Six Million Dollar Man

During the seventies, the last thing Dave and I did was watch TV. We had kids to watch. Now we are having fun watching what we missed. We purchased the SMDM boxed set and it is entertaining.

Does anyone else have it?

I notice this website advertises it.

Dear Alice,

We enjoy old tv shows, as well. We watch Mash, of course, but the one I would really like to see is The Carol Burnett Show. I think she was genius. I have not seen that up for sale as a series. There is something so comforting about those old shows. What I notice the most is that the violence level and the language level is kinder. Even MASH, a show about war and death, was done without the gore in your face. You knew it was there, your compassion was there, but the blood was not. I love that show.

Love,

Betty

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dmovies-tv&field-keywords=Carol+Burnett

Betty,

Thank you I liked Carol Burnett too. Try this link.

I have the MASH collection. Still watch it. The characters have become like family. Also have Bob Newhart and the Mary Tyler Moore collection.

Spent many an evening with Steve Austin in my living room. It was one of the last series the ex and I always watched together.

I thought it was curious that, just after I started developing the character, Jake Holder, based on my memories of TV's fictional Sheriff Emmett Ryker, that the Virginian series, with said sheriff saving Medicine Bow week after week, started rerunning on Encore, and then, just as the book was ending, it stopped.

MASH is definitely a classic.

Ann

MASH was totally out of my interest - I didn't like humor mixed with war and Korea might as well have been another planet. When my spouse was in the Army we had a paid vacation to live in Germany in a cute little town and travel all over Europe. Even the Viet Nam war felt very distant. My spouse was a draftee who spent his military as a clerk and I even think he had an early discharge because of some medical issue with his feet. I mean, the military and Asia were just not in my interest framework.

In 1974, my spouse was sent to Korea as the CFO for an electronics firm that was in the forefront of sending jobs overseas and exploiting local workers who were bussed from the country and lived in dorms - a life totally devoted to gold wire. They went through metal detectors on the way out to be certain none of the gold went out with them.

He was one of two Americans in the otherwise Korean company. We lived elegantly beyond imagination (even beyond my memories today). We wanted for nothing - except PX privileges. For that purpose, I became employed by the 8th U.S. Army in Seoul, Korea as a teacher and curriculum developer to help soldiers learn to read and compute. I traveled to every U.S. base in S. Korea, including Camp Red Cloud, the model for MASH.

Our television choices were limited. In the evening, the AFRT Network had a few cartoons for children after school and a few shows in the evening - and one was MASH.

Suddenly, MASH took on real meaning. I worked with the Army. Many officers had served in Asian wars. I lived in the Embassy Row of a S. Korean neighborhood. The two cultures, 180 degrees different in customs, became my life. So, I credit those who loved MASH for its humor and acting - it took the realisim of living in S. Korea for MASH to come alive for me.

Today, it takes me back to my surreal experience of living in S. Korea for five years. Those five years shaped my life more than any other influence and continues to have fallout, positive and negative. I love it when MASH comes on - and I recognize their references and I understand the military more. I laugh with freedom, a greater appreciation for the stress relief in impossible circumstances, the only way to hold onto sanity.

S. Korea plays a major role in the novel, Arirang: the Bamboo Connection, that I finally finished in 2006. If you enjoy MASH, you might enjoy the references to S. Korea and Asia in general that influence the characters of Arirang. It's now on Kindle for $2.99. It's a lot of reading - 500 pages - but takes the reader to all continents and is a cheap "grand tour."
I'll be pulling from Kindle when it's print run is ended to replace it with three books in rewritten form.

www.dkchristi.webs.com

I know that MASH actually took place in Korea, but I think it was meant to be about Vietnam. More could be said by putting it in the past.

I think it was about the absurdity of war, the absurdity of doctors whose job it was to patch these wounds - sometimes to keep life going until a more stable place for treatment could be reached - other times it was about getting them back to the lines so they could continue the fighting and killing.

As doctors, they were in an insane, crazy place, so they responded with crazy, insane behavior.

Satirical humor is about changing people's perceptions and perspectives.

MASH was, to my mind, one of the most powerful tools for exposing the horror of war - particularly the war that this country was caught up in at the time the series ran.


Just me.

And now, I'm remembering another satirical TV comedy that changed perceptions - All in the Family with its bigoted Archie Bunker. How could anyone watching it not see the ridiculous stupidity in Archie's attitudes and behavior.

