TV's Classic Innocence Lost to Crude Reality

[Zoneboy]

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Just when I thought our youth-obsessed society couldn't do much more to marginalize the baby boomer generation, of which I'm a member, TV Land cable network has decided to divorce us for a younger viewing audience.

The network, owned by Viacom Inc., announced that it will curtail its lineup of prime-time nostalgic shows that boomers grew up with and love. The change should be completed by the end of 2009.

TV Land executives say that programs like The Andy Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Gunsmoke, Hogan's Heroes, Green Acres and Leave it to Beaver, all reruns, have grown moldy to viewers in their mid 40s and younger. They will be replaced with original programs, especially reality shows.

"Putting more original television on a channel dedicated to classic television is a risk in some ways," Doug Herzog, president of MTV Networks Entertainment Group, which includes TV Land, told the Wall Street Journal. "But the idea is to bring new people into the tent."

Herzog said the new shows will focus on dating and romance. From the standpoint of Viacom, the makeover is smart business. By attracting a younger audience, TV Land can broaden its advertising base. It will be able to target companies such as movie studios, fast-food restaurants and video game producers. Now many of the network's ads are aimed at products for older people and hawk mobility scooters, diabetes testing devices and health and life insurance.

While I can't begrudge TV Land for wanting to make all the money it can with younger viewers and new advertisers with wider appeal than the Power Chair crowd, I lament the loss of shows I've watched and loved since childhood and as an adult.

Like many other boomers I know, I don't watch a lot of TV, especially the networks. When I do turn on the set, however, I want to relax — if I'm not watching the news. I want clean entertainment I can watch with my grandkids without the risk of being reported to the Department of Children and Families for child abuse.

Being a nostalgic old codger, I want to be transported back to a simpler era, to a time of uncomplicated plots, when the characters were funny in their own right, like The Andy Griffith Show's Deputy Barney Fife, Floyd the barber, Ernest T. Bass and the Darlings. I admire Sheriff Taylor's homespun child-rearing. It is as humorous and warm as it is morally instructive.

Each day, I still enjoy the innocent mishaps of Leave It to Beaver. With all of the show's childhood antics, the foulest word spoken is "whacked," like when Wally tells his mother, June, that "Beaver is a whacked out little kid," forcing June to reply: "Wally, please don't use that awful word." Even Eddie Haskell, the show's bona fide "creepy guy," invariably gets his comeuppance in a way that harms no one. And that "mean old Judy," who torments Beaver in Miss Landers' class, is likable in a special way.

Since 1962, I've been enjoying The Beverly Hillbillies. Thanks to TV Land, I still enjoy the Clampett clan each day that I'm near a television. Indeed, I don't apologize for rooting for Granny, an unreconstructed Confederate fighter, when she gets away with brewing and sipping her "rheumatiz medicine." Few small-screen characters are funnier than Jethro, the dumbest of the Clampetts, who sees little difference between wanting to be a brain surgeon or a fry cook or a "double naught spy" like James Bond.

I'm certain that Lucy and Ricky, and Ward and June, had carnal knowledge. They have children; they didn't adopt. I don't need to see versions of today's cheap, graphic scenes, in which lust passes for love, to tell me how June and Ward produced The Beaver and Wally.

To my regret, TV Land will scale back its classic programming to make room for original scripts and reality shows such the Family Foreman and She's Got the Look.

I'll be tuning out. I guess I'll have to buy my favorite old shows on DVD and watch them anytime I want. That's a good deal.

[tv star collector]

I agree with you a hundred percent. I'm also a "baby-boomer" (just turned
61 not quite three months ago) and I only have basic cable (which is all I can
afford). But I don't feel that I am missing anything. First, Cartoon Network
dropped the classic cartoons. Now TV Land is dropping classic TV shows.
Thank goodness I have a huge library of old TV shows and cartoons on video and DVD. For the most part (with a few exceptions), the shows from the past
beat anything new that is on the air today.

