If that brings a smile to your face, then you’re over 60 (and still cool).
After school was still spent looking for scary movies. I’d pop in to see Jim O’Brien (later, Wee Willy Weber) on Dialing For Dollars (‘count and the amount’), just ’cause he was on WFIL……..now I could see his face!
Brady Bunch? Well, yes, guess I gotta hit on this to verify my baby boomer creds to y’all. Believe it or not, the show started in my lifetime–it did NOT materialize as cosmic culture slop while the USA slept (a CIA plot?). (yipes, sorry to go all Hunter Thompson on you) I saw this show and thought “OMG, what crap will they shovel next?!” Mother looks nothing like women I see. The father doesn’t scream and yell….never even raises his friggin’ voice! Problems solved in a half hour? Ha! In real houses, fathers kept grinding shit in your face the next week. But as time rolled on, I became a Jan fan–she suddenly grew long legs and her hair was a fairy tale book illustration. Marcia? No, actually all pretty blondes were snotty, nice rich blonde is an oxymoron. Greg, the sports star? Oh yes, high school big shots just loved being among the unwashed.
Gradually, I was sucked in to dramas that mom liked–Saturday nights at 8:55 Mom would call me to see a tape self destruct. We’d smile at each other–a shared experience. Yes, I had to catch the opening Mission: Impossible overview or else it took 5 minutes to explain it. Mom and I would watch and explain to the other as needed.
The first show I remember being hooked on by myself was the wonderful ‘The Name of the Game’.
Gene Barry was the publisher of a nonexistent magazine called ‘People.’ Robert Stack, was, well, Robert Stack. Tony Franciosa was sooooo cool, just don’t piss him off. And he had a bumbling girl in very short mini-skirts who worked with him (and plainly wanted to jump his bones) played by the yummy Susan Saint James.
Then Mannix, of course. The Man From Uncle was briefly cool, then it became a parody and just as silly as Lost in Space (no, I didn’t watch LIS just to see Penny).
And of course, I must mention our theme song, Room 222. This was a valiant network attempt: a show where kids are not dangerous drug fiends, races mingled successfully (if at times, a bit contentiously), and one of two lead characters was black. (The show’s principal was our homeboy, Michael Constadine!). Oh yea, and Karen Valentine, who could reduce a boy to quivering grape jelly with just a smile. Sometimes icky, sometimes thoughtful, the show tried to give functional guidance in uncertain times–mainly by not talking down to the long haired angry kids in their classrooms.
And before we go, listen to the theme from I Spy…..Earl Hagan was great. Even 007 would be happy with a theme like this: