I was thinking about…My Gen X Small Screen Friends
By Andy Lee
Transporting back through the mental remote’s rearview to my heyday Couch Potato years unveils deeper meaning beneath that ubiquitous laugh track. As a kid of Gen X, I found more than slapstick escape through the TV awaiting my working parents. What I gained was an unlikely second family beckoning me during uncertain coming-of-age in the Faces and Places flickering before me.
I didn’t need neighborhood companionship surrounded by the Cunninghams replaying simpler 50s Midwestern life with a jukebox soundtrack. Escapism arrived reliably on Tuesday nights. I’d watch Jack Tripper theatrically disguise himself as a woman just to afford rent with two codependent roommates in sunny Santa Monica. Even today, who doesn’t secretly covet that carefree California apartment with no real bills? The joys of Hollywood scripts! My own single-income studio setup looked far less idyllic during commercial breaks.
I still pine for Mork’s witty 70s alienspeak subverting the stiff delivery of ’50-style family acts. Or Alex P. Keaton’s sharp fiscal conservatism tempering with empathy on Family Ties beyond other Reagan-era ambition. The maternal familiarity brought into my living room by The Carol Burnett Show with its vaudeville passions so recognizable before my bedtime.
In my muddled teenage years, The Cosby Show’s Huxtable family dinners grounded me weekly amidst off-screen social swirlings no sitcom could ever script. And even today, regenerating my DVD stash of Cheers’ barstool bonhomie or Night Court’s municipal lampooning summons that primal at-home-anywhere sensation sparked only through decades of show loyalty spanning generations.
Yes, today’s on-demand youth await streaming shows on command my analog childhood could never fathom. But in my Gen X heart only the warm predictability of broadcast scheduling will truly emulate coming of age one Thursday night comedy block at a time.
Stay comforted, keep watching. 📺
I was thinking about... 