The life I knew

Last week I published a blog about being thankful. The night the blog came out I came across an old Jackie Gleason/Crazy Guggenheim sketch. I doubt that many people today are familiar with Crazy Guggenheim (played by Frank Fontaine), and it's possible that some may even not be familiar with Jackie Gleason. Both were master comedians when I was growing up in the 1960s, and they were representatives of the many other entertainers of that period. I have to add that I am thankful that I grew up in a time when entertainers didn't feel the need to be vulgar in order to make people laugh. The Jackie Gleason Show, The Honeymooners (actually a 1950s show), The Red Skelton Hour and countless other television programs found audiences and entertained people without nudity or vulgarity.

There were few nights I missed the Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. Yes, there could be some blue humor from some of the guests, but no one was ever vulgar. If a four-letter word slipped out it was quickly bleeped by the network. I watched the Carson show because he was a master at what he did, and he had the best guests. Not only was the show funny; it was also often informational. The same thing is true of the Tonight Show when Jay Leno took over the first time. After he retired and then returned when the show began to bomb it wasn't the same. I felt Leno was telephoning his work. There was little entertainment value in the show when he returned, and I realized I was losing a lot of sleep hoping things would return to normal. I finally quit watching the show entirely as I found Jimmy Fallon quite boring.

I'm thankful to have grown up in a time when television programs were truly entertaining without being offensive. Young people growing up today don't know what it's like to watch a comedian who isn't vulgar. I realize in their private lives these individuals could be quite vulgar, but this never carried itself to the television set. They provided wholesome entertainment that the whole family could watch without anyone being offended or without the need to explain to the children what they just saw and/or heard.

My early childhood years were spent in the 1950s, but my teen years were in the 1960s. That was when entertainment began to stretch the boundaries. Comedy and music became a little bluer, Nudity became expected from the movie-going public. Pornography came from behind the counter and began to show up in the public "Adult" section of the bookstores and magazine shops. The language used in movies and by many entertainers became more vulgar. Parents had to review programs on the TV before allowing the family to watch. In the 2020s it has done nothing but get worse.

I'll end this post by just saying I'm thankful for growing up when I did. I'm thankful for cutting my comedy teeth on Jackie Gleason, Red Skelton, Dick van Dike, and others of that era. I'm thankful for a childhood of watching the old westerns that had a moral story behind the action. I'm thankful for learning to be entertained without being embarrassed.