Kudos to Colbert!
Nation, I’m not necessarily a big fan of Stephen Colbert’s blowhard-y right wing persona on “The Colbert Report,” (Jon Stewart is my late-night deity) but his on-location shows this week in Baghdad are something to watch—and congratulations are in order for taking his brand of comedy to the war zone for a four-night run.
Cleverly titled "Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando," Colbert began a week of entertaining the troops in one of Saddam Hussein’s many former palaces with a rollicking taped skit of him traveling overseas, not really knowing where he was going, and crossing various places off the list en route. It was only when a single shoe—and then a bunch—were thrown at him that the clueless pundit that he plays on TV realized where he was.
And then it was showtime for Colbert, sporting a camouflage suit and a brand new buzz cut, courtesy of his first guest, Gen. Ray Odierno—or Raymond’s for Men, as the comedian called it. In a nod to Bob Hope, he also carried a golf club.
The comedy was topical, not political—although the nation’s commander in chief made a taped appearance to thank the troops for their service. “You’re welcome,” Colbert said, to which the president responded, “I wasn’t talking to you.” Former President Clinton also dissed Colbert in a bit that started off straight.
The trip is sponsored by the USO, which has a storied history of bringing entertainers to American troops. (Proceeds from the sale of “The Colbert Report" this week on iTunes will benefit the service organization, which last year alone brought entertainment to nearly 250,000 troops stationed around the world.)
But despite all the levity, there is a serious purpose. Who’s talking about the war in Iraq these days? Sadly, since the election, it’s fallen off the media map, eclipsed by news about the economy, Speidi and Proposition 8. Lost in the loss of coverage is the service and sacrifice of thousands of American men and women in a war that’s now gone on for six years.
Mr. Colbert acknowledged that ugly truth about this very unpopular war. From behind a desk draped in the American flag and propped up by sandbags, he went for the funny bone: "By the power vested in me by basic cable, I officially declare we have won the Iraq war!"
While his audience roared their approval, the comedian deadpanned: "It must be nice here in Iraq because I understand some of you keep coming back again and again. You've earned so many frequent-flier miles, you've earned a free ticket to Afghanistan."
And Colbert—after his 10 hours of basic training at Fort Jackson, S.C.—has earned his place in the hearts of the US military, and audiences at home.
"The Colbert Report" airs on Comedy Central at 11:30 p.m./10:30 p.m. Central
'Nurse Jackie': It's Nearly Perfect
I think I'm in love.
Back in early May, I had reviewed the first two episodes of Showtime's addictive dark comedy series “Nurse Jackie,” starring Edie Falco, and waxed ecstatic about the brilliance and humanity of the series' opening installments. Since then, I've had the opportunity to watch the first six episodes of this emotionally resonant and bleakly hysterical series.
It's rare to be captivated by the very first minutes of a new series but it's a deft feat that “Nurse Jackie” not only manages to do so but, once it’s grabbed onto you, it never lets go. The energy and drive of the opening episode continues throughout the first half of the series' first season run.
And what a run it is so far.
An Important News Flash About American Pop Culture, And I Doubt You’ve Heard About It
The three cornerstones of American popular culture are the movies, music and TV. This announcement I’m speaking of hits on two of the three: movies and TV.
The only thing that excites me more than a terrific TV show is a wonderful movie. I was raised on TV—and movies ON television—which were a staple when I grew up in Los Angeles. The local CBS owned and operated station in LA, then called KNXT, had a great late-night movie program on weekends: “The Fabulous ’52.” Over on Channel 9, KHJ,.the RKO TV outlet, it was the nightly “Million Dollar Movie.”
Of course you had to put-up with a gazillion commercials, but there were all the stars of the 40s that my mom and uncle were always telling me about: Bogart, Cagney, Davis, Bergman and many more.
And what great storytelling. The history of America, Hollywood-style, in our living room every night, in glorious black & white.
Then, of course, syndication of TV shows came in, and, for the most part, bye-bye movies.
But in 1994, something magical happened. Ted Turner, who, in a few moments of mad folly, had almost put himself out of business by buying MGM and its incredible film library, came up with a really great idea. The showing of these movies, these gems of our culture, these incredible examples of great storytelling, on a TV channel with no commercials. And they’d be shown uncut and in their original screen ratio, just as originally released.
