Once again, my strange life had me attending something I never thought I would be at, ever. I attended David Sirota, discussing his new book Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now. I ‘am not just a huge fan of the 80s but, I’m also the exact guy the author was talking about. I had no idea when I was sitting down to watch TV in the 80s, that here in 2011, I was going to be able to blame all of my problems on those shows. I was a bit interested in the subject but, knowing this was coming from a liberal bias, I was going to be thinking, “What cha talkin bout, Willis?”
The author quickly attacked several of my favorite shows that I may not ever be able to watch again without chuckling. Michael J Fox was one of his big targets from Back to the Future to Family Ties. Michael J Fox is one of the biggest reasons we are so screwed up today. I’m just glad I didn’t have a Teen Bop magazine heart throb picture of him on my wall but a few of my girlfriends sure did. Back to the Future gave us a warped sense of the 1950s and Reagan was able to harness that nostalgia and win the presidency. Yes, I know Back to the future was released in 1980 and Reagan was elected in 1981. Maybe he was talking about his re election. Then that damn Michael J Fox starred in Family ties that showed him as a Reagan conservative and made fun of his dirty hippie parents. I’m not sure but was there a different version of Family Ties? Because that was not the show I was watching. Alex P. Keaton often seemed like the bumbling idiot kid who always had to turn to his former hippie father for the answer. The same hippie father who worked for PBS and was able to raise four kids in a nice house all on a PBS salary. Sounds to me like PBS propaganda.
His next attack was on one of my favorite shows The A-Team. What? The A-Team, he can’t seriously blame the A-Team for our problems. “Why, I Pity the Fool!” He went directly for the title sequence.
In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit.
Obviously the governments screwed up by first ordering them to rob the bank then arrest them for it and this is why children of the 80s now don’t trust the government. I obviously have no other reason not to trust the government.
These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground.
David explained that this was showing once again that only the government could let prisoners escape from a maximum security prison. Gee and I always asked why LA? If you’re going to escape from prison would you really hang out in LA? Why not go some place tropical like Hawaii or Key West? Why not head for the Bahamas or Aruba? I guess they stayed in LA so it was easier for them to shoot their TV show Commuting from the tropics would be a bit difficult.
Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team.
Old ladies, farmers and nuns could all find the A team the author pointed out; everyone could find the A team, but the government. Yes proving once again how inept the government is. Nope it’s not the long lines at the DMV, it’s not bills being passed without reading them and it’s not bombing Aspirin factories, it’s all the A-teams fault. Funny, but I thought the government trained the A team to do exactly what they were doing, but I guess as a kid I missed that message. I do find it funny that both Obama and Mr. T have their own Chia-pets now.
I found out that most of the shows and movies I loved as a kid were evil and wrong. Silver Spoons taught us that you want to be rich. How could anyone hate a show that gave us Ricky Schroder (sorry “Rick” but you’ll always be Ricky to me) and Carlton (Alfonso Ribeiro) be wrong? I know you are all doing the Carlton dance right now. I always wanted a train in my house and a Pac Man game, no train in the house yet, but I’ve got Pac Man on my phone. Home Alone was wrong because what did that brat kid do to live in such a nice house? Why would that kid try and stop a couple of guys who were just trying to spread the wealth? I wanted to slap the guy with a paint can, burn his head with a blowtorch, smash his face with an iron and shove a nail through his foot just like Macaulay Culkin. Hey genius, First he’s a kid maybe you should wonder what his dad did for a living. Second, it’s Macaulay Culkin and he’s starring in a movie that you just plunked down money to see. That’s how he can afford a house in john Hugh’s neighborhood.
The Author went on for far way to long dismantling the eighties to fit his little scenario. Funny, he didn’t mention some of my other favorite shows from the eighties like Different Strokes, oh but that guy was rich forget the fact that he adopted two black children and treated them like his own. How about Chips, John and Ponch seemed like great government employees that cared about their job. Emergency, two paramedics that were always going the extra mile and usually hanging over a cliff all for their measly government check. Then those government employees would race the poor innocent victim to the hospital that never turned them away due to a lack of insurance. Funny all this happened before Obamacare.
He didn’t touch on cartoons much but I loved cartoons in the eighties. I was an underdog fan. I wonder what was wrong with Underdog it was probably racist or taught me that I needed a dog to solve my problems and not the government. The other cartoon I liked was He Man and now that I look back I wonder if the He Man producers were trying to turn me gay. The cartoon I wanted to yell out to the author was the Smurfs. “What are you Smurfin’nuts?” The Smurfs are obviously communists. The Smurfs lived in a village and everyone had a job to serve the village. Their leader Papa Smurf wore communist red and looked like Carl Marx. Even the Name Smurf stands for Socialist Men Under Red Father. Many of my friends were huge Smurf fans and outside of a few I don’t think many of them are socialist.
Funny, I had no idea liberal Hollywood was the cause of all my conservative views. I’ve actually only brought you some of the highlights of the speech, for not agreeing with one thing the man said, I did find it good for a laugh and a nice walk down memory lane. If Vh1 ever does the I Love the 80’s shows again, they should have David Sirota on; he would fit in nicely with the other comedians. After the comedy routine, oops sorry, lecture, I asked one of my liberal minded friends what he thought of the lecture and his response summed it up nicely. “Ya know sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and sometimes producers make movies and TV show just for the money.” I wonder if there was a Producer Smurf.
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