We’ve gone from Oscar Wilde to Oscar Mayer. What happened?
by Max S. Gordon
1
Sitcoms, when they are done well, are like families. As a child of the Seventies and Eighties, I had very personal relationships with the TV shows I watched back then, and loving memories now of what they meant to me.
I was eight when The Jeffersons came on at 9:30, past my bedtime. My sister and I would dance to the theme song in our pajamas (the song was a jam — still is) and my mother would insist we go to bed. I knew if I could somehow finagle a way to stay until the commercial, brushing my teeth too slowly, asking for a second glass of water — lingering, lingering! — I could guilt my mother into letting me watch until the end. And I wouldn’t leave until the last credit rolled and the announcer said, “The Jeffersons was recorded on tape in front of a studio audience.” It was a game we played every week.
I remember sitting on my father’s lap during Good Times when the show dealt with child abuse. Penny Woods’ mother burned her with an iron for coming home late. In those days, when a show dealt with a controversial subject matter it was sometimes called a Very Special Episode. Years later, in the early Eighties, Arnold and Dudley were pursued by a child predator who owned a bicycle shop…