Furthermore, he asked one of my former colleagues when I was at The Hollywood Reporter, Bob Osborne, to be one of the hosts on this new channel. What a great choice! Ever since I’ve known Bob he’s been a big fan of and advocate of preserving, older movies. I was living in New York back in the 1990s, and every now and again Bob and I would get together to see old movies at one of the few movie theaters that would show them. Unfortunately, there are even fewer theaters that show older films on a regular basis today.
Though, thank goodness, these movies can be found on the channel Turner started. The channel, of course, is Turner Classic Movies, better known as TCM. As Time magazine film critic Richard Corliss said of it earlier this year, “For anyone who believes that the first hundred years of movies possess treasures that the last few years can't touch — and that's most of the professional film folks I know — TCM is an utterly essential part of the culture, our own American cinematheque.”
And, now, here’s the news: TCM is going high definition. Finally. For now, it’s not true high definition, it’s just going to upconvert its current signal.
For those of you who might not think this is a big deal, it really is. For many of us with big high definition TVs, the standard def signal from TCM has just not been satisfactory.
My service provider doesn’t have TCM HD yet, but Charles Tabesh, TCM’s senior vice president of programming, tells me that the picture is markedly better.
Oddly, TCM itself has said almost nothing about this milestone. Clearly it wants to manage expectations, and most likely getting the channel in real HD is at least months away, if not significantly longer—Tabesh claimed to have no information on that front.
Most of the information about TCM HD has been on the technical oriented AVS Forum, where one of the participants, named Tybee, broke the story. Here’s one of his excited postings from last month:
"Had dinner with one of my friends at TCM last night. He was very excited about the HD rollout. As you would expect, he said they're in the midst of setting up as many carriage agreements as they can. Some things he passed along:
- Cablevision was indeed the first to pick up the channel.
- Time Warner has already signed to carry the channel in some small markets.
- The good news: EVERYTHING WILL BE SHOWN IT ITS ORIGINAL ASPECT RATIO. No stretching. No cropping. No exceptions.
- The bad news: For right now, everything is being upconverted, rather than being shown in native HD. This is temporary (a year or two?) and as my friend pointed out (and has been discussed here) the material still looks worlds better than it does on the SD channel."
Then, a few weeks ago, came this posting from user mbd, who actually was getting TCM HD through Cablevision:
"After a week of living with TCM-HD, some thoughts.
1. Most of what they are broadcasting seems to be upconverted, but it looks night and day better than TCM-SD on my 55" 1080i living room tv.
2. 1.37 films are being shown in their original aspect ratio.
Overall, I am happy with the channel. TCM-SD was very over compressed on Cablevision, the HD version is not."
In a few weeks a lot more people will have a lot more to say about TCM HD, because it will debut next month in Time Warner’s cable system in Manhattan.
I know there are a lot of you out there who have no use for old black and white movies. Do me a favor. TCM is running a great series this month, showing movies from one of the greatest years of movies, 1939. This Friday, July 31, at 9 am ET (6 am on the Pacific coast) it’s airing “Midnight,” made in 1939.
My guess is that most of you have never heard of this comedy. Please, set your DVRs to record it. It’s got a wonderful cast—Claudette Colbert, Mary Astor, John Barrymore and Don Ameche, was directed by someone even those who like old films don’t know too much about—Mitchell Leisen, and was written by two of the great ones—Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett.
It’s the kind of movie you’re only going to find on TCM. Lemme know what you think about it.#
The Perils of Live Blogging the TCA—on an iPhone
Listen, here’s how it came down:
2:30 a.m. The baby started screaming, "ba-bah, ba-bah."
Hours earlier our 6-year-old daughter had come in our room and woke us with the news that her tummy hurt. My wife had gone to her room to put her back to bed and fell asleep on our daughter’s extra bed.
So I went downstairs and fixed our baby’s ba-bah and then fed him from his warm bottle.
By then it was 3 a.m.—six in the morning back east—so I went back downstairs and fired up the computer and sent Tom Gilbert, our executive editor in New York, an email. He was compiling our morning TVBizWire and I asked him how it was going.
