Scottie Scotty Porta-Potty and Mary Mary Topiary:
A disturbing combination of two characters from significant TV shows of my youth.
I was certainly born too late to have been watching the original broadcasts of Star Trek in the late 60's on my parents 10" black and white TV. But I did watch a whole lot of Star Trek in reruns during the 70's. Now that we live in a world where there are multiple cable channels devoted to 24 hours a day of children's programming, it is hard to recall the days when a young person would have to resort to watching Star Trek while doing her homework after school.
I think I might have been watching "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" with my parents in the evenings, as that program made its original run from 1970-1977. I watched a few minutes of a couple of episodes on YouTube earlier this week while I was trying to decide which Mary hair style would be the right choice, and was reminded how deeply the show was ingrained in my subconscious. It was certainly not written for young children, but had enough brisk dopey jokes to hold nearly anyone's attention. More consequentially, the central concept of a single attractive woman with an interesting job living alone in a large city was ever so compelling to me as a young female person.
Sometimes I think the downside of the present day smorgasbord of constantly available kids programing is that our kids don't have to watch shows like the Mary Tyler Moore Show with their parents. While there were plenty of easy jokes about how Mary's boss Mr Grant was grumpy and her co worker Ted was dumb, the show also addressed topics like difficulties for women in the workplace divorce, homosexuality, and drugs. I watched it in the company of adults, and it presented a picture of what adult life might be like. This is not something one can say of most of the programming on Cartoon Network or the Disney Channel. While I do watch some TV with my sons, the shows are kids' shows. I rarely watch "adult" programming with them beyond action movies that are really aimed at 13 year old boys anyway.
But as I type this, I am reminded that our kids do watch a bit of adult-oriented, evening television programming with their father...(usually right around the time I am trying desperately to put them to bed) The programs in question are usually the reality shows that my husband favors, something like "Deadliest Catch," "Fast N Loud,"or "Pawn Stars."
So, I guess they are in fact gaining insight into what it might like to be an adult male.
(part of the PuppyMonkeyBaby drawing series)
No comments:
Post a Comment