Tribute to Steve Allen

November 6, 2000 2:23 AM

Tribute to Steve Allen (via infidels.org)
posted by black8 (6 comments total)

Any admiration I had for Steve Allen was largely wiped out by all the bluenose anti-TV efforts he made in recent years. His efforts to protect us all from such ills as steamy unmarried sexual situations and even words like like freaking, screw and blows.

Here's one of the scenes that Allen's anti-TV group considered objectionable, from Norm:

Norm: "It’s not a massage parlor the way you think of a massage parlor."
Boss: "So she doesn’t have sex with the customers?"
Norm: "Well, then it is a massage parlor."

Pretty steamy stuff, huh?

(Incidentally, another one of the people lending his name to Allen's group is Sen. Joe Lieberman. I'm voting Gore, but one of the things I'll regret if he wins is that Lieberman is just as unctious as Allen when it comes to TV. He used to condemn the airing of Friends in the first hour of primetime, and admitted later to a reporter that he had never seen the show.)
posted by rcade at 8:08 AM on November 6, 2000

I have watched Friends and I gotta say they ride the line quite a bit. I'm 33 and certainly no prude, but if I was a parent, I'm sure I'd be really cautious about what I let my kids watch.
Then again, I'm pretty sure the first time I'd heard of sex, rape, war and murder all came from reading the Bible...
posted by black8 at 8:47 AM on November 6, 2000

Then again, I'm pretty sure the first time I'd heard of sex, rape, war and murder all came from reading the Bible...

Really? Mine came from Davey and Goliath.

Seriously though, between Lieberman and Tipper, the entertainment industry is going to have to jump through some major hoops to keep me tantalized between commercials.

posted by schlomo at 9:44 AM on November 6, 2000

Luckily, the commercials continue to use sex to sell everything (hey, instead of debates we should have had presidential jello wrestling)
posted by seitz at 12:29 PM on November 6, 2000

It's hard to skewer a man that old for his views on the limits of good taste.

Is it a bad thing that we are able to be more free with comedy today? I think that the more society is able to discuss aspects of life in the open, the more healthy we become.


"Humor is just another defense against the universe."- Mel Brooks
posted by john at 12:48 PM on November 6, 2000

It's not the openness that irritates - it's the banality of the product, and the insistence that any sense of decorum is some silly bourgeois reflex reaction to Daring, Brave Artists.

That said, I think Allen went too far in his they've-gone-too-far screeds, but we can all expect to hear something similar from Andrew Dice Clay in 45 years.
posted by lileks at 2:58 PM on November 6, 2000