Good Television Still Exists

If you know me, you realize I’m a nostalgic guy. I’d rather watch a movie from the ‘50s, a TV show from the ‘60s and listen to the music of the ‘70s than most anything available today in any of those formats.

Yet, amazingly in this crude, sex-saturated culture there still are multiple refreshing new programs on television every week. When I have the time, I don’t like to miss the following:

• CBS Sunday Morning. This 90-minute staple before church is the best news show on the tube, mixing an eclectic batch of interesting features each week. The correspondents are as varied as the segments, which all make for an interesting look at music, art, sports, religion and a whole lot more.

• The Middle (ABC, Wednesday nights). It’s been a long time since I’ve followed a primetime broadcast series, but I’m fairly hooked on this one. Patricia Heaton carries the series as a middle-aged harried, unsuccessful car saleswoman with a largely disengaged husband and three emotionally needy children. The fact that the family lives in rural Indiana and struggles to make ends meet only makes it more credible. The show is devoid of the bawdy talk and innuendo that passes for humor on much of network television.

• Monk (USA, Friday nights). This groundbreaking series is about to wrap up its eighth season. The scripts aren’t as crisp as in the early years, yet it’s difficult not to get wrapped up in the lives of the title character and supporting cast.

• You Are What You Eat (BBC America, Tuesday nights). Gillian McKeith is Britain’s weight cop, plucking two desperate people to live in her house each week in an effort to keep them from eating themselves into an early grave. She mercilessly scolds them for eating a variety of junk foods and sets the guidelines for turning their lives around. The show has a lot of pathos, as the houseguests hate her tactics yet realize they must incorporate better eating habits for their survival. The show always is informative and is never dull. By the end of the eight-week treatment guests generally have dropped 15-25 pounds.

• Jeopardy! (syndicated, late afternoon or early evening). Now in its 26th season, the classic answer and question game show always entertains.

Animal Rights, Come on Down!

Retired game show host Bob Barker has given $1 million to Drury University in Springfield to establish “a professorship on animal rights.” Barker, who graduated from the school in 1947, hopes the gift will lead to Drury offering the nation’s first animal rights undergraduate program.

“I think some students would become full-fledged animal rights activists,” said Barker, who last year gave another $1 million to set up the Drury Forum on Animal Rights, which resulted in a class taught on animal ethics. Barker also has donated endowment funds for animal rights law at eight law schools around the country.

I agree that animals shouldn’t be mistreated. But the whole idea of animals being endowed with certain inalienable rights seems a bit, uh, wacky.

Animals can be great companions. I’ve shed a tear or two when pet birds or dogs have died. But, from a biblical perspective, animals have no souls. Their purpose on earth is to be companions to humans and sometimes food for humans.

Hey, Bob, how about giving a million bucks to set up a course explaining that human life is precious and we shouldn’t be throwing aborted babies in trash cans?

Mr. Playboy Is Mr. Pathetic

Has anyone else noticed how pathetic Hugh Hefner looks these days? Despite all the wonder drugs, age is finally catching up to him, as it eventually does with everybody who lives long enough. He still wears the trademark robe and slippers out in public. All that’s missing is the drooling.

In interviews, usually conducted with a trio of tall blondes him at his sides, Hefner looks like a great-grandpa being propped up en route to the bathroom. He repeatedly has to ask questioners to repeat themselves because he is hard of hearing. He has a daughter who is retired. Maybe that should tell you something.

Hefner’s whole façade of an old man living a fantasy sex life grew tiresome a few dozen girlfriends ago. He is desperately trying to retain youth; the cosmetically enhanced women 60 years his junior are simply looking for, um, exposure.

When a sixth season of The Girls Next Door began last month, Hefner’s previous mansion playmates had achieved enough fame to launch their own careers. He now has younger replacement models to fawn over him.

“The grand adventure begins anew,” Hefner opined to the camera. He’s dubbed 22-year-old Crystal Harris his “number one girlfriend.”

“I don’t notice his age,” Harris said. Guess she doesn’t believe there’s something creepy about an octogenarian crawling around in a bed with the latest centerfold.
Oh, and Hefner has 19-year-old twins as backups.

Of course nobody really lives like this. Lost in all the media love fest over Hefner as a First Amendment trailblazer is the fact that he is committing adultery with women one-fourth his age. I think we’d all be better off if Hefner did what another 83-year-old revolutionary has done. He should go into exile like Fidel Castro.

It’s Not Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

I drove my minivan into Springfield on Saturday morning — Halloween — and I thought I was in the Twilight Zone. I turned on the radio and heard Bing Crosby singing White Christmas on a local secular station. I punched the dial and Amy Grant sang O Little Town of Bethlehem on a Christian station.

Had I fallen asleep and missed November? After all, Halloween is in October. But no, the recorded announcement on the secular station informed me in between Andy Williams and Johnny Mathis extolling the winter holiday. “We just couldn’t wait!” the recording explained.

Well, I can. I don’t want to hear about a white Christmas, sleigh bells or Santa before the Great Pumpkin has disappeared. It’s not beginning to look a lot like Christmas on Halloween. The temperature is in the upper 60s and the World Series is still being played.

The reason some radio stations can’t wait is because advertisers want to extend the Christmas shopping season beyond the traditional 30-day window. I’d like to get through Thanksgiving before thinking about “the most wonderful time of the year.”