Posted 3:01 PM by Gene

In an extension of some hack's burp that Bob Keeshan was DULL, one of PROF's co-productions belches that we're living in A PLATINUM AGE OF TELEVISION, and the very erudite Terry Teachout isn't man enough to truly disagree. Here's the difference: two opposite types of bad. The old days had lots of canned laughter and saccharine sweetness. Today's TV has the sex and the violence and the guttermouths -- what Terry unfortunately calls "candor" -- but at least he has conscience enough to realize (with a certain mealy-mouthedness) that "I’m not so sure I like what it tells us about ourselves." In short, "great" TV sells us a bad message. Does that make it so great? And Terry lists enough reasons to doubt his own conclusions. Ernie Kovacs, Playhouse 90, Your Show of Shows, Toscanini -- maybe today's TV isn't so great after all.

And let us not forget, a helluva lot more people watched Milton Berle than HBO.

P. S. Prof's moronic co-production had a COLD the day he wrote that genius. You can't write well on a cold -- and bad thinking is infectious too.

P. P. S. Or here's another way of putting it: to us, "The Golden Age of Television" doesn't look so good. How would our platinum age look to our grandparents?