Overheard:  “The thing about Shakespeare is — he was incredibly long-winded.”
I loved that comment.  For the simple reason that it is sure to elicit a comment like this one, also overheard, spoken once the original commenter passes out of sound:
“Shakespeare is long winded?”
“That’s the problem with modern day ignorance.”

It is a sort of contrarianism I wish I were brave enough to profer in the way of this commenter, as jest, and to confound the stranger.  I dare not to, though, for the fear that I will run into the stranger I mean to wrangle in and annoy with such a comment, and I would never be able to win again the lost standing.  Even beside that, I’d have done a part in contributing to their sense of a culture falling to pieces — something that could be fun indeed to do, but also might not be advisable.  The point in favor of such utterances it the thought that just about any response would be either disproportionate to the subject at hand, or a sign of much bigger cultural stakes than is encapsulated in this minor comment.

A little over a year ago, I ran into a headline on whether Shakespeare still reaches / moves us — no, really?  It was published in a major political magazine — here it is.  But he’s not out to argue the case against Shakespeare doesn’t have value.

Meantime, skipping from sixteenth century Brish commercial media to twenty-first century commercial media.  A man responsible for writing the “Jump the Shark” episode of Happy Days defended himself, or buttressed up his pop cultural credentials.  I do not think he quite gets it, as he reels and deals with the Sausage Factory of Television Production.  Take this statement… PLEASE.
Fortunately, my career didn’t jump the shark after “jump the shark.” When “Happy Days” ended, I went directly to the ABC Paramount hit show “Webster” and, after that, wrote and produced, among others, “It’s Your Move,” “He’s the Mayor, “The New Leave It to Beaver” and “Family Matters.”
He gave us Urkel, who was perpetually stuck in a one-note gimmick as Fonzi was when he jumped over a shark wearing a leather vest.  The mind reels.

Still, it’s hard not to read the comments responding to the story and see a certain “Disporportionality” to the cultural problem.

Does someone who is “cool” wear his signature leather jacket while waterskiing?  Of course not.  You turned Fonzie into an idiot.  Also, I have never read anywhere that “jump the shark” had to do with ratings.  It has to do with a show’s internal integrity.  This idiotic episode blew up the Happy Days universe.  Look at the picture.  A pier.  L.A.  Fonzie looking like he was drugged by the nerds he good-naturedly despised, and woke up on water skis.  You included water skiing because the actor liked to water ski?  Gosh, on that principle, how come you didn’t have Fonzi drop the whole blue collar thing and earn an MFA at Yale?

You’re such a Potsie.

AND

Look at the picture that accompanies this article: Fonzie is water skiing wearing a leather jacket. I don’t care if 100 million people saw the show. It was and continues to be mind numbingly stupid. What started as a comedy about high school kids in the 50’s in the midwest turned into a guy in a leather jacket water skiing in Southern California while wearing a leather jacket. Instead of doing something worthwhile with your life you wrote stupid television shows. Now, stop trying to justify the horrible things you did when you were younger and go crawl back in your hole.

But maybe they’re kidding and want to elicit a confounded “Woe is our Culture” response.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 9th, 2010 at 12:31 pm and is filed under On the Ground. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.