The New York Times - USA (2020-10-25)

THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2020 AR 9

Television

11

JOSEPH CAMPBELL
AND THE POWER OF MYTH

A professor, a mantra

and a galaxy far,

far away.

“Follow your bliss”: This piece of
wisdom was familiar to students
who flocked to the classes of
Joseph Campbell, a beloved
literature professor at Sarah
Lawrence College. “Joseph
Campbell and the Power of
Myth,” Bill Moyers’s six-part
series, which aired in 1988,
turned it into a (sometimes mis-
understood) cultural mantra.
“The Hero With a Thousand
Faces,” Campbell’s 1949 study of
comparative mythology, already
had fans among the countercul-
ture, including George Lucas,
who has cited it as a foundational
text for “Star Wars.” But the
show made the professor, who
died before the show aired, into a
mainstream hero and Moyers,
who had returned to PBS after a
10-year run at CBS, into televi-
sion’s leading explorer of the Big
Questions.
JENNIFER SCHUESSLER

12

THE JOY OF PAINTING

Come for the art

lesson. Stay for Bob.

In 1994, the talk show host Phil
Donahue asked Bob Ross to “say
out loud your work will never
hang in a museum.” “Well, may-
be it will,” Ross replied, though
museums were not of course the
point: On “The Joy of Painting”
anyone could be an artist. The
conceit was simple: Paint a
picture in 26 minutes. The shows
were taped in one sitting — a
sunset, some clouds, a mighty
mountain and, in the last mo-
ment, a big pine. It made for
mesmerizing television, then and
now. The show ran for 11 seasons
between 1983 and 1994, and in
2015 became a viral sensation on
the streaming platform Twitch,
where it met an entirely new
audience, previously unfamiliar
with the calming scrape of a
palette knife or the comforts of
Ross’s soothing voice. “There are
no mistakes,” he assured view-
ers, “only happy accidents.” In
March 2019, 24 years after his
death, several of Ross’s paintings
became part of the permanent
collection of the Smithsonian’s
National Museum of American
History.ALICIA DeSANTIS

13

TONGUES UNTIED

Representation with

honesty and dignity.

A New York Times article in 1991,
carrying the headline “TV Film
About Gay Black Men Is Under
Attack,” described “Tongues
Untied” as “an experimental
amalgam of rap music, street
poetry, documentary film and
dance.” Most coverage of the film
focused not on the work itself,
but on straight white people’s
reactions to it: the refusal of
certain public television stations
to air it, Pat Buchanan’s presi-
dential ad campaign that likened
the work to “pornography,” the
congressional hearings with the
aim of ensuring that the National
Endowment for the Arts — from
whom the filmmaker received a
$5,000 grant to help fund the film
— would never be used to fund
works like this again. Missing
were any perspectives from
voices that should’ve mattered:
young gay Black boys like my-
self, in awe of seeing themselves
represented on TV, with honesty
and dignity, for the first time.
JAMAL JORDAN

15

FRONTLINE

Investigative

journalism

at its finest.

The longest-running news docu-

mentary series on television at

more than 700 episodes and

counting, “Frontline” raised the

standard for tough, long-form

investigative journalism when it

was created, by the filmmaker

and producer David Fanning, at

WGBH in Boston in 1983. The

program was a throwback even

then, owing more to the ambi-

tious Cold War-era documenta-

ries of “CBS Reports” than to the

ascendant, faster-paced style of

news coverage that had been

inaugurated three years earlier

by the arrival of CNN. Today,

when mistrust of news is the

norm, fueled by powerful forces

in government and on cable, the

show’s unflashy commitment to

in-depth reporting, standards of

proof and, above all, public serv-

ice has never been less fashion-

able — or more essential.

REGGIE UGWU

16

THE ELECTRIC COMPANY

Making grammar cool

as only the ’70s could.

Faster than a rolling “O” and

stronger than a silent “E,” this

mostly live-action children’s

television show debuted in 1971

as the cool cat big sister to “Sesa-

me Street.” “We’re going to turn

it on,” the theme song began —

“it” meant literacy. The original

cast included Morgan Freeman,

Rita Moreno and Bill Cosby, plus

Irene Cara as part of the in-

house kids band, the Short Cir-

cus. Mel Brooks showed up to

voice “The Blond-Haired Cartoon

Man.” Each of the 780 half-hour

episodes, produced by the Chil-

dren’s Television Workshop,

taught kids phonics with blinding

’70s visuals and short sketches

that deployed parody, satire,

surrealism and doo-wop. Can-

celed in 1977, it was in the words

of Freeman’s D.J. character, Mel

Mounds, “righteous, delighteous

and out-of-sighteous.”

ALEXIS SOLOSKI

17

LILIAS, YOGA AND YOU

Who knew we needed

downward dog?

She did.

Before we had hot yoga, trampo-

line yoga and goat yoga tutorials

at our fingertips, there was Lil-

ias. Lilias Folan wasn’t the first

to popularize yoga. But she was

perhaps the first to bring the

exotic-seeming practice into

middle-American living rooms,

with her show “Lilias, Yoga and

You,” which aired from 1970 to

1981. Time magazine once called
      her “the Julia Child of yoga.” A
      (male) journalist for The San
      Francisco Chronicle, writing in
      1979, was a bit more effusive:
      “My yoga lady remains a mys-
      tery woman, a comely creature
      from a distant planet. She is
      demure and quite serious. By far
      her most intriguing aspect is that
      she never sweats.” A 2006 re-
      boot, “Lilias! Yoga Gets Better
      With Age,” was shorter-lived.
      Her star may have faded, but for
      many, Lilias still flickers at the
      edge of childhood memory (and
      on YouTube), with her long dark
      braid and boldly colored uni-
      tards, leaning into a sun saluta-
      tion.JENNIFER SCHUESSLER

18

BARNEY AND FRIENDS

When a purple

dinosaur ruled

the earth.