In 1996, TV Guide ran a cover story about "What Happened to Family
TV?" (illustrated with a Leave It to Beaver cover). The sub-headline read: "Sex, violence, and lewd jokes have invaded early evening viewing.
Find out why shows like Leave It to Beaver seem like ancient history."
That was twelve years ago, and television has gone steadily downhill from
there. I guess when we lost "the age of innocence," there is no going back.
Yeah, give me the "good old days."

[dakert]

I hope TVL crashes and burns. I havent watched TVL since they took Mr Ed off the air

[Zoneboy]

Originally Posted by tv star collector

I agree with you a hundred percent.

If you haven't already done so, Click the link and read the comments posted so far.

[mrs.gingerhinkley]

I'd just like to state that I apply for the '40 and under' category as they specified, and I, in no way, find those classics moldy! This is disgusting and I am very disappointed.

[JulieSomoski]

I am a baby-boomer, and would rather watch the classics! Their reality shows don't appeal the slightest to me at all.

[AB]

Well that certianly stinks!

[Schmoopie]

Then my question would be why in the heck don't they change the name of the station if they aren't going to focus on the classics? Geez!!!!

Andrea

[galveston]

You committed the ultimate sin to television execs, zoneboy. You turned 50 years old. Once you turn 50, you don't matter.

Me, I'm 43. I was born in '65, the first official year of the non boomers, so I sort of straddle the generations. Too young to have enjoyed all the wonderful things the baby boomers enjoyed, such as the space race, and too old to have gotten in on the bottom line of the new technology. A teenager in the early 80s, when the conservative Reagan revolution came to be. What a boring time to have been a young person.

I enjoy an occasional reality show--emphasis on the occasional. I loathe the dating shows, can't stand American Idol or Dancing With the Stars, but an occasional, well done show like Project Runway is enjoyable. HOWEVER......that does NOT mean that I want a steady diet of it. This idea that on one under the age of 50 enjoys classic television is yet another example of the absolute stupidity of television suits. I Love Lucy is moldy? That's news to me. sigh. I could do with less Beverly Hillbillies, but All in The Family and Mary Tyler Moore are classics for a reason. Too young to remember all the classics being on the air, too old for American Idol. I am adrift.

[Zoneboy]

Originally Posted by galveston

You committed the ultimate sin to television execs, zoneboy. You turned 50 years old. Once you turn 50, you don't matter.

I didn't write the article, I only posted it plus I won't turn 50 for another 6 years yet.

[ABC1]

Originally Posted by mrs.gingerhinkley

I'd just like to state that I apply for the '40 and under' category as they specified, and I, in no way, find those classics moldy! This is disgusting and I am very disappointed.

I turned 40 in January, and I think that the classic shows that TV Land airs should NEVER be called "moldy". What an unbelievable insult to all those classic shows that people really love.
I don't watch any of TV Land's reality shows. Not a single one. It just doesn't appeal to me.

[catlover79]

I have a lot to say on this subject - none of it good. All I can say is: THANK GOODNESS FOR THE OLD, CLASSIC SHOWS ON DVD!!!!!!

[Tubehead]

I'm not a baby-boomer. i'm 27 years old. my two favorite shows are family ties and qUATAM LEAP. I WOULD like to see more classic sticome like get smart, my favorite martian,the incdabile hulk, the rockford files, and wlecom back,koter, i even want to see court ship of eddies father. i say put these show on not some reality show. i can't stand high shcool reuion or she got the look. i got bord with familyformeen. i can't believe their showing scrubs,. what happend to classic tv? only shows i watch are i love lucy, the jerffersons, and sanford and son i mostly just watch dvd. i heard their going to cut of i love lucy once they get ride of I love lucy or sanford and son i plane on not watching tv land any more.

[bencasey]

Well, I am just thankful for the fact that I've had VCRs and lately DVD recorders for the last 3 decades and I've been able to accumulate tens of thousands of hours of shows. I have about 98% of what I have any desire to watch so I don't care what TV looks like now. All of the networks can fold for all I care, except for the fact I work in the business so I'd be out of work. I still have my digital cable but I write most of the cost off anyway.

[catlover79]

^ If the networks fold, then it's their own fault. Maybe if they were more interested in QUALITY than QUANTITY, it would be a different story.