Those Were the Days

I'm pretty sure that I'm a better person today for having watched American television when I was a boy. Shows like "Howdy Doody" and "The Mickey Mouse Club" were good clean fun, and shows like "The Adventures of Superman" and "The Lone Ranger" reinforced in me the notion that justice always prevails, that the good guys always win.

Maaseh avot siman levanim. In Judaism we say: the actions of our forefathers are guideposts for their children. In other words, what was good for me would also be good for my grandchildren. Or so I thought. I bought myself DVD collections of my favorite old-time children's shows and cajoled them into sitting with me on the sofa to watch. They weren't the least bit interested. The shows were still good after all these years, I thought, but they were not of our grandchildren's time. Who among their friends could they talk to about these shows? Could they buy cards of these shows to trade or stick in albums? And why were they all in black and white? After a few failed attempts trying to convince them, I conceded defeat.

And then I had another thought. If I could not interest the new generation in watching those shows, perhaps I could interest people my own age and older in watching old adult television shows. And so, I bought DVDs of shows that I remembered fondly, shows like "Gunsmoke," "Perry Mason," "The Honeymooners," with Jackie Gleason, "You Bet Your Life," with Groucho Marx, "The Jack Benny Program," and "The Goldbergs," to name just a few.

I spent a lot of time previewing the shows, and when I thought I had culled the best episodes of each one I turned to ESRA and Beth Protea with a proposal: to screen an hour-long monthly program of old American TV shows, accompanied by a brief introduction. They liked the idea and for about a year we turned back the clock to the America of the 50s and early 60s. They say that time marches on, but with the help of modern technology we were able to recapture it in some small measure. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, I was unable to continue the programs after the first year.

Today, you no longer need someone to buy a DVD to show old-time programs. You can find most of them on your computer on YouTube and they're absolutely free. All you have to do is type in the name of the show and you will be offered a surprising number of episodes. Whenever I'm in a nostalgic mood, that's what I do and it brings me lots of pleasure.

Sadly, there are shows that I would give anything to see again but never will. "I Remember Mama" was a tender and heart-warming drama about an immigrant Norwegian family living in San Francisco around the turn of the 20th century. The show ran for eight seasons, from 1949 to 1957, but because it was broadcast live, the vast majority of the episodes were never recorded. And thus, the series is lost. Maxwell House coffee sponsored the show and I still remember the announcer's soothing voice saying, "Good to the very last drop."

The Ed Sullivan show was a Sunday night fixture for over twenty years in America. It was a variety program featuring singers, dancers, comedians, acrobats and anything else you can think of. Only thirteen complete episodes have been released for purchase on DVD: three in which Elvis Presley appeared, four in which The Beatles appeared and six in which The Rolling Stones appeared. The production company correctly and regretfully asks: who would be interested in paying for and watching old, dated, full episodes without such star appeal? I would, for one.

And finally, "This Is Your Life," which rightfully called itself "an American tradition." This show, which ran for nine seasons, surprised unsuspecting but always deserving people with a recounting of their life stories. Many of the shows were inspirational. A few years ago, Volume One, comprising 18 episodes of this program, was issued on DVD. There has never been a Volume Two. We know that all the past shows exist because one of the parting gifts was always a 16-millimeter filmed copy of the telecast. I actually wrote to the production company and they answered that making another volume would be prohibitively expensive and that too few people would be interested in purchasing it. All of which goes to prove that although we can at times recapture the past, at other times, alas, we simply outlive it.

The day will come when today's shows will themselves become old-time television. On that day, Grandpa will gather his grandchildren around him and say, "Let's watch some of the shows that I loved when I was your age." "But Grandpa," they'll answer, "They're not in 3-D!"