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‘ABC,’ Kung Fu, Charlie’s Angels and The Tonight Show
By Scott Harrup | June 26, 2009
Obits hit the headlines constantly, some making a bigger splash than others. But the recent loss of David Carradine, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson feel linked, and their combined weight transcends whatever individual ripples they create in the international media pool.
It’s almost as if 1970s television has died too. Jackson’s shrill rendition of “ABC” stands out in my mind as distinctly as any of his later hits, and he and his brothers supplied Saturday morning cartoon fare during my early elementary years. Carradine’s martial arts prowess on Kung Fu enlivened Saturday night. I saw very few episodes of Charlie’s Angels, and wasn’t allowed to stay up late enough to watch The Tonight Show until my teens, but there was no escaping Fawcett or McMahon. Her smile flashed like no other, and his booming introductions for Johnny Carson were one of a kind.
Celebrities leave such large-scale records of their brief visits to Earth that their passing creates a paradox. They’re gone, but their images and voices keep jumping off of pages and screens, sometimes for generations. If I pull North by Northwest off the shelf of our DVDs and hit “play,” Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint still enthrall. Kirk Douglas still leads his army of gladiators in Spartacus; George C. Scott still rallies his Allied forces in Patton.
The recent passage of another Father’s Day has me asking myself what continuing influence I will have on my children and grandchildren, should Christ tarry. My memories of 30-year-old TV shows and classic movies are sentimental, yes, but they remind me that words and actions never emerge in a vacuum. They touch other lives — sometimes with blessing, sometimes with pain.
I pray that mine would fall far more often into the first category.
Topics: Books and Films, History, Family Life |
