My awareness of things that were happening away from my house, school, or the street where I lived really started to hit me just as the stinky hippies were doing their fly-infested protest thing in the late 1960s.
Yes, I’m from Ancient Times.
With the exception of older Gen Xers, the post-Boomer generations all think that not much happened on this planet until they arrived. There were dinosaurs roaming, then them. That’s why there is so much social media chatter about these being unprecedented times and political divisions never having been this bad before. The well over 600,000 (your numbers may vary) American Civil War dead would almost certainly disagree if they could weigh in from beyond.
Political division has pretty much been our thing ever since we gave the British the finger back in colonial times. We’re quite good at it, as a matter of fact, if we’re using frequency to define “good” here. What is different here in the Year of Our Lord 2026 is that, thanks to social media and our population, it’s all louder than it’s ever been before.
I am not at all being dismissive of what this country is experiencing right now — there is a lot of hate out there that’s manifesting itself in violent ways. I just want to make the point that we don’t have to look too far into our past to find evidence of leftists in the throes of a collective nervous breakdown.
While Democrat-induced leftist anarchy hasn’t changed that much in 60 years, the relief we used to be able to get from entertainment has, especially when it comes to television. There may have been a pall hanging over the real world in the United States in the late ’60s, but television blissfully remained a place were people could go to forget reality. Yes, there was the news, but entertainment programs were still focused on — get this — entertaining people. Sitcoms and variety shows were whimsical and often ridiculous.
When things were really heating up from 1968-70, the number one television show in America was Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, a show that almost defied classification. When the show did delve into politics, it was with a goofy one-liner that didn’t offend anybody. It’s most famous political gag was having then-presidential candidate Richard Nixon on to say, “Sock it to me,” which was one of the show’s catchphrases.
Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. and The Andy Griffith Show spinoff Mayberry R.F.D. were also in the Top 10 during that time period. Television producers in the ’60s didn’t shy away from offering whacky television fare, they also weren’t afraid of abbreviations.
The bottom line was, after Walter Cronkite was finished telling you how awful everything was outside your front door, you could flip over to NBC, turn on Laugh-In and see how short Goldie Hawn’s mini dress was that week. Male or female, if you were looking at that you weren’t thinking about the Tet Offensive.
In the 1970s, television producers (looking at you, Norman Lear) and writers decided that comedy should be filled with messages about the state of the world. That was the beginning of the end of pure escapism being the focus of televised humor. It will never die, but that was when it began to be pushed to the periphery; not just in comedy either, but in all entertainment.
Late-night comedy was still ruled by Johnny Carson then, and would be for a couple more decades, so it was safe. We know how it’s gone in recent times.
Writers, producers and, worse yet, the entertainers themselves all want to be important and meaningful now. A few very special episodes in sitcoms in the ’70s morphed into Jimmy Kimmel thinking he knows things in the 2020s.
Spoiler alert: Jimmy Kimmel doesn’t know things.
I wouldn’t mind some balance in entertainment, but we are now bombarded with “you will be made to care” leftist messaging even in shows that have silly premises. It’s rough on the stomach to watch some of the shallowest people in the country operating under the false impression that they have intellectual heft and depth.
We can, of course, enjoy the old fun TV stuff in a variety of places. I watch a lot of old Carson on YouTube. On a recent episode of “Five O’Clock Somewhere,” I told my good friend, co-host, and partner in thought crime Stephen Green that I don’t even attempt to watch much new television comedy anymore because it’s disappointing.
It’s not all gloom and doom. There is a lot of opportunity for people writing comedy to do something that’s just wild and out there. That goes for television, film, and stand-up. It’s good to be wild and out there. The world could certainly use an entertaining respite or two from all of the world’s insane nonsense.
My promise to you, dear readers, is that I will look for more opportunities to be a goofball, both here and on stage. And I have no desire to be important.
Enjoy this clip from Laugh-In.
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