Sometimes we laugh at the unlaughable in order to see it clearly enough to change things.

Ann

Abe,

We have the Newhart collection also.

Ann

We are getting into The Virginian too.

Another favorite series is the original Star Trek. The societal issues then and now that were couched in aliens and other planets, remain relevant. Skip the campy, amateur appearing sets and the obvious exploitation of pretty girls in skimpy costumes, and you will find women with real jobs, real thoughts and respect and men with feelings. The creator of the series was a genius. Even the campy glimpses into "future" electronics often turned out quite real today. I imagine with so many trekkies someone has analyzed the relevant social issues and electronic wonders.

William Shatner compared the panel show, Have I Got News for You:

About a year ago I picked up some of the really old movie and TV DVDs, and I find I still like them as much now as when I first saw them. I have a few of the Red Skeleton show, some Abbott and Costello, some Lon Chaney and Boris Karloss, and even got a Shirley Temple and Our Gang for Braxi to watch. Oh, and she's always loved Betty Boop.

I also have three or four of the Smallville and 24 seasons, the Birds Of Prey series, the Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel series, and a pretty decent collection of more recent movies.

I think my favorite of everything I own has to be the Saving Grace series with Holly Hunter. I'm convinced it may have been the best television drama series ever, and the writing is absolutely as good as it gets.

Oh, and I also liked MASH and the Carol Burnette shows, as well as All In The Family.

There have been a few television shows that we would always try to be sure to catch, even if it meant cutting something short and coming home early from one thing or another. One of those was Dallas. I'm wondering how the new, rebooted version of the show will play, and kind of looking forward to watching the first episode tomorrow night.

I keep thinking of things so I keep posting.

Speaking of The Six Million Dollar Man, do you remember The Bioinic Woman, the counterpoint to Steve Austin? We had the occasion to meet and get to talk to Lindsay Wagner, who played Jamie Sommers, one Saturday night when we were backstage at the Grand Ole Opry. She was a very nice young lady, and seemed to actually enjoy sitting there and just talking.

Viva Star Trek (the original)



Ann

Star Trek had a strong impact on my way of looking at the world. The segment that stands out is the one where Kirk, due to a malfunction of the transporter, is split into two people: one totally evil; the other, totally good.

The totally good half was a completely ineffectual wuss. At the end of the segment, he literally "embraced his dark side" in order to be reintegrated.

No wonder that, 20 years later, when I found Campbell's books, I had an epiphany moment, and haven't recovered since.

Ann

Regarding Dallas. My mom was glued to the original Dallas. I think the nation was in a different mind set than it is today. I don't think it will be as popular. I think our ability to simply "enjoy" things has become tainted by the constant negatives afloat about everything. I started a Gratitude Blog on Wordpress to find something every day to write about that is positive.

Dallas started airing about the time hubby and I split. I mostly knew about it through my children, who watched it with their dad. They told me, (no big surprise) that their daddy identified with J. R. That is pretty much the extent of my knowledge re the series.

Where do you store your dvd's?

Wherever I can find a place to shove one. The ones in the tower meant for such things have been there so long I do not remember what is there. A funny thing about that. About a year an a half ago now, I decided I really needed to watch Master and Commander, so I purchased it through Amazon Online Video and Unbox. Later on, since I wanted to be able to see it from my TV, I bought a special edition (used through B&N and quite cheap - I have a thing about paying full price for the things, mostly because I have an even bigger thing about returning rentals, so I never rent.) Then, several months ago, I decided to clean out that tower, and guess what I found. I then remembered being at a buy-two-get-one-free sale at Blockbuster, some years ago, and not having anything in particular I wanted to add, so I got that one, then forgot I had it. Typical me.

Most of my DVD's are in or on the armoire in my bedroom, where I keep the only HD TV I have (since I am virtually the only one who watches it). Notice that my RC collecton flanks my set of "Education of the Soul" cds (Oz and pre-fame Hollywood to the left; Gladiator and after to the right). Other DVD's and the few VHS tapes I still watch are in the drawer below the equipment.



(Well, you asked.)


Ann

LC would approve of that ... and your mom.

Ann,

I approve also. You are so organized. It is wonderful.

Shelagh and Alice - just don't open that drawer.

Ann

Is there a snake in there?

It would be hard to tell.

Ann