A-Team Vs. Bonanza

​Since finishing my memoir The Other Side of town, the amount of writing I’ve been doing hasn’t decreased and in fact remains about the same. A word to aspiring authors: the writing doesn’t end after you’ve typed “the end” on the final page of your book. There are blog entries, media kits, countless tweets, Facebook posts just so you can get 10 people to visit your website or Amazon page. To date I’ve probably written 5 bios and maybe 4 book summaries to this end. 

While writing one of my many book summaries, it occurred to me that, to the kids today, the 80’s were like the 50’s were to my generation.

The Channel you watch when You Only have basic cable

 A couple days ago I turned on the television and an episode of The A-Team was on TV Land. Watching that show, I felt really old because the show now felt really old—the colors looked dull and the script felt canned in comparison with modern TV dramas.

My grandmother used to watch The A-Team with me as a kid. But she didn’t seem to mind the repetitive nature of the show and, coming from black and white I suppose, any color at all was probably a vast improvement. The fact that my grandmother also accepted the fact that thousands of rounds of ammunition were being fired but no one was being killed shows her ability to suspend disbelief. 

The Show You Watch When you've lost the Remote

After the A-Team was over, I started to watch Bonanza next just to see how a 1950's show stacked up. I’ll be honest, and except for it being a western, the two shows felt equally old. Bonanza did have better writing than the A-team, I’ll admit. But even with its superior plot and dialog, I doubt I would have been able to sit through a whole episode as kid—the pace of the old western would have been far too slow for my young self I reckon.

No One Wants to Read a List of My Favorite Shows

In the book, I edited out any and all mention of television shows I used to watch because, in reality, who the hell wants to read about that stuff anyway? But thinking about it now, I believe the 80’s ushered in a whole new wave of empowered women on television after noticing how men started looking particularly stupid just as women’s station seemed to be markedly improved.

Back then Married with Children was the only show featuring a bumbling husband while today it’s every commercial and sitcom that’s broadcasted. Wow! Now I'm really dating myself. I still laugh at how, in his defeated state, Al Bundy gave money to the dog.

I think some of my fondest memories of television were when Rascals Comedy Hour aired on cable. I was pretty young, but my father basically looked the other way and let me watch even while Dice and Kinison cursed up a storm. Comedy has definitely changed as well. And I doubt for the better either. Just ask Chris Rock how many college campuses he plays now verses how many he used to play. And Rock is considered a contemporary too!
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I remember watching Bob Nelson for the first time and thinking his act depicting a football team was hilarious. I doubt comedians can do anything like that act anymore. Or if they did, perhaps no one would laugh.

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