‘mr. rogers’ neighborhood’ aired for the very 1st time, 55 years ago
fred rogers was a unique person with an immense heart and an incredible understanding of life
he’s one of my personal idols/heroes and i’m happy to see his legacy and lessons continue.
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“we all have different gifts, so we all have different ways of saying to the world who we are.”
-mr. rogers
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credit: fred rogers productions
while filling up my car with gas
a man walked over to me saying
how it would have been great
if one of the inventions from ‘the jetsons’ show had come to be –
a warm air pad that you walked on, so you were never cold
i reminded him of their version of the microwave
where you pushed a button and your food was cooked in seconds
from there it continued on, back and forth
with inventions remembered from the show
until we both of our cars were filled up
going on our merry way
what an interesting conversation to have with a random stranger at the gas pump
perhaps he recognized a fellow jetsons fan
not your usual small talk, but rather refreshing
triggering memories of my favorite childhood cartoon.
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the jetsons premiered when i was 5 years old on abc tv (their first color show!) on sunday nights. i loved it instantly; the characters, the banter, the clothes, and all the cool space-age stuff. unfortunately it only ran for one season and then quickly disappeared from the airwaves, except in reruns and later movies.
here’s smithsonian’s take on the show:
It was 50 years ago that the Jetson family first jet-packed their way into American homes. The show lasted just one season (24 episodes) after its debut in 1962, offering television viewers a rather sunny and optimistic view of the future. Flying cars, moving sidewalks, and flat-screen TVs were the norm. Even the Jetson family’s sky home was considered envious. ABC set The Jetsons in 2062, exactly 100 years from the year that the show premiered. Based on the Jetson family’s phone number, one could argue that they didn’t live on Earth or just above it. The family’s phone number was VENUS-1234, meaning they were most likely residents on Venus.
Regardless of its short-running timeframe, the show remains a point of pop culture reference all these years later. Some of the inventions that existed on The Jetsons are available today, and they did predict current technologies. Some examples include; interactive newspapers, robotic help, holograms, and drones. The most widespread Jetson-inspired invention is the Apple Watch. It closely resembles the device George wore on his wrist to call work, make appointments, handle doctor visits, and much more.
Tesla is teasing us with self-autonomous vehicles, but people are still waiting for the highly-accessible flying cars used by the Jetsons. We may not have to wait another 50 years as a Slovakian company is currently working on a flying car prototype. Smithsonian Magazine said, “The Jetsons stands as the single most important piece of 20th-century futurism.” They claim the show “has had a profound impact on the way that Americans think and talk about the future.”
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image credit: hanna-barbera productions, abc tv, warner brothers archives,smithsonian magazine
The Changing of the Guard – 1962
(one of my favorite episodes of one of my favorite shows by one of my favorite writers, rod serling)
OPENING: Professor Ellis Fowler, a gentle, bookish guide to the young, who is about to discover that life still has certain surprises, and that the campus of the Rock Spring School for Boys lies on a direct path to another institution, commonly referred to as the Twilight Zone.
Professor Ellis Fowler is an elderly English literature teacher at the Rock Spring School, a boys’ prep school, who is forced into retirement after teaching for 51 years at the school. Looking through his old yearbooks and reminiscing about his former students, he becomes convinced that all of his lessons have been in vain and that he has accomplished nothing with his life.
Deeply depressed, he prepares to kill himself on the night of Christmas Eve next to a statue of the famous educator Horace Mann, with its quote “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” Before he can follow through, however, he is called back to his classroom by a phantom bell, where he is visited by ghosts of several boys who were his students, all dead, several of whom died heroically.
The boys tell him of how he inspired them to become better men, and the difference he made in their lives. One posthumously received the Medal of Honor for actions at Iwo Jima; another died of leukemia after exposure to X-rays during research into cancer treatments; another died at Pearl Harbor after saving 12 other men. All were inspired by Fowler’s teachings. Moved to tears, Fowler hears the phantom bell again, and his former pupils disappear. Now accepting of his retirement, content that his life is fuller for having enriched the lives of the boys, he listens to his current students caroling outside his home.
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credits: imdb, twilight zone
‘ESPN to televise stone skipping competition from Mackinac Island. And I’m not kidding.’
– d.m.
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“all sports for all people.”
*Pierre de Coubertin
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*Charles Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin (French) 1863 – 1937, (also known as Pierre de Coubertin and Baron de Coubertin) was a French educator and historian, founder of the International Olympic Committee, and its second President.
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credits: dave millar, roger priebe, mackinac island dockporters association
Mackinac Island, Michigan, USA – Spring 2020
Rod Serling – working at home in Connecticut, 1956
anti-war and social justice activist, tv-writer, producer, narrator
and one of my idols.
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*In 1955, the miscarriage of justice in the Emmett Till case proved a galvanizing point in the Civil Rights Movement. Rod Serling, a 30-year-old rising star in a golden age of dramatic television, watched the events play out in the news. He believed firmly in the burgeoning medium’s power for social justice. “The writer’s role is to be a menacer of the public’s conscience,” Serling later said. “He must have a position, a point of view. He must see the arts as a vehicle of social criticism and he must focus the issues of his time.”
Soon after the trial concluded, Serling, riding off the success of his most well-received teleplay to date, felt compelled write a teleplay around the racism that led to Till’s murder. But the censorship that followed by advertisers and networks, fearful of blowback from white, Southern audiences, forced Serling to rethink his approach. His response, ultimately, was “The Twilight Zone,” the iconic sci-fi anthology series that spoke truth to the era’s social ills and tackled themes of prejudice, bigotry, nuclear fears, war, among so many others. At this point in history, the censors didn’t know what to make of this genre and he was free to deliver his message in a new way.
—
in honor of Rod Serling on national science fiction day,
who understood the power of the arts
as a way to communicate important messages.
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“there are weapons that are simply thoughts.
for the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy.”
-rod serling
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credits: Getty Images, *Smithsonian Magazine
i wish this option was available.
—
after noticing that my bill had made a huge monthly rate leap
it was time for yet another wacky interaction with my cable provider
the rep was very friendly as he told me
that my old rate was purely promotional
it had expired without notice
and was no longer available
i then told him that in that case
i’d like to cut back on my service
to restore it to a more reasonable (yet still crazy) rate
he offered to get right to work for me
to find a happy solution to my problem
after thanking me often
during my 37 minutes of insane hold music
my rep came up with my new rate
i laughed out loud when he quoted me a price
that was actually higher than the one
i was calling about when we began
he quickly and politely explained
that he had provided me with their premier package
adding in home security, a landline, voice controls,
and i think something to do with walking my cat
(none of which i requested)
he also told me that he had used
their new state of the art billing service
(why it took so long)
which is very finely tuned
to review my bill and only charge me
based on the channels and services i use
offering me the best possible deal available
i reminded him that i had actually called
to eliminate channels and extra services
and to pay less not more
he politely went back to work on my issue
after a lot more hold music
i eliminated my useless channels and services
declining the best deal in the universe
even after he warned me i would be giving up things such as:
the rodeo clown channel, the quilting channel, and the watching paint dry live channel
i held my ground
and finally
in a twist of fate and luck and cable math
i somehow ended up back at
the special no longer available promotional rate
that i had requested to return to when we started .
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“the real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.”
-b. f. skinner
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image credit: gadgetpage.info
I didn't have my glasses on.... 