The Good Ol' Days

Four decades ago there weren’t many serious  discussions about television because there was little serious  television to discuss.

Newspapers were still the dominant information medium.  TV News, though in cases excellent, modeled itself to some degree  after radio, where its roots were, but it followed the leading  papers for guidance in its coverage of national events.

It was the dawn of what TV historian Tim Brooks has dubbed  the idiot sitcom era.

The prestigious anthology shows of the ‘50s (“G.E.  Theater,” “The U.S. Steel Hour,” “Playhouse 90,” “The  Twilight Zone”) had fallen out of favor. So-called socially  relevant dramas such as “The Defenders,” “East Side, West Side”  and “Naked City” were also on the wane.

In their place were comparatively simplistic shows  ranging from the bucolic (“The Beverly Hillbillies,” “The Andy  Griffith Show”) to the fantastic (“Bewitched,” “Jeannie,”  “My Favorite Martian”) to the bizarre (“The Addams Family,”  “The Munsters”) to the absurd (“Green Acres,” “Gilligan’s  Island,” “My Mother, the Car”). These were the sorts of shows  then-FCC chairman Newton Minow had railed against so famously in  1962 when he denounced television as a “vast wasteland.” TV was  mostly viewed as a vehicle for entertainment, a temporary escape  from the worries of the everyday world. It was not the world.

Now TV is the world, or at least the primary medium  through which we see the world. Instead of three broadcast networks,  we now have six, along with slews of cable networks.

TV has shot to the center of popular culture, with  thousands of books now out about the medium and about its impact on  society.

So in 2005 bring on the debate about TV and its proper,  or not so proper, role in American society. But be aware that in  some ways that, as old as the issue may seem, it is really still a fresh one, certainly for these times.

Rest of the Medialife Magazine story here.