The passing of Farrah Fawcett would have been the big headline had the sudden death of Michael Jackson not occurred within hours.
I didn't follow Fawcett's career, in particular. I was quite young during the Charlie's Angel's era, and when "The Burning Bed" aired, I was at an age where that probably wasn't going to be something I was watching.
When I think of Fawcett, literally every time, this is the image that comes to mind:
I don't know what the current status is, but at one point, this was (by far) the best selling poster, ever.
Even many Central Texans don't know that Fawcett is a Longhorn. She's actually from Corpus Cristi, and attended UT circa 1968. The crazy bit is that, according to Wikipedia, she lived in Jester. Who knew?
She was in a large number of film and television projects, and somehow managed to be married to Lee Majors at one point, which is awesome (and had such an impact, I heard one eulogy incorrectly identify her as Farrah Fawcett-Majors).
Of course Fawcett had most recently been in the public eye with her fight against cancer.
Interestingly, Fawcett's 1970's style had become re-adopted by today's youth, whether they knew the source of the look or not. But a quick Google Image search is kind of interesting.
In this image, Fawcett has just run out her door in time to see the ice cream truck is now too far down the street to catch
editor's notee: Man, this week is messed up. We don't have many weeks where the "celebrity deaths come in threes" thing winds up taking up the bulk of the output. So, yes, I will get to Ms. Fawcett.
So, Ed McMahon died this week.
If you grew up pre-cable or when cable was considered a luxury, then you really only had one TV choice after the evening news, and that choice was "Carson". Sure, it was technically "The Tonight Show", but nobody actually called it that. I have no idea what the numbers were, but the American who didn't think of Johnny Carson, Ed McMahon and Doc as welcome pals in their living room were few and far between.
Hey-yo!
We sort of loved the fact that it wasn't clear what Ed's job actually was. Sure, he intro'd Johnny and chatted with him before the guests came out, but was that a job? Didn't matter. There he was, each and every night, occasionally jumping into the conversation with the guests (who often seemed delighted to meet McMahon, where Johnny made them nervous).
In many ways, if Johnny was the cool guy at the party, McMahon was a mix of Carson's drinking buddy and everyone's favorite uncle.
And, yet, McMahon DID carve out an entirely new role as second banana on TV, and coined phrases that a generation or two can still be heard repeating.
"Hey-yo!" "You are correct, sir!" and, of course... "Heeeeeeere's Johnny!"
classic Carson banter moment
We were happy for him that he landed Star Search, and tuned in to see him try to coach the spokesmodels through their segments without coming off like an idiot. We associated him with the possibility of winning a big sack of money from American Family Publishers. We all opened those ridiculous envelopes (and kind of looked forward to them) because Ed McMahon was such a genial pitchman, even when we knew the odds of winning were roughly equivalent to being hit by a meteor.
There are many things in this universe that are pretty horrendous, ridiculous, and in need of ridicule. In my world, Ed McMahon is not one of them.
more or less how I really remember The Tonight Show
The passing of McMahon, while not entirely unexpected, is one of those things that reminds you that a generation is disappearing, and with it, their culture. Retired since 1992 or so from the Tonight Show, today's college Freshmen (born in 1991ish) will have no concept of who the man was, just as the death of Jack Paar went unnoticed by myself and my generation.
As a face, voice and talent, I'm going to miss Ed McMahon. Even in his final years, when his trophy wife blew all his money (well done on still having a Trophy Wife, Ed!), McMahon seemed to get through his situation with a smile.
As you may know, I keep a Google Ads bar on The League of Melbotis side-bar (RSS readers may not know this). I don't do it to generate revenue. I just like to see what ads are spawned by the most recent posts.
My most recent posts (and the news of the day) is about the early and unexpected death of entertainment and litigation icon Michael Jackson. Apparently, the Google Ads do not miss a @#$%ing beat.
insensitive, yet tacky. click for the full effect,
Jesus H. Christ, Google Ads. I don't care if you're autogenerated or not. Let's see this as a use-case of what-not-to-do, shall we?
