There’s more Galactica talk on the way, but in the meantime I’d like to direct the attention of my three loyal readers to some cool stuff I’ve run across during my recent surfings.

First up is a page of incredible photos from the lakefront of Geneva, Switzerland, where water-spray driven by strong winds last week met incredibly cold temperatures and resulted in a winter wonderland. Wonderful, that is, unless you were one of the unlucky slobs who found their cars entombed beneath a six-inch-thick shell of ice. It’s going to take a lot of those little cans of de-icer to get those doors open…

Meanwhile, closer to home, we’ve recently seen several hundred obituaries and op-ed pieces devoted to the death of Johnny Carson, but there are two in particular that I think are worth your time. The first is by Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin), who appeared on The Tonight Show many times and chose to write his rememberance of Johnny as a letter to the deceased. As someone who is well on his way to becoming one of those tiresome old bores who constantly grumble about how everything’s gone to hell since their day, I found the following lines especially interesting:

In you I saw simplicity, joy, politeness, sympathy. Your death reminds me of the loss of America’s innocence, the distance we have come from your sly, boyish leers to our flagrant, overstated embarrassments for parents and children.

That really speaks to something I’ve been thinking for several years now, which is that the sexual content of our entertainment has become extremely unhealthy. Now, before you go and lump me in with those idiots who came unhinged over Janet Jackson’s bare boobie, let me explain that I’m no prude and I’m not offended in the least by nudity, sex, or sexual language on television. What bothers me isn’t the content per se, but rather the tone in which it’s presented. I’m not sure of how best to articulate this, but basically it seems to me that, although everyone on TV is talking about It these days, no one much seems to be enjoying it. We’ve replaced the bawdy, twinkle-in-the-eye fun of Johnny Carson’s one-liners with the joyless moans of blank-faced porn stars. I don’t want to go too far with this line of thinking right now — it probably deserves its own entry, actually — but I agree with Steve Martin that Johnny’s death is, in a sense, symbolic of the end of a better era in American popular culture. An era of “grown-up entertainment” instead of “adult entertainment.”

Syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts sees Johnny as a symbol of another era, too, but his take is a little different. He sees Johnny as the last television entertainer that everyone enjoyed: black, white, rich, poor, and every other American dichotomy you can think of. Pitts notes that:

Watching [Johnny’s] show was an American ritual, something we all did back when television was a uniting force. Indeed, during some of those difficult days, television might have been the only thing we the people had in common. We were of different ages, races, religions and political parties, but we all loved Lucy, all grew up in Mayberry, all knew the theme song that began, “Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale…”

 

All had points of reference in common.

 

Carson‘s death is a reminder that that moment is long past and that pop culture offers little — the Super Bowl aside — that still brings diverse people together. Yes, television still produces popular programs. But look at the numbers and you’ll see that popularity itself isn’t what it used to be.

 

Consider American Idol, one of the most popular programs of this era. Last Tuesday’s show drew an 18.3 Nielsen rating. Now consider that I Love Lucy had an average rating of 67.3 in the ’52-’53 season. Restaurants closed when that show was on. Watching it was a communal experience in a way American Idol can never be.

Like I said, it was a better era back in the days before we had 500 channels and all-digital everything.

Even video games were better, in large part because they were so much simpler. There is, after all, great charm to be found in the so-called primitive. Don’t believe me? Then check out the latest venture by actor/writer/geek/all-round-cool-guy Wil Wheaton: it’s a new weekly column for The Onion AV Club in which Wil reviews the cutting-edge electronic amusements of twenty-five years ago. First up: an Atari classic called Gunslinger. I even like the graphics on the cartridge…