Lies my television has told me
That’s a lame and non-sensical title for this post, because honestly, does my TV ever not lie to me? I mean except for static or color bars or when I turn it off.
But even those old shows lie to you. Re-runs are not true-to-life portrayals of the world. One example I was thinking about–The Beverly Hillbillies. You know it, right? Remember the theme song?
Come and listen to a story about a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed,
Then one day he was shootin’ at some food,
And up through the ground came a bubblin’ crude.
Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea.
Well the first thing you know ole Jed’s a millionaire,
Kinfolk said “Jed move away from there”
Said “Californy is the place you ought to be”
So they loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly.
Wait, wait, wait. Just a minute.
Ok, Jed and all the Clampetts were living in squalor, I mean below Deliverance standards. Then Jed strikes oil, and gets rich. Really rich.
And what do the ‘kinfolk’ say? Come again?
“Jed move away from there” ??
I can buy the concept of a flying nun, a talking horse, a suburban witch, a slave girl living in a genie bottle. You bet.
But relatives of a newly made millionaire that say “Hey, go on, get out of this dump, go to Beverly Hills and build you a cement pond with Granny, your Dr. Doolitte-esque sexpot niece and Jethro your new bodyguard/lesbian magnet. Don’t bother buying us indoor plumbing or anything. We’ll just stay right here and eat roadkill and enjoy our outhouses….don’t pay us no nevermind. We’re your own flesh and blood! But you high-falutin’ oil baron, now go on and get outta here.”
Nope. I’m not buying it. They’d be lined up all the way to Pigeon Forge, with their hands outstretched, asking for dough. If he tried to load up that truck, they’d have shot him.
They look a little waxy
Am I right?
