Posted on 06/12/2021 3:06:57 PM PDT by SamAdams76
I have mosquito bites all over my arms and legs. I'm thinking because I've been out camping, sitting by the campfire and doing a lot of cast iron based cooking over said fire. Which is some of the best kind of cooking if you are to be camping.
Then I go into my tent and roll myself into a "sleeping bag" but even then, I'm thinking mosquitoes are still able to get through.
So a lot of mosquito bites and it's only mid June. Lot of camping left to go this season.
Nothing better though then sleeping under a tent and hearing all the noises of nature, especially pit-pattering rain and crickets and tree frogs. Then you get the birds in the morning waking you up as the sun gains strength in the east.
Then you get the campfire going again in put some "cowboy coffee" on as you prepare the eggs and bacon to get your next camping day off to an acceptable start.
But I digress.
I'm old enough to remember back when "rural" themed TV shows ruled the day. You had "Hee Haw" which was such an incredible institution that I might need several posts to fully describe it. You had "Beverly Hillbillies", "Green Acres", "Petticoat Junction", "Mr Ed", "Andy Griffith", "Jim Nabors Show", and "Lassie" just to name a few.
Oh yeah, and "Gunsmoke" and "F Troop" just to name a couple more.
All these shows (and more!) had respectable to great ratings on TV and presented good American values to the general public.
But along came this douchebag named Fred Silverman who took over CBS around 1970 and felt that rural values were not conducive to how he felt America should be and the "rural purge" was on.
In came more "urban" based shows like "Mary Tyler Moore", "All In The Family", "The Jeffersons", "What's Happening", "James at 15", and "Sanford & Son."
Certainly not all Fred Silverman creations but Fred did kill the rural-based TV shows in order to cater to more urban and suburban audiences (though those audiences did appreciate the rural shows as even "Hee Haw" got decent ratings in NYC and Boston.)
Fact is, rural shows basically disappeared in the early 1970s with the notable exceptions of "The Waltons" and "Little House On The Prairie."
Basically from then on, you had the urban-suburban TV shows with their loud voices, their canned laughtracks and their more liberal values dominating the airwaves.
“But maybe I’m misremembering.”
No you’re not. He was a whiney lib. Back then I saw it even before I knew what a whiney liberal was.
He grossed me out.
Barney Miller and WKRP In Cincinatti-both were great and pretty much the last of the shows worth watching...
I only will watch the first 3 seasons only.
I thought Batman was so bad it was good, i.e. funny.
James Garner? really??
Oh, man..for some reason always thought he was a down to earth
good guy in real life.
i remember when my town got the SA-LOOT on hee-haw...
long time gone
A few notes...
F Troop was an ABC show, not CBS. It was canceled two years before the rural purge.
Gunsmoke remained on the air through the 1975 season. It’s demise had more to do with the show reaching the end of its run; it had been on the air for 20 years, and at the time, was the longest-running series in network history. BTW, Gunsmoke was saved from cancelation by CBS Chairman William S. Paley a decade earlier; Paley, the epitome of urban sophistication, intervened when then-network president James Aubrey announced plans to end the show. Aubrey didn’t last much longer at CBS.
Andy Griffith left the air at the end of the 1968 season. The show’s star and namesake wanted to take another shot at the movies (terrible career move); Griffith had planned to end the series in 1965; it took a new salary of $1 million a year to keep Andy on the show (and he was a majority owner of the program as well). That’s why Don Knotts left the show; all indicators suggested the program was coming to an end and Universal offered him a lucrative movie deal. Knotts took some of the show’s best writers with him, one reason “Griffith” declined in quality over its last three seasons.
In fairness to CBS, they were under heavy pressure from sponsors and advertising agencies to offer a new programming slate that had more appeal to younger (and supposedly more affluent) audiences in urban and suburban markets. Hence, the rural purge. Silverman was just following orders.
I agree with your central theme, however. Some of the shows that followed definitely coarsened the culture and helped push us into the cesspool of today. But some of the new shows, like Mary Tyler Moore and Bob Newhart, were instant classics, and better than the shows they replaced.
One final point: while some of the “edgy” shows like “All in the Family” were hailed at the time, they proved to have a very short shelf life. Both All in the Family and MTM did poorly in syndication; many of the local stations who spent heavily to re-run those shows regretted the decision and had to spend even more to find programming that people would watch. Meanwhile programs like “Andy Griffith” remain as popular as ever; audiences will be visiting Mayberry a century from now, while “All in the Family” will be little more than a TV footnote.
Nope. Before the Beverly Hillbillies were the Real McCoys.
Oh the many nights, I watched Benny Hill, and then Dave Allen at Large. Good times.
I routinely watched all the shows in paragraph 7, except Hee Haw. Watched it occasionally. Yes,I was a TV addict growing up. Loved Dark Shadows, my first soap.
Demographics is destiny, and the fact is networks wanted to appeal to the folks who had more disposible income.
You’ve deeply hurt Arnold Ziffle.
The county agent was Hank Kimball, played by the great Alvy Moore (and former adult Mouseketeer), Alvy Moore. Before becoming an actor, Mr. Moore was a Marine infantryman who took part in the invasion of Iwo Jima. His kids said Alvy Moore, who was a genial fellow—and looked fondly on his days on Green Acres—never spoke much about his time on Iwo.
Pat Buttram played Mr Haney, the rural con man who always seemed to get the better of Oliver Wendell Douglas. Buttram’s quote about the rural purge was widely repeated at the time and is still remembered today: “They canceled everything with a tree,” he said.
Green Acres was a great show. Lot of subtle satire in the scripts that took shots at a lot of things.
all the black urban comedy shows were written by old Jewish white guys
———WHACHU TALKIN’ ABOUT WILLIS?!?
(hahahaha....../s)
Good point about Silverman. But it wasn’t just cbs. Clint Eastwood went from spaghetti westerns and Kelly’s heroes to Dirty Harry. However it happened it was contagious.
Some of the earlier shows were pretty good. When Hotlips was still a slut.
flr
I like Rat Patrol because of the Jeeps.
No way I would take on tanks with just machine guns though one on one.
Paul Hogan had his show as well.
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