Slow going this morning he said, so I went surfing the ‘net to help him. I found a candid interview the LA Times had done with Mike Fleiss. The timing was good because this season’s edition of his "Bachelor/Bachelorette" franchise had just ended.
When asked why we’d had more "Bachelor" editions over the years than "Bachelorette" ones, he said it was because women have a stronger passion in pursuing guys than guys do gals. According to Fleiss, guys will just shrug their shoulders and say, “Forget that chick. Let’s go to Hooters.”
The baby started crying again and I went back upstairs to quiet him. I fell back to sleep for about 15 minutes when the alarm woke me up again.
I called Tom and asked him if we were ready for my live blogging at the TCA. I’d never done that. Back when I was reporting regularly, blogs were a thing of the future. But now everyone was doing them. Piece of cake, I thought. And I was pretty excited about the session I had chosen to blog live about: Joan Rivers, who was going to be promoting her new show on TV Land, “How’d You Get So Rich?”
I’d only talked to Rivers once before, back in 1994 when I interviewed her on the set of her syndicated show “Can We Shop? ” I guess she specializes in shows that have question marks in the title. As I recall the interview, she was pretty funny. It centered around her talking to some guy who was pushing something to do with cleaning toilets.
I got dressed and ran out of the house and drove the 30 minutes to Pasadena and the Television Critic’s Association’s Press Tour—the TCA.
I ran inside, got myself comfortable, and realized something was terribly wrong. I called Tom.
You’re not going to believe this, I told him, I forgot my laptop.
There was silence on the other end of the phone and then, “That could be a problem.”
"No, no. I’ve got a solution. I’m gonna do it from my iPhone."
“I don’t think that’ll work,” Tom said.
"No, no, it’ll be fine. This thing’s really a damn computer. And I’m quite facile with typing on it."
“What are you talking about?. Everyone hates that virtual keyboard it has.”
"Trust me. We’ll be fine."
He had to go to into a short meeting. I couldn’t get hold of our tech support guy, and there really wasn’t anyone else around at TVWeek to help me.
As many of you know, Joe Adalian, our editor, quit a few weeks ago. I haven’t had a chance to replace him yet, which is why I’m here reporting from the TCA in the first place.
So I called my mom. She’s 83 and lives up in Northern California. Believe it or not, she’s pretty savvy on a computer.
“Hi hon, “ she said. “You’re calling me early.”
I explained that I was live blogging from the TCA and needed her to go on our Web site to see if anything that I was blogging was showing up.
“What’s it going to say?” she asked.
"It’ll be about Joan Rivers."
“Ohhh,” she laughed, “That’ll be fun.”
"OK, Mom, call me back when you see I’ve written something." We hung up.
Larry Jones, president of TV Land, came out and started speaking. I was waiting for Joan.
I looked around the room. Glancing behind me I spotted James Hibberd. The Hibberdmeister. Live blogger extraordinaire. The Live Feed. He had honed his skills at our shop and then abandoned us. OK, OK, there might also have been the issue of more money and a more Hollywood-centric publication. So he’s now with The Hollywood Reporter. I think I saw him touch his keyboard. Oh, for crying out loud, what the hell is he saying. Should I be blogging something yet?
Jones showed a clip of Joan’s show. It was funny.
Rivers came out. She was funny—and nasty, of course—right off the bat. “We were originally going to sell this to the Food Network and it was going to be called ‘How’d you get fatter than a fifth of an acre?’ with Kristie Alley.”
I typed furiously on my iPhone virtual keyboard, and then called my mom.
"Anything yet?"
“No, honey. Wait, here it comes. ‘Rivers says shoe first offered to Fudd Network.' ”
"Oy. Anything else."
“No. Oh, yes, here it is. 'Show was called How do u get fatter than a fifth grader?' ”
Tom was right. Live blogging from my iPhone wasn’t going to work. "Thanks, Mom."
I glanced around. Hibberd was typing away. I was sure it was great stuff.
Maybe I should try again. Rivers was having a great time, as if she was onstage in Vegas. She was dropping f-bombs all over the place. She was referring to her show as “How’d They Get So F---ing Rich?” Then she said that following her show was going to be “ 'How’d You Get So F---ing Poor,' hosted by the Madoffs.”
