If I ever tell someone on the phone that one of my favorite television shows as a kid was Mr. Ed, they think I’m older than I am. Probably because Mr. Ed first aired back in 1961. It was actually a favorite of my father’s when he was a kid (great minds, right?)
Only, my love of Mr. Ed was forged by Nick at Nite, which decided to show old TV shows in the evenings. And me, with nothing better to do, soaked them up. I loved it when Ed crooned, “Willburrrr” in his throaty whinnying voice. I also really liked the Donna Reed show. And prior to seeing the Donna Reed show, I had never seen It’s a Wonderful Life. Besides the general nature of the film, I think I adored it because Donna was in it. And Patty Duke. I LOVED the Patty Duke show. “They laugh alike, they walk alike, at times they even talk alike. You can lose your mind, when cousins are two of a kind.”
I enjoyed my little time warp into the past. I find it interesting with my own children which things they are totally aware of and which they are oblivious to. The modern age of technology has given them a chance to have time warps as I did. They can immerse themselves into mass media of today’s era and those long past
My daughter knows a lot of 80s and 90s music–not because I listen to it often–but because she loved Glee and binged all the episodes on Netflix. So, if a George Michael song comes on the radio during an ’80s weekend, she’ll sing along with it. She adores Whitney Houston. (I mean, there’s no reason she shouldn’t, upon hearing her sing, but Whitney was long past her prime when my daughter was born, and had died prior to my kid reaching double digits in age.) So, it’s interesting to see these moments of time warp.
Oddly enough, I only feel like the time warps apply to mass media, as it seems that books have been multigenerational for ages, with it common to pass on an old classic. The TV shows often seem of there era. My kids wouldn’t even watch Alf, thinking it looked ridiculous (Yet, somehow they love Roger on American Dad. OK).
What are your favorite time warp items–are they songs your parents adored, or old TV?
We didn’t have TV until I was 18. Our only source of music or entertainment was CBC radio, which played music from the forties – swing, Patty page, Peggy Lee, big bands, etc. No rock, blues or jazz. In spite of that my fave era for music is the 50’s, early rock and roll, the early groups, many of then Black. I love to sing along whenever I hear those.
That’s so interesting. So, you got early rock and roll, and loved it! I think that will be the new “classical” music in a couple of hundred years. It does have a real zing to it.