Mad Men, the AMC TV series centered around an early 1960s Madison Avenue advertising agency, is widely praised for its spot-on depiction of the era’s mores, current and changing. The show’s attention to detail, at least for those of us who lived through that time, is uncanny. Aside from being old enough to enjoy that perspective, I can personally validate the sartorial eye of costume designer Janie Bryant’s selections, at least for the male cast members.
It went by in a flash during Sunday night’s episode about the ad agency’s Christmas party. Buxom redhead Joan walked into the party. I immediately hit the pause and rewind buttons. There, unable to take his eyes off her, was the agency’s young art director wearing a burgundy tuxedo jacket with vertical and horizontal black stripes. That was my Bar-Mitzvah jacket!
How did Janie Bryant find that jacket? Did she secretly visit my house and look through my Bar-Mitzvah album? Of course she didn’t. Besides, my album is in black and white. How would she have known the jacket was burgundy?
Just one more reason I am a big fan of Mad Men...
Federal Offense: Mitch Miller died Saturday. He was 99, considered by many a genius of music, and by others an old fogy of music (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/arts/music/03miller.html?_r=1&hpw). I will always remember him as the cause of one of my biggest arguments with my brother and father.
Sing Along with Mitch aired on NBC between 1961 and 1964. My father and older brother Bernie really enjoyed that show. I, on the other hand, preferred ABC’s counter-programming—The Untouchables. Since we had but one TV in our pre-VCR or DVR home, someone was going to be disappointed each week.
One particular week I was not to be denied. I screamed and yelled and cried (hey, I wasn’t even a teenager at the time of this story, so cut me some slack, willya). I made enough noise to drown out any hopes Bernie and our father had to enjoy the gang singing along with Mitch. Of course, by the time they finally gave in, Eliot Ness was already deep into his crime-fighting episode. Frank Nitti could have already been arrested, or better yet, machine gunned, by the time I was able to switch the TV to Channel 7.
Our confrontations lasted through The Untouchables’ last season in 1963. After that, we all watched the bouncing ball above the words on the screen and sang along with Mitch. Who knew Mitch was training a generation of karaoke singers?
Mom Says It Best: In this case, it’s Finley’s mother, Allison.
“Fathers, Lock Up Your Daughters, Because Finley’s on the Move,” she reported in a weekend post of her blog, Http://findingfinley.blogspot.com. Our 8-1/2 month old grandson is officially crawling. Here’s proof: http://findingfinley.blogspot.com/2010/08/and-away-he-goes.html.
Showing posts with label NBC-Universal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NBC-Universal. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Valley of Remembrance II
How many television stations do you have access to? Hundreds, if you have a cable or satellite hook-up.
Hard to recall a time when the public did not always have access to a TV station smorgasbord, especially for those living relatively close to New York City.
As cable operator Comcast’s pending acquisition of NBC-Universal moves closer and closer to closure, I am reminded that when Gilda and I moved to Seymour, Conn., after we married in January 1973, we were media-deprived. Though living less than 90 miles from the media capital of the world, and just a dozen or so miles from New Haven, Bridgeport and Waterbury, our television, like most others in the Lower Naugatuck Valley, could receive just one station, the New Haven-based ABC affiliate. That meant we didn’t get any NFL football games except Monday Night Football. No Johnny Carson. No Yankees or Mets games. No Baseball of the Week game. No World Series. No Walter Cronkite. Or 60 Minutes. No Masterpiece Theater. Not even the Channel 11 Christmas Eve Yule Log.
While I went off to work as a newspaper reporter (see http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2009/11/valley-of-remembrance.html), Gilda’s political science degree offered little interest to local employers. But she did find an office job with a new company hoping to make an impact in the Valley. It was the local cable franchise. For less than $20 a month, customers could get all the New York City-based networks as well as several Connecticut affiliates. From having just one station, customers would have immediate, crisp reception from 10 channels with the promise of more to come.
It was, simply, the easiest sales job anyone could imagine.
It also serves as a reminder that proximity to information is no guarantee it will be accessed or used intelligently. The U.S. is in danger of losing its superpower status because we are not cultivating a culture of knowledge. Sure, we have a near monopoly on Nobel Prizes for most sciences and economics. Our universities and colleges are among the best in the world. But few would argue that our public school standards are slipping. Sure, there are hundreds of TV stations to choose from, but people, in my opinion, are just getting dumber and dumber. Perhaps it’s because, I fear, they are becoming more conservative, and in my mind conservatives have a narrow-gauge view of the world, often a selfish view.
I’m not going to argue the point with you here. Rather, I’ll quote Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy, an animated comedy that airs on Fox and often satirizes, offensively, public norms (for the record, I’ve never seen Family Guy, though one of its writers, Andrew Goldberg, is the son of friends). Commenting in an article in Tuesday’s NY Times on a banned TV episode of Family Guy, MacFarlane said, “People in America, they’re getting dumber. They’re getting less and less able to analyze something and think critically, and pick apart the underlying elements. And more and more ready to make a snap judgment regarding something at face value, which is too bad” (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/arts/television/20family.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=macfarlane&st=cse).
Amen.
Hard to recall a time when the public did not always have access to a TV station smorgasbord, especially for those living relatively close to New York City.
As cable operator Comcast’s pending acquisition of NBC-Universal moves closer and closer to closure, I am reminded that when Gilda and I moved to Seymour, Conn., after we married in January 1973, we were media-deprived. Though living less than 90 miles from the media capital of the world, and just a dozen or so miles from New Haven, Bridgeport and Waterbury, our television, like most others in the Lower Naugatuck Valley, could receive just one station, the New Haven-based ABC affiliate. That meant we didn’t get any NFL football games except Monday Night Football. No Johnny Carson. No Yankees or Mets games. No Baseball of the Week game. No World Series. No Walter Cronkite. Or 60 Minutes. No Masterpiece Theater. Not even the Channel 11 Christmas Eve Yule Log.
While I went off to work as a newspaper reporter (see http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2009/11/valley-of-remembrance.html), Gilda’s political science degree offered little interest to local employers. But she did find an office job with a new company hoping to make an impact in the Valley. It was the local cable franchise. For less than $20 a month, customers could get all the New York City-based networks as well as several Connecticut affiliates. From having just one station, customers would have immediate, crisp reception from 10 channels with the promise of more to come.
It was, simply, the easiest sales job anyone could imagine.
It also serves as a reminder that proximity to information is no guarantee it will be accessed or used intelligently. The U.S. is in danger of losing its superpower status because we are not cultivating a culture of knowledge. Sure, we have a near monopoly on Nobel Prizes for most sciences and economics. Our universities and colleges are among the best in the world. But few would argue that our public school standards are slipping. Sure, there are hundreds of TV stations to choose from, but people, in my opinion, are just getting dumber and dumber. Perhaps it’s because, I fear, they are becoming more conservative, and in my mind conservatives have a narrow-gauge view of the world, often a selfish view.
I’m not going to argue the point with you here. Rather, I’ll quote Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy, an animated comedy that airs on Fox and often satirizes, offensively, public norms (for the record, I’ve never seen Family Guy, though one of its writers, Andrew Goldberg, is the son of friends). Commenting in an article in Tuesday’s NY Times on a banned TV episode of Family Guy, MacFarlane said, “People in America, they’re getting dumber. They’re getting less and less able to analyze something and think critically, and pick apart the underlying elements. And more and more ready to make a snap judgment regarding something at face value, which is too bad” (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/arts/television/20family.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=macfarlane&st=cse).
Amen.
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