Again, I typed furiously. Just as I finished, my phone vibrated. It was Tom.
“You just wrote F-u-c-k-i-n-g. Is that OK?”
"As long as I don’t hear from my mom."
My iPhone vibrated again and showed that another number was trying to reach me. I recognized it as my mom’s. "Tom, I gotta go."
"Hi Mom."
“Honey, you just wrote F-u-c-k-i-n-g. Is that OK?”
"It is if Hibberd did it too."
“Who?”
"Mom, I gotta go."
I hung up. I had no idea what Hibberd was writing. I just knew it must be good.
Rivers was now telling a story about a guy who became a gazillionaire in the toilet cleaning business. What’s with this woman? It’s 15 years since I last saw her and again with the toilets.
Rivers couldn’t believe what some of the people do who she’d interviewed for her new show. “One of them I love is Hoffman,” she was saying. “You know you blow bubbles … (the wand) makes a bubble. This guy made [a wand] that makes five bubbles. You understand? Big f---ing deal.” She paused and then delivered the punch line: “Lives next to Barbra Streisand.
I was typing furiously again on my iPhone. Just as I finished, it vibrated once more.
"Hi Tom."
“You just typed it again. Has your mom noticed?”
"Yes, but maybe Hibberd’s doing it too. Try and find out and call me back."
Joan was on a roll: “Do you understand? I’m not making a lie.” She was still talking about the five bubble wand guy. “His dog’s got a psychiatrist. He has a woman come in, and you can’t laugh because you’re filming you know. ‘Hmm, this looks interesting.’ And she’s making the dog feel relaxed. How much more relaxed can you be? You can lick your balls. I don’t know what more you want.”
The room erupted in laughter. I was typing feverishly on my iPhone. Again, it vibrated. It was my mom.
“I’m confused. Is it the dog that’s licking its balls?”
My phone vibrated yet once more while she was speaking. It was Tom. I told my mom to hold on.
"Yes, Tom. Find out about what Hibberd’s blogging?"
“No. But it just occurred to me that you never actually gave me that Fleiss item this morning, so we never posted it.”
I told Tom just a minute, hit a virtual botton on the phone and started to talk again to my mom.
"You’re confused about what? The dog?"
“It’s me, Tom. No, I’m not confused about the dog. I want to know about the Fleiss item”
"Hold on." Then I hit another of the phone's virtual buttons and said, "Mom, I’ll explain about the dog in a minute. Hold on." Hitting yet another button I said, "Tom, we'll use it this afternoon. I love the line about chasing gals at Hooters."
“No, honey, it’s mom. So these dogs lick their balls and chase girls at Hooters? That’s one crazy reporter's job you have.”
At that moment I dropped my phone. As I bent over to pick it up I saw this beautiful woman go up to Hibberd and say, “Love your blog. Do you Tweet?”
Son of a gun.#
Bravo's 'Miami Social': A Cure for Reality Fatigue?
To quote the prolific Broadway composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, “You gotta get a gimmick if you want to get ahead.”
That axiom applied to the strippers in the Broadway musical, and it also applies to producers and networks trying to stand out in today’s immense ocean of reality programming. No longer is it enough to have a killer concept or compelling material. And gone are the days when you’ll automatically get eyeballs just because you launch on a big network with a major publicity blitz. (Raise your hand if you watched “High School Musical: Get in the Picture.” That’s what I thought.)
I work in the reality biz. It’s my job to stay on top of trends and sample as much programming as possible.
But even I’m suffering from chronic “reality fatigue.” I can only imagine how Joe and Jane Six Pack feel about the bottleneck on the reality highway.
Today you need a hook -- and a big one -- if you’re going to convince viewers to invest in your product week after week. For that matter, you need a hook if you’re going to convince viewers to even sample your program in the first place.
Enter Bravo’s “Miami Social,” a “ “Real Housewives” -style docusoap about hotties living and loving in (wait for it...) Miami. The show doesn’t premiere until July 14th, but it’s already in my DVR queue.
