Have You Seen the New TV Shows? Me, Neither.

I’ve been without cable for almost two years now.  

I have access to about 14 channels, depending, I swear, on the season.  Whole channels disappear for months at a time.  I will miss Mystery Science Theatre when the axis tilts, but if I have to flip by Hunter again — a renegade cop who breaks all the rules! — I may be forced to do something radical, like starting another afghan or replacing the quarter-round in the living room.

At my place, Laugh-In is still playing (and John Wayne is dressed as a large blue bunny), the What’s My Line's panel is dressed in evening wear, there are three different weather channels, and I have the choice of four PBS channels (two if you expect them to have both audio and visual for the full show). 

Then again that’s just the winter line-up.  In the summer there is Celebrity Bowling, where you can watch Roy Rogers and Bob Newhart play against Richard Dawson and Charles Dierkop.

Roy Rogers is a helluva bowler.

It’s the 40s in my house.  And the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s.  

It’s so many decades but the current one.

I sometimes watch Let’s Make a Deal.  Monty Hall gives out $10 apiece for bobby pins, and I clap when women pull them out of their purses. Women wave manicured hands along the lengths of Cadillacs, wearing pantyhose under their stylish 1970s swimsuits. Adorably self-conscious men and women blush when he asks their names, look to each other while deciding if they will go with what's behind Door A and Door B with a lack of guile now found only within dog parks.  

On my TV, there is no plastic surgery.  I watched Dick Cavett interview Shelley Winters the other day.  She was plump and wrinkled, and apparently she had done her own hair.  I almost wept with relief.

Frankly, it’s starting to affect my life.   I've taken up mending and sipping hot drinks from large cups.  I'm thinking of smoking just so that I can do it from a cigarette holder.  I'm wondering if a cocktail party would be out of order and if I could get a go-go dancer for it.

I recently watched a game show where a contestant answered a question with “Carole Lombard!” and I, from my couch, Dolly Gee Squeakers (of the Humane Society Squeakers) at my elbow, shouted,”Good effort!” because, it was.  It was a really good effort, but the answer, ladies and gentlemen, was, of course, Eva Gabor.

Eva Gabor.

That cocktail party is looking better and better.