The Golden Age

I was watching some old TV this afternoon. The Andy Griffith Show has been in re-run status virtually continuously since it ceased production. Most of the actors are long since gone, except for Mr. Griffith, Ron Howard and perhaps one or two others. Many of us know the plot, the lines and the outcome of each episode, yet we stay with the channel the show is on and watch it yet again.
I’ve wondered why it is that shows such as the Andy Griffith Show, M.A.S.H., and others are such icons and are watched virtually continuously for decades at a time. Lawrence Welk is in re-runs on PBS and you can certainly think of other shows that are on cable much of the time. I’ve further wondered why we continue to watch such shows, even knowing the lines, plot, and outcome.
I confess I don’t know the answer. I suspect that, at least in part, there is nothing of substance on any of the other dozens of channels that are available and we go to these old shows in part because of that. I think also that part of the reason may indeed be their familiarity, and a connection we may have with those older shows.
I don’t often see a snipped of a Gunsmoke episode but what I don’t think of Saturday night at the home place. Dad in his recliner, Mom ironing or working with some kind of knitting, and the siblings either watching with us or doing something somewhere in the house. The television is black and white, no more than 21 inches diagonal measurement, and there is no remote control. Yes, I know color television and remote control existed then, but we didn’t have them.
One of the kids generally served as the remote control. There were but four channels available, and we kids knew what shows the adults wanted to watch and what times they came on. We did have to know how to occasionally adjust the fine-tuning and less frequently the vertical or horizontal hold. Such controls were usually behind a little door that was on the front of the set and included brightness, contrast, and sometimes focus and one or two other picture controls.
Sometimes we had to jiggle the channel knob in order to get a good picture. That usually meant that the tuner was dirty and the repair man would have to come and clean it. Of course, we didn’t call him until it got so bad we couldn’t stand it.
Sometimes, no matter what we did, we couldn’t get the vertical or horizontal to stay in “hold”. Or perhaps the picture gradually got shorter or narrower. Such problems could be adjusted at times with knobs on the back of the set, but more often they were harbingers of the repair man coming again, taking off the set back, and replacing one or more tubes that had gotten weak. Less often, but always a possibility, the repair man sometimes had to take the set “into the shop” for major repairs. In that case, it would be gone for several days while he ordered parts or fixed the sets that came in before ours.
The repair man would bring the set back just in time, it seemed, for a favorite show. Rejuvenated, the television would once again be the magic box that pulled pictures out of the ether and entertained us for awhile. Matt, Andy, Lawrence, Little Joe, and others would take us to another place and another time, enabling us to forget, for a time, that we had our own problems to deal with.
And maybe that’s it. Maybe these old shows continue to take us to that other time and place even though we know them by heart. Maybe they do that job in a way that the modern comedies, the reality shows, and the cooking or golf channel just can’t do. Maybe, just maybe, television was in its golden age.