth in the 70s and was struck this past week at the simplicity of the program. Over 80% of the program took place on one set that looked the same from week to week. The comedy itself was not in the gutter of sex or immorality. While Alice could really lay some sharp verbal zingers on Ralph, they were usually in response to a set up line by Ralph. The laughs came from human conversation with some sight gags and I was amazed at how long the scenes were without a cut or edit in the flow of the scene.
Even though one could anticipate what was coming next in a given episode, Jackie Gleason and Art Carney had a way of still making us laugh through acting. No computer animated graphics or fancy camera work for them. No skinny babes dancing around the set wearing very little clothes. Just a good script, a few props and some great actors and actresses.
The programs on the air that really have lasting value, are the ones where the story is the central part of the program. So much of our entertainment has been dumbed downed, sexed up, and product placement saturated that you sometimes have a hard time seeing the story (tree) for the distractions (forest).
Episodes watched: Better Living Through TV and Pal O Mine.
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