Will today’s shows be on TV 60 years from now? I doubt it. I seriously doubt it (Gilligan’s Island actually started 58 years ago, but that’s pretty close). This movie sequel here is from 1978, the show ran from ’64 – ’66. The writing in this movie is already so cringy. Not to mention we have fake Ginger here. But that’s not the issue! Gilligan’s Island is a part of a larger phenomena I call a “shared cultural experience“.

Back then we had 3 channels: ABC, NBC & CBS. PBS wasn’t even a thing until 1967 or so, not that it ever had programs a kid would want to watch anyway. Don’t get me wrong, there was a lot of crap on the air back then. Not everything was Masterpiece Theater. I’m not saying Gilligan’s Island was always perfect either. But it has stood the test of time. As did Gunsmoke, Leave It to Beaver, I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched and say The Beverly Hillbillies.

I don’t know, maybe I’m full of it. My kid’s generation had favorite shows like Saved By The Bell, Power Rangers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Are those shows shown 30 years later? Two of them are. Two adult shows from 30 years ago that are shown today are Heat of the Night and Walker Texas Ranger. So its starting to look like I’m full of crap. I guess so.

But just the video I used for this post supports my argument in a way. This reunion movie a dozen years after the series ended. It was an EVENT. We watched it. Bad as it was. Despite the fake Ginger. There were several more movies just from this series. Not to mention reunion movies from the Brady Bunch and The Waltons. It was around the late 70’s when cable television came into being and put an end to “the 3 channels” and the shared cultural experience.

Changing demographics. Losing societal innocence: Vietnam, Watergate, all the high profile assassinations, the internet. Then in the last few years losing all national identity when we lost control of our border. No longer being able to hold an honest election. Not to mention the cultural destruction of this whole boys are girls (?) thing. They fought so long for “women’s rights” only to turn over their movement to self identifying lunatics.

I didn’t like having to go where I did in the above paragraph, so I’m not even going to get into COVID and The Great Reset. I don’t know. I just can’t help but feel we lost ‘something’. I’m not sure what it is, but I’m pretty sure its gone. For example we’ll never have again the Hollywood Legends that we had 80 years ago. The Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn class of celebrity.

I apologize for being on this tirade before in music and other areas. Just now trying to figure out why it bothers me so much I think it came to me. We’re losing our cultural identity. The ‘American’ is dying. And if the American is dying, it kind of goes to follow that ‘America‘ is dying. That’s not good. Not on a small scale and not on a global scale.

Lose the culture, lose the country. Hence the “culture war”.