Tag: classic TV shows

Memory Lane: ‘The Addams Family’

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Addams Family Photo: Addams Family | Addams family tv show, Family tv, Old tv shows

This show was a big hit when I was a kid in middle school: The Addams Family, based on Charles Addams’ weird cartoons.

The gags come hot and heavy, but always from the same root: what’s normal for the Addams family is bizarre to us; and what’s normal to us seems bizarre to them. The writers and the cast made it work.

But I’ll tell you what really made it work; and it’s not what you might think.

They loved each other.

Every member of the family, even the servants, received affection and respect from all the others. Leave It to Beaver gets mocked for idealizing family life. The Addams family had the Cleaver family beat by miles, but never got mocked because they were all so out to lunch. The critics didn’t understand what made the show tick.

The other night I watched an Addams Family episode on YouTube. I enjoyed it every bit as much as I did in seventh grade. Sure, the jokes are easily predictable. That’s what made them so funny! But even more than that, the family feeling shines over the whole thing like the sun.

TV and movies seldom achieve so much.

‘Toxic Fiction’ (2013)

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Remember the classic (1978-91) hit TV show, Dallas–and its mega-popular villain, J.R. Ewing (played by Larry Hagman)? J.R. did a lot of really nasty things to a lot of people.

And in real life, there were actually adult human beings who… well, who wanted to be like him.

Toxic Fiction

I suppose it could be worse. Someone might want to be like Hillary Clinton. But we’re talking adults here, and adults are supposed to be past that kind of thing.

And we’re also talking pop culture “entertainment”–a slow-acting but exceedingly powerful toxin.

Unless it’s our sleazy culture that generates our sleazy entertainment. Could we be talking about a vicious circle here?

In Defense of TV… Old TV

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Jon Hall (left) starred as “Ramar of the Jungle”

Some of you, like me, don’t watch television anymore, largely because it’s gone so crappy. You don’t even have a television set. And you reacted strongly to “Beauty Beyond Bones” watching–and blaming herself for watching–the unbelievably cheap and sleazy denouement of a popular “reality” show.

Like you, I don’t watch such bilge. But I was part of the first generation of Americans that grew up with television, and TV was a big part of my childhood. I thank God that the kind of TV we have today wasn’t! And thanks to the Internet, I can no revisit a lot of those great old shows, commercial-free.

I have fond memories of many of those shows. Even more, I learned a lot from them about the art of storytelling, which now I have the honor to perform in the service of the Lord.

Man, when I was eight years old, nothing turned me on like Ramar of the Jungle! Later on in my childhood I moved on to Wagon Train, Rawhide, Route 66, etc. But it was Ramar that set my mind on fire and introduced me to techniques of storytelling which I use today. They had only half an hour, minus time lost to commercials, to tell the story of an adventure, with beginning, middle, and end, create coherent characters and put them through their paces in a way that made sense, and still devote some time to immersing the viewer in the exotic African setting. It was a big job, but week after week, they did it.

OK, even old TV had its share of (shall we put it kindly?) faults. Grandma’s soap operas, for instance. Twilight Zone sneakily pushing atheism. Queen for a Day. I remember when the first kid in our third-grade class got color TV and invited the whole class to his house to watch Howdy Doody one Saturday morning. We were treated to an unearthly mixture of greens and reds in seldom-seen tones: color TV still had a ways to go.

So I grew up with television before it entered its current Gold Age of Sleaze. It helped teach me the kind of work I do today. And when I play an old Columbo episode from 40 years ago, I like it!