Essay #7

Did you ever notice how formulaic television is? I have found at least three examples of the exact same show run through three different time periods. It started with the Flinstones where we have a modern working man married to a gorgeous but accepting redhead who doesn't mind the poverty. The Jetsons were the next big thing where we had a modern working man married to a gorgeous but accepting redhead who didn't mind the poverty. The next time was on Family Guy where we had (you see where I'm going with this?) a... you already know. The funny thing is that all of these series were animated and not for children, they were all run later in the evening and catered to adults.

The Flintstones had the quirky neighbor who was also the best friend, and the spitting image of Art Carney.. There was a strange resemblance to the Honey Mooners which I think was a little more than incidental. Fred represented the hard working blue collar man of the fifties and early sixties. He was tough, a little grouchy but really a good guy at heart. His wife was the fantasy woman, thin and pretty but patient with his working mans salary. They really had love in their relationship. And she was a redhead. They had a pet which was different than the Honey Mooners, but although we saw Dino all the time we never really saw the Sabertoothed Tiger that locks fred out of the house in the end credits.

The Jetsons were slightly different but the same basic concept. It was set in the far future and the gimmick of technology was the hook. George was more of a lower middle class schlep. He had a nice house and a maid. He also had a hot wife who was patient with his working mans salary. And she was a redhead. The Jetsons had the notable addition of talking children, different than the babies in the Flintstones, but a vast improvement from the Honey Mooners which had no kids at all. The Jetsons had Astro the huge dog which was like Dino with a speech impediment.

We move into the nineties and now we have Family guy. The dog talks well and is a Brown Alumni, there are three kids, and the setting is the present time in a little Rhode Island town called Qouhag (pronounced Ko-Hog.) Peter Griffin the fat working man with no real intellect to speak of who marries Louis Peuterschmidt, the daughter a wealthy new England blueblood. She is patient with his working mans salary because there is genuine love between them. The baby is supposed to be an androgenous anti-christ figure who progressively becomes less of the latter and more of the former. The langauge is filthy compared to the first two series I mentioned. If by some cosmic accident in the space-time fabric Family Guy were to accidentally play during the Flintstones live air in the fifties it might actually kill someone.

These shows have subtle differences but are still essentially the same plot. Variations on a theme though they may be they are what the people want. You may not want to admit it but at some point you have probably fallen prey to the T.V. Land Ministry of Love's wiles. You don't think so? Did you like The HoneyMooners, Eight is Enough, Leave it to Beaver, Happy Days, Everybody Loves Raymond, Roseanne, The King of Queens, The War at Home, Father Knows Best, The Donna Reed Show, Eight Simple Rules for Dating My Daughter, Seventh Heaven, Married With Children, The Jeff Foxworthy Show, Home Improvement, Bewitched, Mr. Belvedere? The worst part is I could go on. I sometimes wonder at the grand variety of the same thing we are presented with on television. On Channel One we have music video, two is video music, three is videos to a song and etc. etc... etc....