Sign of the Times: Betty Lou Lynn, 83 — who played Thelma Lou on the old “Andy Griffith Show” — moved to Mount Airy, NC after the third time she was mugged in LA. Mount Airy was the town depicted as bucolic Mayberry on “Andy Griffith.”
Last week in Mount Airy, Ms. Lynn was mugged, her wallet stolen.
From the 2010 version of the Griffith show, we envision this episode synopsis:
“With Sheriff Taylor out of town visiting Opie at the sex addiction rehab, Deputy Barney Fife, left in charge, shoots himself with his own stun gun while chasing car-jackers who make off with Goober’s flatbed. Ashley Dupre guest stars as Aunt Bea’s visiting niece who sells conflicting Goldman Sachs tips to Floyd the Barber.”
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Give ’em credit. We can only admire the nation’s TV news divisions for the new and creative ways they find to sell baloney.
Last Sunday’s CBS’s “60 Minutes” included a piece on the plight of Mexicans, especially children, who risk drowning while trying to cross into the U.S. Shown was a “Potter’s Field” graveyard in Arizona, scores of tombstones marking the burial sites of unknown Mexicans who, it was implied, were killed trying to enter the U.S.
Heavy hitting, heavy-hearted stuff.
The clear, end-of-piece message was that regardless of one’s position on immigration laws and their enforcement, nothing — nothing — is more important than the lives of children.
But in the days and nights before this piece aired, CBS had made it clear that at least one thing is more important “ the exclusive interview “60 Minutes” had landed with Conan O’Brien. That was the piece from “60 Minutes” that was relentlessly promoted on CBS, Ch. 2 and WCBS radio.
That, and nothing and no one else, was what had been determined to be the only reason, last Sunday, to watch “60 Minutes.”
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While we’re on the flaring issue of illegal immigrants, the word games attached to the issue are now glaringly suspicious. The pattern:
Those in TV, radio and print least sympathetic to illegal immigrants tend to refer to them as “illegal aliens,” as if they’re subversives from far, far away, perhaps from the evil planet Mexanus.
Those who are most sympathetic to illegal immigrants tend to classify them as “undocumented immigrants,” as if they’re not here illegally but perhaps have misplaced their documents, or lost them in a fire, or the people down at the documentation center ran out of documents.
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There’s a new TV ad for Tide that testifies to the superior quality of the laundry detergent based on the claim that Tide removes — ugh! — chocolate pudding stains.
Whoa, back up a minute, Soapy. As a lifelong chocolate pudding freak, I’ve been removing such stains for years. Heck, in college, whatever powdered soap packet was left in the Laundromat vending machine was good enough to remove chocolate pudding.
That Tide commercial brings to mind one for Bic pens that ran 40-plus years ago. A figure skater strapped a Bic to one of her skates then skated a few figure eights. Next, that pen was removed and put to a flame. And it still worked! Through fire and ice it still wrote!
But in our house, no pen was discarded before my father administered last rites: He’d put a match to the tip. If there was ink left, the heat would soften it up and the pen was still a pen; it’s life would be spared.
So Tide removes chocolate pudding stains? Yeah, well, so can I.
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People continue asking why, if Tiger Woods claims to be so intensely private about his family — he named his 155-foot yacht “Privacy” (just a slight misunderstanding away from “Piracy”) — did he allow Nike to resurrect his deceased father in TV ads?
Who knows? All I can come up with is money.