After a somewhat embattled and stressful week, I found myself slumped on the couch with the first cup of tea of the day this morning, and discovered that one of the satellite television channels was showing back-to-back episodes of “The Partridge Family”.
This is where I confess to never having seen a single episode of The Partridge Family in my life before. I’m not even sure they showed it in the UK - I don’t remember it at all, and I should have been about the right age to see it. I remember the Monkees (which seemed to be re-shown on every weekday morning during the summer holidays), and I remember the various Elvis movies and Cliff Richard movies being shown - but no Partridge Family memories.
After sitting through half an episode of Charlies Angels, and a whole episode of David Cassidy & Co this morning, I turned to W and said…
You know, I could, I could quite happily watch this kind of thing all day long.
Whatever happened to such innocent times? While watching one of the song and dance numbers, I realised how differently the program would have been made, had it been done today. David Cassidy would have been the sensible older brother, and Susan Dey (the oldest sister - pictured right) would be front and center, wearing considerably less, and turned into an underage lolita inspired sex bomb.
I don’t want to get into the story of what happened away from the cameras with David Cassidy while he was still very young (quite how he survived is anybody’s guess).
I do want to ask the television companies why they can’t show fun, clean, wholesome shows any more. Is it about time somebody at the top started dictating “this is what children should be watching” rather than “this is what children want to watch” ?