Why? Well, besides the promised intrigue, romance, glitz and catfights we’ve come to expect from Bravo, “Social” also features two reality pioneers making their long-awaited (at least by me) comeback to the genre.
Hardy Ames Hill (the hunky boy scout from the long-ago-but-not-forgotten “Big Brother 2”) and Katrina Campins (the young real estate diva from the landmark first season of “The Apprentice”) have been cast to stir things up, and hopefully reconnect with past fans. This is big news in a world where we’re used to seeing the same faces year after year on MTV’s “Real World/Road Rules Challenge” or VH1’s “Celebrity Rehab”... or even (God help me) “I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!”
It’s certainly not a re-invention of the wheel, but stacking a new show’s cast with long-lost reality vets from a kinder, simpler era and putting them in a new situation is certainly fresh and somewhat innovative. Given the insatiable appetite viewers have for Bravo’s delicious and decadent docusoaps, out-of-the-box ideas like this can only help Social’s prospects. If the show succeeds, I would think the Burnetts, Fleisses, Grodners and Roth’s of the reality world will certainly be combing their archives for graduates of their franchises who might be ready for a comeback.
What do you think? Will you be watching “Miami Social”? And what stars from the reality history books would you like to see return to the screen in a different vehicle? I’ll go first: “Survivor’s” Sue Hawk on the next season of “Ice Road Truckers.”
Nancy Dubuc, are you listening?
Going Too Gently Into That Good Night: Saying Farewell To Analog TV
Recently, I lost a loyal and faithful friend.
It was on a nondescript April night, just after midnight. It wasn’t unexpected; it was clear this was going to happen, and I figured I could be a witness to the final moment. Even so, I had to scramble to make the connection with my friend, and once I had, I discovered that my vigil was a lonesome one.
Who was the friend? A reliable pal born 57 years ago into an unknown but promising future: the analog TV signal of a local television station. Cause of death? Progress. He couldn’t keep up. His successor, a furious blast of bits, had pretty much replaced him with five times the ability to deliver the goods.
How did he go? With a brief and impassive pop, at one minute past midnight, as planned. He was busy to the end, conveying the image of a late night comedian in smooth analog modulation, just as he’d always done. On the audio track the audience was laughing at a joke, when suddenly – picture and sound vanished. The TV, startled, examined the resulting snow for a few seconds, trying to find some pattern, then gave up and reverted to a blue screen. Of death.
'Nurse Jackie': Quiet. Mean. Awesome.
You never know what Edie Falco’s Nurse Jackie is going to pull out of one of her scrubs pockets next. Her wedding band? A packet of sweetener actually filled with carefully crushed Vicodin? Maybe the separate cell phone she keeps just so her pharmacist lover can call any time? Whatever she does, one thing’s for sure: Showtime was so pleased with Nurse Jackie’s opening night numbers Monday that it’s already ordered up a second 12-episode season of the buzzed about half-hour show.
For those who could not get enough of Falco as Carmela Soprano—and one could successfully argue that none of the women on “The Sopranos” really got enough airtime--here she is front and center on pay cable, taking no prisoners during the course of her day as an ER nurse at a New York City hospital.
If you missed the premiere, her first victim was a hotshot young doctor, whose misdiagnosis caused a young bike messenger to die from his injuries. After forging the victim’s name on an organ donor card and ordering the transplant people to get there pronto, Jackie read Dr. Cooper (“Twilight’s” vampire patriarch Peter Facinelli) the riot act, telling him to "stay the f--- out of my way," and that she'd seen hundreds of jerk-offs like him. The rant ended in some inappropriate sexual touching on the doctor's part, harassment he blamed on a Tourette syndrome-like disorder—an issue that will rear its head throughout the season.
And so will the secrets that Jackie juggles so expertly, starting with her drug addiction, the husband and two daughters she hides from co-workers and her love affair with Eddie the pharmacist (Paul Schulze, who, wink/nod, played the priest with whom Carmela had a chaste fling on “The Sopranos.”) Their brief workaday trysts usually end in timed cuddling--and packages of Percocet.
Jackie is such a pro at keeping her addiction under wraps that she acts surprised when he regularly hands over meds for whatever she says ails her. But we the viewers are in on her game. We’ve seen her fishing out a pill dropped down her bathroom drain with a toothbrush and a piece of gum while her hunky husband waits patiently outside the door.