Their kids may have their own

kids by now, but parents of a

certain era still have “Barney is a

dinosaur from our imagination,”

the opening line of the “Barney

and Friends” theme song, stuck

in their heads. The show, whose

purple star spread cheer and

nonthreatening messages, began

life as a D.I.Y. video project cre-

ated by a woman in Texas. When

the young daughter of a public

television executive in Connecti-

cut wouldn’t stop watching one of

the videos, he smelled a pre-

school hit and acquired the

rights. It was a golden instinct:

“Barney” romped from 1992 to

2009 and spawned an avalanche

of toys and other spinoffs. Par-

ents, less tolerant of the cloying

T. Rex than their offspring, no

doubt stocked up on earplugs.

NEIL GENZLINGER

20

WHERE IN THE WORLD

IS CARMEN SANDIEGO?

When a geography

lesson came with a

side of crime.

This sticky-fingered filcher first

emerged in a 1985 video game of

the same name but was brought

to life thanks to the game show

that took kids around the world

— and, later, through history.

With her signature red trench

coat and fedora, Carmen

Sandiego led viewers on wild

goose chases from Nashville to

Norway while also working to

remedy what the show’s creators

saw as an alarming statistic:

According to a National Geo-

graphic survey in 1991, the year

the series debuted, one in four

Americans could not locate the

Pacific Ocean. The superthief is

still pilfering away today, in a

Netflix animated series and on

Google Earth.JENNIFER HARLAN

21

ANTIQUES ROADSHOW

Have you checked

your attic lately?

Go now.

“Antiques Roadshow,” the gen-

tlest forebear of the reality TV

boom, premiered in 1997 and

never left. The premise of this

BBC format is simple: People lay

their bric-a-brac before appraisal

specialists and discover whether

these objects hold value beyond

nostalgia. A mild tone of British

restraint that survived the

show’s American assimilation

imbues each transaction. When a

dusty basement bagatelle does

render a hefty estimate (like the

Diego Rivera painting valued

near $1 million in a 2013

episode), the audience gets the

thrill of the reveal, but the own-

ers’ responses tend to the under-

stated, typically ranging from

speechlessness to “Gosh!” Never

lingering on dashed hopes, “An-

tiques Roadshow” lacks the

greedier edge of spawn like

“Storage Wars” and “Pawn

Stars.” Twenty-four seasons in,

seen by up to eight million view-

ers a week, it has new relevance

as the ultimate upcycler of the

declutter age, where “stuff” isn’t

shameful, but aspirational.

KATRINA ONSTAD

Half a Century of Milestones

BILL PIERCE/SESAME WORKSHOP

14

SESAME STREET

A lesson about humor that

Kal Penn won’t forget.

One of my earliest memories of watching TV was “Sesame

Street.” The way that show embraces imagination was

very, very cool to me. Just the idea that all things are

possible, and that when you have a combination of

humans and Muppets and animation — all of the

educational pieces of it — to me it was boundary-less. As

the son of immigrant Americans it was one of the few, if

not the only, inclusive pieces of television for a very long

time. I think that probably played some role in feeling that

the characters and the creativity were boundless. Just

being able to see ourselves in children’s television in a

way that lets you know that where your parents are from

is OK, and your family structure is OK, and all of the

things that you’re otherwise “othered” about in the world.

“Sesame Street” makes you feel like you’re part of a

wonderful group of friends. The humor is rarely based on

making fun of anybody. I think as adults the easy joke is

always to make fun of somebody, and the thing that I love

about humor — like the “Harold & Kumar” movies, even

— is when the jokes are rarely, if ever, at the expense of

somebody else. That’s not just a thing for kids; there’s that

inner-“Sesame Street” that we should all remember.

Kal Penn is the host and creator of “Kal Penn Approves

This Message” on Freeform. Interview by Julia Carmel.

Stevie Wonder in a “Sesame Street” guest appearance.

19

MISS MARPLE

A smart British lady led

Damon Lindelof on a hunt

for clues.

My folks split up in 1984. This meant every other

weekend was spent at my dad’s apartment and

approximately 20 hours of television before he

delivered me back to my mom’s, glassy-eyed and

buzzing with narrative. The old man loved sci-fi and

horror, but the thing he loved most was a good

whodunit, and that is how an 11-year old boy became

infatuated with Miss Marple. Miss Marple was smart.

Miss Marple was British. She was also funny (“They

call it ‘dry’ over there,” my dad would say), tenacious

and did not suffer fools. But most of all, in an era

where almost every hero curated for an adolescent

boy vibrated with unapologetic masculinity, Miss

Marple was a lady. Unmarried, unattached and

uninterested in anything other than tripping liars up

in mistruths and a nice cup of tea, Miss Marple had no

job that I recall, just a way of showing up wherever a

well-dressed corpse did. As PBS presented these

adventures sans commercial interruption (aside from

the occasional pledge drive, and yes, we had a tote

bag for every poisoned cadaver), my father and I had

no breaks to gather clues, so we had to shout at the

television in real time — “There’s blood on the

gardening shears!” “There’s the missing cuff link!”

Yet we were almost never ahead of Miss Marple, who

was almost certainly ahead of her time.

Damon Lindelof is a writer and producer whose credits

include “Lost,” “The Leftovers” and “Watchmen.”

Joan Hickson played Miss Marple.

PBS

JEFF DUNN/WGBH

VIA BOB ROSS COMPANY

JOHANSEN KRAUSE/SESAME WORKSHOP

PARTY OF ONE STUDIO

50 YEARS OF PBS

CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

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