There, I’ve said it, out loud and in print.

I mentioned in a previous post how CTV used to run The Flintstones every day at lunch. But when they weren’t running the Flintstones, they ran I Dream of Jeannie. They also used to run I Love Lucy, Gilligan’s Island, The Beverley Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction after school. Everyone I knew used to go home and watch that stuff. Lucy and Ricky fighting with Fred and Ethel Mertz, Gilligan fighting with the Skipper, Billie Jo, Bobbi Jo and Betty Jo fighting over Steve (Betty Jo won, by the way).

I’m not totally sure what the appeal of old TV was for me. I mean, I loved the new stuff, too. I wanted, when I was a teenager, to become a TV writer (comedy, specifically). I thought Diane English was brilliant for creating Murphy Brown. I was glued to the set every week. But I also really loved the old stuff, perhaps because it was interesting to me to see how everyone experimented with a new medium. Lucy and Desi, for instance, filming sit-coms with three cameras instead of one.

When I went to university and studied Communications, it was all about old film and television (super practical when I graduated later, during a recession, by the way. What everyone wants is an employee with a deep understanding of semiotics). Perry Mason was on every morning at 10:00, thanks to TBS, showing us all how the viewing public ate up formulas. Burns and Allen were on later, and I watched George break the fourth wall, and saw Bea Benaderet play Blanche Morton long before she did the voice of Betty Rubble. I loved that they did Carnation Milk commercials right in the middle of the show (Happy cows make happy milk, you know).

The Burns and Allen was finished its run, and they started to  The Dick Van Dyke Show. And I watched, because by then I had read all about how Carl Reiner’s comedy had changed comedy, and what a brilliant show it was. Plus, whshowen I was little I wanted to be Mary Tyler Moore, and there she was, before she was Mary Richards. And I thought it was funny. I still think it’s funny. Some of the episodes are a little dated, but I can forgive that, becuase it’s easy to see how, in lots of ways, people are the same as they are now. Sure, there are fewer musical numbers, and I don’t know anyone who’s been hypnotized to act drunk lately, but we basically haven’t changed much. There are certainly still Mel Cooleys and Alan Bradys around. Guys like Rob and women like Laura.

And I guess that, like any good book or film or play, is the appeal. That sometimes, in spite of the beehives or capri pants, the characters can be well-drawn and the dialogue sharp. I have a hard time wanting to bother with most of what floats across the airwaves now. I don’t, for instance, find CSI engaging, and have a hard time imagining that my children will want to watch it in reruns decades from now.

But maybe I’m wrong, and in forty years, when I’m in my seventies, I’ll subscribe to the Deal or No Deal Channel and reminisce about how Howie Mandel used to do that bit with the surgical glove, before he lost all his hair and became a Boston Pizza spokesman.

God, I hope not.