Still chuckling at ‘Green Acres’
My friend and I were driving to the park and, prompted by nothing but a quick comment about my TV habits, we broke out in song.
“Green Acres is the place to be,” we sang in unison. “Fah-arm living is the life for me.”
If you watched TV in the late ’60s and early ’70s, you know the rest. It was the theme song to “Green Acres”, the sitcom about a couple who escape an opulent life in Manhattan for an absurd ramshackle farm in Hooterville.
When I ditched cable last month, I had to replace it with something.
My handyman mounted an antenna on the side of my house; now I can pull in TV signals from far and wide. (Speaking of far and wide, “keep Manhattan just gimme that countryside!”)
I should be embarrassed to be admitting this, but since getting that antenna, I find myself scrolling away from all the fresh content on Netflix and shame-watching the TV shows of my youth. One episode of “The Brady Bunch” was all I could stomach now (what did 8-year-old me see in that insipid, tween nonsense?) Ditto “The Beverly Hillbillies.” But you know about my love for “Little House on the Prairie”, the reruns of which are shown on one channel all day every day. I check in on the Ingalls family regularly.
I’ve so far watched two seasons of “Green Acres.” At least once each episode, I laugh out loud. It’s not Arnold the talking pig that amuses me, nor the goofy townspeople, or the fact that attorney-turned-farmer Eddie Albert wears a vest and tie while driving the tractor. No, it’s Eva Gabor delivering her dimwitted lines tinged with a perfect Hungarian accent.
What the heck has happened to me?
Almost a year into this forced retirement from producing documentaries, I find myself adrift. Maybe the old TV shows are comforting noise as I thrash around looking for my next full-time gig. Maybe I never really was all that intelligent to begin with and have had a “Green Acres” sensibility lurking in my shadows.
The antenna has opened a portal to an era when viewing options were few. People sat down to watch the same show at the same time every week, and then talked about it at school and work the next day.
Snooping around through the antenna offerings, I came across old episodes of Julia Child’s cooking show on public television. I recognized the grainy black and white scenes and her avuncular voice; my mom watched back when I was a preschooler.
Here’s how long ago those shows were produced. Julia was making a quiche, and before rolling out the dough for the crust she headed to the sink.
“First we must wash our hands,” she said.
She turned on the faucet and reached for the soap — not a pump bottle, but a plain old bar of soap.
At the end of the episode, Julia retreats to the dining room to show her table setting, then sits down to review what we’d learned. Reading from handwritten notes on a tablet, she restates the recipe. Basic, but oddly effective.
I’m sure I’ll eventually get tired of the corny charm of the old shows.
“Green Acres” went for six seasons and then ran out of steam. But not before we all saw enough of it to know that theme song.
Last night, at dinner with a friend, he asked what I’d been watching.
“New York is where I’d rather stay,” I sang. “I get allergic smelling hay.”
Without missing a beat, he sang along. Right in tune, and every word.