Jamie: ..hello! Me: The King is Dead! Jamie: What? Me: The King of Pop is dead. Long live The King! Jamie: ...what? Me: Michael Jackson is dead. Nathan sent me an article. I'm late coming home because I had to verify before going to print. Jamie: He's dead? (long pause as Jamie is clearly opening laptop and going to CNN) Oh. Oh my god. Me: Yeah. Jamie: That's so... weird. (long pause) Me: Some mixed feelings, huh? Jamie: Yeah.
I was 7 or so when Thriller hit the radio. Its got to be hard for anyone born after 1978 or so how absolutely important Michael Jackson was to the pop culture scene between 1982 and 1985. Jackson then disappeared briefly to re-emerge with "Bad",. Soon after, things would turn poorly for the entertainer.
Look, I actually really, really like Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and big parts of "Bad". And "Smooth Criminal". And so while we started to hear weird stories almost immediately (trying to buy "The Elephant Man's" bones, the zoo at Neverland Ranch), it wasn't until I was in high school that the first accusations about impropriety with a kid began to creep out. This was all pre-Internet, so the stories came from supermarket tabloid covers and shows like "A Current Affair". But during one lazy summer, MTV showed the video for "Bad" over and over. And I sorta learned the whole thing. I mean, yeah, I needed the video for reference. I'm not exactly Usher. And, yeah, it's been many a year, but there was a time when I was flopping around my living room imitating The Gloved One. Poorly.
I'm not really sure I need to fill anyone in on the details of the scandals. Either of them (younger readers may not remember the first batch, but they were there).
The truth is that I'm not really sure what the hell happened during those cases. Jackson's, frankly, bizarre and secretive lifestyle made it easy to believe just about anything.
So what do you do? Shrug at the death of a guy who somehow escaped justice time and time again? Or mourn/ pity a guy hounded by the media and possibly falsely accused of one of the most grave crimes an individual can perform?
I have no idea.
About two weeks ago I was going to do a post about latter-era Michael Jackson, but got lazy. I was going to talk about videos from "Dangerous" and the video for "Scream" and "Black & White". But... I sorta thought nobody would be interested.
And, man, it wouldn't be complete without Thriller. Thriller. This video, btw, got MTV banned in my house for a year when The Admiral spied the zombie make-up, decided it was too scary (ignoring that we'd seen the video 100 times before that), and locked it out on the Scientific Atlanta box.
We almost lost cable again, circa 1987, thanks to George Michael's "Father Figure" video, which The Admiral would mistake for soft-core pornography, until I pointed out that they don't show softcore during the 6:00 hour on basic cable.
I was out of town for the Jon & Kate big reveal episode, but DVR is a wonderful tool. Yes, I DVR'd it.
What's stunning is:
this is all taking place on camera. Whatever the show was about with the cute kids and the struggles of raising 8 kids at the same time... that's over with. This stuff would normally play out in the tabloids and result in the show being quietly shelved. Instead, TLC decided to proceed, and Jon & Kate went along with it.
In a way, its pretty savvy. With a show that airs weeks after taping (or even more quickly), the show can manage the situation to an extent and show folks more than they'd really want to see. Speculation becomes a little redundant.
Jamie tells me the episode pulled in 10 million viewers (which is absolutely enormous by basic cable standards). So I'm not entirely certain what will happen. Surely TLC can now offer both parents even larger sacks of money to keep with the show.
Its certainly different from other reality shows in that the narrative has taken a decidedly unexpected turn (will TLC now ask The Little Couple to start having issues to boost their ratings?). The conventions of the "confessional sofa", etc... have taken on a whole different kind of immediacy that a program like "Rock of Love" doesn't really muster.
One last thing: I felt bad for Jon before, and its tempting to say he's doing the wrong thing as one considers the kids. Especially as, seriously, the dude is almost giddy at the prospect of getting this over with. But I don't think his decision is wrong. One day those kids are going to watch those DVD's, and they're going to see exactly why their dad and mom split. Its that, or those kids grow up in a house where they learn that bullying and berating is how a relationship works.
But that doesn't mean I am tuning in any more. This show is now a real downer.
