You don’t even have to be “of a certain age,” though. I am not old enough to have seen Gilligan’s Island in its first run. But it was on at 6:30am when I was in the 6th grade. I got up before everybody else, and watched it over breakfast, then took a shower while everyone else was still crawling out of bed.
I could tell the show was bad, but it was the definition of camp-- stupid, but fun, because it looks like the people doing it are having fun. Sometimes something is so over the top stupid, it’s as though this time, we’re going to see if we can top the stupid of last time.
That’s the only reason I can think for the show’s cult status. There was a Gilligan’s Island pinball machine made in the 1990s. So the show was still popular enough then for the machine to find an audience.
When I worked in a high school with kids the class of 97-02, they were watching it still. And I know it’s on now. It’s on MeTV, or one of the other “oldies” channels, but it’s probably finding new audiences. I haven’t watched it to see whether the commercials are for reverse mortgages and med-alert systems, Geico insurance and moisturizers, or cell phones and fast food, so I don’t know who the target audience is, but I’m sure the show still draws a little from all over.
Politicians meet a lot of people from all over. And in some cases, they’ve found it a political necessity not to be too cautious.
I don’t think it’s “political” to say that the Republican and Democratic parties have supported different approaches to public health, especially gatherings and masking. It feels like that’s made a dramatic difference in infection rates between the two groups of politicians - It will be interesting to see what the data shows when all this is over and we can step back and take a look.
I’d heard of him – there was quite a bit of news coverage when he did his fundraising walks last spring, and when he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth last July. Then again, the BBC is one of my primary news sources, so I may well have been more aware of him than most Americans.
As you note, that’s the thing – Darth Vader, the character, is very widely known. David Prowse, the actor behind the mask, who died from COVID-19, never appeared unmasked in a Star Wars film – Vader’s voice was provided by James Earl Jones, and when he appeared unmasked, or as Anakin Skywalker, he was played by other actors.
Unless you’re a serious Star Wars fan, you probably have no idea that the guy in the suit was named David Prowse. And, unless you’re that big of a SW fan, or knew about Prowse from his other roles in the U.K., particularly that of the Green Cross Man in public service ads, you very likely wouldn’t have recognized him by his face.
There was a long-running series of public-service ads for the Green Cross Code, a program to promote pedestrian safety in the U.K. In the ads, Prowse played the Green Cross Man, a superhero who taught kids about being safe while crossing streets and such.
That’s how I remember him best - he was everywhere on British TV in the 70s. He taught us all how to cross the road! It was a ‘woah’ moment for 70s kids when we learned he was Darth Vadar.
“Kent Taylor, the founder and chief executive of the Texas Roadhouse restaurant chain, died by suicide on Thursday after suffering from post-Covid-19 symptoms, the company and his family said in a statement. He was 65.”
(I know, mixing mediums, or, in this case, larges)