Prime Time
Every night as the sun goes down, while the night gets real dark and still, and the only sounds that reach my little one-room apartment from the street six flights down are the sharp cries of an occasional mugging, I take my phone off the hook, get out the Sara Lee triple-layer chocolate cake, and flip on the tube.
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Prime Time
FRIDAY NITE TV: I Get My Kicks In Prime Time
by Maxine Fobe
Every night as the sun goes down, while the night gets real dark and still, and the only sounds that reach my little one-room apartment from the street six flights down are the sharp cries of an occasional mugging, I take my phone off the hook, get out the Sara Lee triple-layer chocolate cake, and flip on the tube. And I sit there for hours cooling out and grooving. How did I ever live without television?
I fly right into a soporific stupor of ecstasy on Friday nights. Now if you’re hopelessly locked into reality, and have to watch the 7 o’clock news, okay. But make sure that by 7:30 whatever you’re doing, you’re ready for ABC’s Let’s Make A Deal. One of the tragedies of my life is that it and all of the best hysterical greed shows come from the West Coast, 3,000 unattainable miles away. Otherwise I would be on line to be in the audience in my carrot suit and a sign so fast it would make your head spin. Over and over I watch Let’s Make A Deal. I can’t get over how terrible the people are. Even on the subway in New York City you don’t see people like that. New York people are depressed lumps who don’t react to anything. In California, they’re depressed too. They just don’t know it. You got to be depressed to cream over a house full of wall panelling, plastic lawn furniture, a bedroom suite.
I watch and I watch and I wonder, where are the things / want: a Porshe; a tenspeed bike; a tenspeed blender to mix Margueritas up in; a clam rake and a crab net; dinner for two at the blowout -French restaurant of my choice; a year’s supply of organic mescaline.
But I got to confess I do covet some of those goodies. The trips. I want them! I want them! / want the cruise to South America; I want Jo fly to Rome with $3,000 spending money. And you know, I can’t despise the slackjawed undeserving people who win them instead of me. The pathetic people dressed up as firemen (I’m hot be make a deal with you, Monty); as huge hobbling dice and giant rabbits — all with the St. Vitus Dance of avarice. And you know why? Each time I watch their 'faces full of blind hope that it’s all there behind the curtain, it sorta reminds me of the way I acted the night the Beatles sang at Shea Stadium in 1966; the night the Stones sang at Convention Hall in Philly back in 1965.1 waved a silly sign, man; I waved my fucking w/iderpants. I know not so deep down I’m just like these poor slobs. And so are you, baby. So you really oughta watch Let’s Make A Deal.
Next is The Brady Bunch. Six kids — three girls, three boys — who never fight. And this mother and father — and they never fight. And a funny maid called Alice. They all live in LA in this big house with a basketball court and a pingpong table. And the worst thing that ever happens is when one of the kids doesn’t make the school play or the roast doesn’t defrost in time for dinner. This show cheers.... me up like you wouldn’t believe. I’m not kidding. And if you’re really depressed, unemployed, ► or keeping weird hours, you’ll be glad to know the show’s on in the daytime, every day — right before Password.
Now don’t ask me what makes ABC meddle with a successful format. They do it all the time. . . and they’ve done it on Friday nites. Used to be after Bunch you could just sit back and watch The Odd Couple at 8:30; Room 222 at 9; Adam’s Rib at 9:30; and then one of the all-time worst/ best shows ever, the Frederick’s Catalog of television: Love American Style.
But at the first of the year, ABC got apeshittedly suicidal; The Six Million Dollar Man. An hour, yet, of this macho machine running around saving the world from arch villains.
So even though it means getting up off my ass to change the station, I been watching Lotsa Luck on NBC. It’s produced by Carl Reiner, the one-line zingers are devastating, and the cast a deliberate snub to teevee’s every personal hygiene commercial — starting with Dristan and ending with Desanex. I love it!
After that, because I get too lazy to move, I stick with NBC and watch The Girl With Something Extra. For those too sophisticated to watch, (or, heaven forfend, who have dirty minds), the “something extra” is her extrasensory perception. Really twinksville, volks, teevee at its banalist. I never can believe that what I’m watching is what all of America accepts as love. John Davidson as Mr. Right? I want to vomit.
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But see it through, gang, and as your reward you get to see, pure and simple,s one of the best shows on the tube: The Odd Couple: I just heard that the writers got their jobs because one of their fathers drove Tony Randall’s limosine once and handed him a sample script. So what do you think of that? My favorite alltime episode was the night Monty Hall was on the show. It turns out he’s a friend of Oscar’s! Can you imagine?! Oh, some of us have such simple pleasures. I still get a warm glow just thinking about it.
But that’s how TV works. Simple distractions. Why, look how the evening has sped along. It’s ten o’clock already. Most of you younglboods only catch TV after a night out — for the late show, say; or you roll some J’s, watch The Midnight Special and pretend it’s the good old Shindig days. But who can stay up that late? Not me, baby, I get all my kicks in prime time.
No, that ain’t crazy. What’s crazy about holding on to the seven bucks it costs today to see some fag/transvestite rock star when I can see Josephine the Plumber in drag for free? Man, teevee is better than rock.