Even her unlikely best friend, the arrogant, hot British doctor (Eve Best as Dr. Eleanor O’Hara) who loves impossibly high heels and tight skirts, isn’t in on the secret—yet. But lots of dirt in other areas will come out as the two ladies manage to skip out regularly to lunch at elegant places near the fictional All Saint’s Hospital.
Funny Story About One of TV's All-time Great Pitchmen
Discovery is airing a tribute to the late pitchman Billy Mays tonight (Thursday, July 9th, 9 pm ET/PT), and I’m eager to see it. Mays was indeed a pitchman extraordinaire. Like many of us raised on TV, we’ve come to realize the difference between your run-of-the-mill pitch person and those who almost raise it to the level of art. Or at least who are a hell of a lot more fun to watch than others.
Another of my all-time favorite pitchmen also died recently: Ed McMahon. In various remembrances McMahon has received lots of well-deserved praise for his skill in understanding what made a second-banana top dog.
But it was McMahon’s skill as a pitchman, particularly for Alpo dog food, that I’ll most fondly remember about him.
What made the Alpo commercials that he did on the ”Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" special is that they were done live…and later, live-on-tape.
Here’s my favorite one. I don’t’ recall if I saw it live or in highlight reel. But I do remember seeing it. My memory is enhanced by Ed’s recounting of this particular live commercial in his 1998 memoir “For Laughing Out Loud.”
One day, for a reason no one recalls, the dog that usually appeared in the commercial with McMahon had the night off. A substitute dog, a beagle named Hernandez, was filling in.
As was his wont, when the commercial began McMahon was sitting on a chair on a raised platform, holding a can of Alpo and said: “Alpo is the only one of the leading dog foods that has real beef…..” That was the cue for Hernandez to walk out on stage.
But, as McMahon quickly surmised, Hernandez had stage fright. He’d take a few steps toward Ed and turn away. No amount of coxing by McMahon could convince the dog to make it out to where Ed was sitting and the bowl of Alpo next to him
I’ll let Ed tell it from here:
“And then I saw Johnny come into my little commercial area. He got down on his hands and knees and came over to me. “Come right up, nice Hernandez,” I said as I started to pet Johnny.
Nice boss, I was thinking as I pet him on the head, nice boss. By this point the audience was hysterical. Carson wagged his rump to show how much he loved Alpo. I just kept going. I was going to get my commercial done.
“The next time you’re looking at canned dog food …” –he rubbed his cheek against my leg --- “…… nice Hernandez ….reach for the can that contains real beef….” Johnny got up on his knees and started begging for more. I started petting him again … and then he licked my hand. Good boss, good.
"And I still managed to conclude, gratefully, “And doesn’t your dog deserve Alpo?”#
I Was There: Watching the Great Cronkite at Work
It was the 1980s and the old guys were still around.
One of them, Walter Cronkite, had relinquished his CBS anchor chair to Dan Rather in 1981, but I got an opportunity to watch Cronkite work one day a couple of years later, in a small studio at New York’s public TV station, WNET, where Cronkite was videotaping some intros and other material called “wraparounds” for a PBS documentary.
I had been invited up to the station to see him and, standing a few feet away from him while he worked, I learned about the art and effort of broadcasting.
Cronkite, then in his 70s, sat in a chair a few feet away from a large television camera, and recited some copy. I don’t recall if he read from a TelePrompTer, but if he did, it didn’t seem to draw his eyes away and distract him from his keen concentration on that camera lens.
He leaned forward in his chair and peered so intently into that lens that he literally seemed to strain physically to do it. It was as if he wanted to dive into it bodily. I realized that this was the method Cronkite must have adopted as anchor of “The CBS Evening News.” He must have believed that if he could focus his unwavering gaze directly through a point at the very center of the camera lens, then viewers at home could literally make eye contact with him.
The method evidently worked since it made him the most trusted man in America in his heyday as anchor of “The CBS Evening News.” I learned that day that broadcasting – real broadcasting – takes effort and study and work. And I never forgot it.
