’60s and ’70s TV and the Cluelessness of Kids

In retrospect, the television we watched in the ’60s and ’70s was a bit unbelievable. As a tribute to the cluelessness of kids, though, we rolled with it. Joel Samberg remembers.

With the wisdom of age comes the realization that so much of our childhood years were steeped in cluelessness.

Especially when television was involved.

As a TV-loving kid of the ’60s and ’70s, I let the characters tell their stories without so much as a grunt from me about how silly or improbable those stories were. Granted, I don’t know if kids grunt. (Isn’t that more of a retirement thing?) But the point is that I never took the time to wonder about what I was watching. I just watched.

I guess when you’re a kid there are too many other things to worry about, to question, to cry over – real things having to do with neighborhood bullies and mean teachers, not made-up things like robots that warn you of “danger, danger” or families that make hit records even though half the kids can’t even play an instrument. I never even took a moment to inquire why some adults back then called television America’s Great Wasteland and why others called it the Boob Tube (which took on greater meaning only as I got older).

You want other examples of my past cluelessness?

I never questioned why Darren Stevens, the husband of that beautiful witch Samantha in the 60s sitcom Bewitched, never wanted to let his wife use her magic powers. Only as a new retiree have I realized that Darren was the biggest dope on Earth. If I had a Samantha living in my house, I’d let her turn the nasty woman with whom I volunteer at a not-for-profit into a donkey. If I had a Samantha living in my house, I’d let her send all phone and internet scammers who try to scam me to Siberia with no way to get home.

Nor did I ever question why Major Anthony Nelson, the astronaut in I Dream of Jeannie, never let Jeannie work her own magic. As a retiree, if I had a Jeannie, I’d let her turn my wife into Samantha Stevens.

Want more?

I never questioned why Oliver Wendall Douglas in Green Acres worked on his farm while wearing a three-piece suit.

Nor did I question why no one ever got sick at The Shady Rest in Petticoat Junction despite the fact that the beautiful Bradley sisters, Billie Jo, Bobby Jo, and Betty Jo, always took soapy baths in the water tower that provided H2O to all the guest rooms. Nowadays we have to wash our hands when we come home from Costco. Back then they didn’t care if they brushed their teeth with water other people bathed in.

Finally, I never questioned how a struggling actress like Ann Marie in That Girl could afford such a nice apartment in Manhattan when she never held a job for more than a week at a time.

Fortunately, I have a solution to all my anxiety about how clueless I was as a TV-obsessed youth. It’s simple. All I have to do is book a month’s stay at The Shady Rest.

Joel Samberg’s work has appeared in Pittsburgh Magazine, Hartford Magazine, Brooklyn Magazine, Moment Magazine and many others. He also writes the popular monthly “Off Ramp” column for Connecticut Magazine, for which he recently won first place in the humor column category from the Connecticut division of the Society of Professional Journalists. He is also the author of eight published books. Recently Joel founded a community theater and performing arts group in Avon, Connecticut, called Playhouse 44.