Honolulu Lite
THEY'RE really dragging out some old shows to fill all the space created by so many television channels. Old TV shows
find new lifeI mean, these are old, old shows. They aired one of the original "The Waltons" episodes and there were only four Waltons. John Boy was just a fetus.
Many of the old shows still hold up. The "Andy Griffith Show" is a classic. Today's sitcom writers could learn a lot from "Andy Griffith." They should go back and study the art of creating warm, character-driven humor instead of humor based on bodily emissions we get today.
Here's a test. How many character names can you remember from a current popular sitcom, like "Spin City" or "Just Shoot Me." Now name characters from the 40-year-old "Andy Griffith Show." There's Sheriff Andy Taylor, son Opie, Aunt Bee, deputy Barney Fife, Gomer Pyle, Floyd the Barber, Otis the town drunk and Goober.
Each character is so clearly drawn that we assume they are still living in Mayberry. (Except for Gomer -- a k a Jim Nabors -- who we know moved to Kahala.)
And how many shows today would have the guts to have their entire theme songs whistled? (Try not to think of the Andy Griffith whistling theme song or it will be going through your head for the rest of the day.)
Some of the old shows that have reappeared on television don't hold up quite as well. Time has not been a friend to "Gunsmoke." As near as I can figure, Marshal Matt Dillon was shot 43 times but the bullets never hit a major organ. The man was a walking flesh wound.
AND what's with the town doctor? What kind of mean doctor would put his office on the second floor? You come to Doc Adams with a broken leg and you have to climb the damn stairs. Get run over by a cattle stampede? Climb the stairs. Fall off a building? The stairs.
Maybe that's why Matt Dillon only got flesh wounds. If he really got hurt he'd be a goner.
And speaking of falling off buildings, why did builders of the Old West even bother to put up second-floor balcony railings? They apparently were all made of balsa wood. All a guy had to do was barely lean on one of those railings and it broke like a piece of chalk. Cowboys were forever falling through balcony railings.
Then there was Kitty Russell, the owner of the Longbranch Saloon. What kind of a tease was this woman? She'd get all dolled up like the town tramp, but when any man tried to get her in the sack, Matt Dillon punched his lights out. She was Matt's gal, but they didn't do it either. That's why Matt was out of town so much.
What a scam Kitty had going. Get the cowboys drunk, take their money gambling, show them cleavage as vast as the Grand Canyon and then kick their butts out on the street.
I looked it up. They made 635 episodes of "Gunsmoke" over a period of 20 years and in all that time Kitty never let anyone have sex with her. Those were some horny cowboys in Dodge City back then, buddy. (Some viewers contend Kitty wasn't a prostitute. I disagree. She wore the official Old West prostitute little fake black mole on her cheek.)
Matt Dillon also wasn't much of an administrator. There he was in one of the most dangerous towns in the West and he picked that limping doofus Chester as his deputy. And when Chester quit, he hired that scruffy hillbilly Festus, whose weapon of choice was a broom.
No wonder Matt Dillon got shot so many times.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to charley@nomayo.com or
71224.113@compuserve.com.
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