The older I get, and the more I see of real life, the more I wish we could return to a simpler time. That meant sitcoms and pizza on weekend nights. It was a wood-paneled family room where we all gathered. A dinner where we all sat to eat, no phones or computers or televisions. In my case, it was the 80’s, and though the background was the corporate coldness of a Reagan-fueled greediness (hell, I was being raised by proud Republicans) inside our home there was safety and warmth and the innocent umbrella of childhood keeping out all the acid rain.
Fridays were for roast beef subs with shredded lettuce, and later, when I finally acquired a taste for it, pizza (I didn’t always like it because I was a very strange child). Then we’d move into the family room for ‘Webster’ and ‘Mr. Belvedere’ and ‘CHiPS’ and ‘Dallas‘.
Saturday mornings were about cartoons – the Snorks and the Smurfs and then whatever PBS had to offer – painting with Bob Ross if there was nothing else. Throughout it all, my brother and I would play and engage with toys and legos and other things. We could do both so watching that much television wasn’t like we were glued zombie-like to the screen.
Saturday night television memories seem to revolve around a later section of childhood, when ‘The Facts of Life’ and ‘The Golden Girls’ were on and we could stay up a bit later. Eventually we’d graduate to ‘Saturday Night Live’ by the time I got to high school, and television was less a communal event, and more of a way to pass the weekend until Monday arrived.
PS – Sunday shout-out to ‘Punky Brewster’!