If You are Under 45 Years Old, Here's a Personal Explanation as to Why—and How—Cronkite was so Powerful and Influential
For anyone under 45 years old, the stature, power and influence that Walter Cronkite had in the 1960s and 1970s is likely hard to understand.
The best way I can explain it is to tell you a little about my family.
My dad was born in 1911, five years before Cronkite was born. My dad was a young man of 18 when the depression hit. As with many people from that era, the depression had a lasting impact upon my dad. For the remainder of his life he believed that cash was king, and that debt—and credit—were to be avoided at all costs.
My dad had just turned 30 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and he volunteered for, and became an officer in, the Army Air Corps, which was the predecessor to the Air Force.
To say that my dad was conservative, both fiscally and politically, is almost an understatement.
After the war my parents got married, and had two sons. My older brother and I became part of the Baby Boomer generation.
Though of the generation that fell in love with the movies, our dad was never seduced. His entertainment of choice was reading, primarily history.
He never watched a lot of TV. One program that did become a staple in our house was “The 20th Century.” It ran on CBS on Sunday nights at 6 pm (later at 6:30pm) for most of my formative years. The program featured stories of the events and the people that shaped the 20th century. Cronkite was the narrator.
The other program my dad watched with regularity was Cronkite’s evening newscast. Though we had the Los Angeles Herald Express (later the Examiner) delivered in the late afternoon, the Cronkite newscast became a must in our household.
In those days, information was neither instantaneous nor ubiquitous. Millions and millions of Americans depended upon the evening newscast to catch up on the day’s events.
Like my dad, Cronkite was a veteran of World War II. My dad clearly respected the newscaster. Back in those days people on TV and in movies had great voices, and Cronkite’s timbre was authoritative yet not overbearing.
The big split in our household centered around the Vietnam War. My dad was a proponent and my brother was demonstrably against it. The arguments they had would often ratchet up to yelling and screaming between them, usually concluding with my brother storming out of the house.
Until, one fateful night, when Walter Cronkite turned against the war. In what I recall was almost shockingly uncharacteristic for Cronkite, he broke out of his familiar “news reader” mode to editorialize that the war could not be won.
I could tell that my dad was visibly surprised by this pronouncement. My dad was a thoughtful man, and not a knee-jerk conservative. But on the issue of the Vietnam War he had not budged. The arguments between my brother and my dad about the war had produced a serious rift between them. By this point they were barely speaking to one another.
And then, suddenly, my brother had an ally in a man who had a lot of influence in our father’s mind: Walter Cronkite. Cronkite, I’m sure my dad would have said, was smart, sensible, and cautious. And, my dad would have noted, Cronkite was both a contemporary of his and, like my dad, a veteran of the second world war.
If Cronkite had decided the war couldn’t be won, that meant something.
In fact, in thousands of households like ours, it meant a lot. Walter Cronkite, this calm, polished, learned man who was so good at explaining the news to us—news we didn’t know about until he told us about it every day—had actually come out against the war.
Unlike the current war in Iraq, fought with all-volunteer servicemen and servicewomen, there was a draft during the Vietnam War. So one way or another, every home that had young men in it was very much directly affected by the war.
Cronkite’s coming out against the Vietnam war was the beginning of our dad changing his mind about the conflict. Our dad finally decided it was not a war we should be fighting. He and my brother reconciled.
President Johnson reportedly said after the CBS newscast that night that since Cronkite had come out against the war that the country would also turn against it. Cronkite’s pronouncement was clearly a factor in Johnson not seeking re-election.
Today, with the fragmentation of media and the fact that we now get our news instantaneously on the Internet or from the all-news cable outlets, there’s no newsperson who has the singular voice—literally and figuratively—that Cronkite had.
A short eight months after Cronkite’s last broadcast at age 65, my dad passed away, far too young, at age 70.
Six years ago Cronkite told Time magazine that he thought he had stepped down from his news anchor chair too early.
But I think my dad, and millions of others of us, would demur with Cronkite’s re-evaluation. Time has not been kind to the traditional news business, both on the distribution and content fronts.
Reporting about stains on a blue dress and stars found dead in closets in Thailand after masturbating are not events those of us who grew up watching Cronkite picture him reporting.#
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