My Mother the Car

Most people younger than fifty will not remember this short lived TV show.  All I remember is Jerry Van Dyke's mother  reincarnated as a Model A Ford or something like that. He would turn on the radio whenever he wanted to talk to her. Excuse me, a car? There was F-Troop, My Favorite Martian (That means they knew more than one Martian) and one of my all time favorites, It's About Time. Those caveman jokes are timeless.

These shows were for kids to watch and parents to tolerate and were created in the middle of the British Invasion and the invasion of Vietnam War. Kids were dying, doing Acid and smoking Pot everywhere. There may have been political correctness, but I never heard it. I did hear that the Beatles were ruining our youth. What about Dick Van Dyke jumping in and out of chalk pavement pictures or his brother talking to a glove compartment in a rusty car?. I am sure the writers of those shows were doing serious drugs.  Was it biblical to have cavemen and dinosaurs and reincarnation?  Was it correct to send high school kids to southeast Asia and not correct to let them hang out at Haight-Ashbury or Woodstock?

My Mother the Car and shows like it had a premise, go with that and the rest was easy and enjoyable. Mr. Ed was a funny show. Gomer Pyle may not have been everyman but a little bit of Sargent Carter was in all of us. I read today about a new show on some cable network that has teenagers doing all kinds of stuff like sex and drugs. Really, did my kids do those thing?.  The show does not let parents throw a half dressed boy out of  their fifteen year old daughter's  window or kicking their ass when they get caught lighting up. Consequences of unacceptable behavior could be found on Andy Griffith and Leave it to Beaver. You can say whatever you want about Time Tunnel or even The Outer Limits, but they still had values of honesty, consequences and love. Deviancy and crudeness were portrayed as just that, deviant and crude. My Mother the Car did not advocate reincarnation, the show wanted you to laugh at something ridiculous and forget our kids were dying from drugs and bullets.  I was ten years old, I did not know about Vietnam or Haight-Ashbury but I laughed at Mr. Ed.