The 1960s Magicoms: Escapism, Regulation, and Lasting Impact

The 1960s Magicoms: Safety in Numb-ers

Introduction to "Magicoms"

• Sitcoms as Cultural Mirrors: Sitcoms reflect what is felt or experienced in a culture, often mirroring society more accurately than other genres, serving as a barometer for ideas not yet ready for prime time.

• Emergence of Magicoms: A particular group of ten sitcoms from the 1960s, drawing large audiences, departed significantly from reality.

  • Shows Included: While often dismissed as escapist, these shows are Mister Ed, My Favorite Martian, My Living Doll, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, My Mother the Car, The Smothers Brothers Show, The Flying Nun, It's About Time, and The Second Hundred Years.

  • Definitions: David Marc calls them "magicoms" (Comic $107$); Lynn Spigel, "fantastic family sit-coms" (Dreamhouse $119$); Susan Douglas describes them as creating "a bizarre cartoon world hermetically sealed off from politics and history" (p. $27$). This chapter uses "magicoms."

• Significance: Magicoms reveal much about American self-image and television's evolution in its first decade of cultural dominance. They can be seen as:

  • An endpoint to TV's "Golden Age."

  • A repudiation of the nascent era where cultural uplift was a medium's purpose.

  • A catalyst for a social sea change, shifting the public from culture producers to passive consumers, with magicoms demanding even greater passivity.

Regressive Themes and Cultural Backlash

• Embedding Regressive Strains: These shows embedded "invisible assumptions" (Arthur Kroker), including anti-intellectualism, anti-feminism, anti-federalism, and anti-environmentalism. These became embedded in civic discourse in the 1980s and 1990s.

• Normalizing Regressive Attitudes: Despite varied outlooks of directors and audience interpretations, magicoms' combination of illogic, repetition, and conservatism normalized regressive attitudes, adding momentum to the backlash against 1960s progressive movements.

• Extreme Escapism: While escapism is integral to art, magicoms offer a form that departs entirely from reality.

  • Distinction from Absurdism/Existentialism: Unlike Monty Python, Woody Allen, Beckett, or Ionesco, magicoms make no comment on the human condition.

  • Demand for Surrender: They don't just rely on suspension of disbelief but demand an "out-and-out surrender of critical faculties."

  • "Innovation" = Avoidance of Relevance: The primary "innovation" in magicoms was contrivances to steer clear of relevance.

  • Critical Reception vs. Ratings: Universally panned by critics, but high ratings meant networks successfully served "pabulum at just the right temperature."

Spotlight on Individual Magicoms

• ### Mister Ed (1961-1966)

  • Premise: A talking palomino horse (Ed) who only speaks to his owner, architect Wilbur Post.

  • Origins: Roots in Walter R. Brooks's 1937 short stories and 1950s "Francis the Talking Mule" movies.

  • Broadcast History: Began in syndication, later moving to network mainstream.

  • Common Themes: Establishes two magicom themes:

    1. Non-human character (Ed) demonstrates the greatest common sense, while humans are often dimwitted and hapless.

    2. Mines comic conflicts between Wilbur's city background and his rural landowner role, paving the way for "ruralcoms" like The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, and Green Acres.

  • Contrast with Ruralcoms: Progenitors like The Andy Griffith Show and The Real McCoys also featured city slickers but were less reliant on stereotypes, portraying country folk as more three-dimensional.

• ### My Favorite Martian (1963-1966)

  • Context: Emerged amid Cold War paranoia and preoccupation with aliens. Unlike dramatic Twilight Zone or Outer Limits, it played for laughs, akin to Mad Magazine parodies.

  • Character: "Uncle" Martin, a less threatening extraterrestrial, crash-lands near Los Angeles and settles with Tim O'Hara.

  • Powers and Behavior: Uses magical powers for chores (e.g., levitating furniture for vacuuming) and takes a bemused, anthropological interest in human behaviors.

  • Influence: Provided a template for intellectually oriented, emotionally challenged space invaders like Spock (Star Trek).

  • Decline: Faded quickly after initial popularity, possibly due to a "lack of edge."

• ### My Living Doll (1964)

  • Premise: A doctor (Robert Cummings) molds a robot (Julie Newmar) into the "perfect" woman, meaning strict obedience and no backtalk.

  • Critical Reception: Often crossed the line from escapist to creepy.

  • Short Lifespan: Attributed to Cummings' sudden departure, but also failure to make viewers care about the doctor or his project. The idea of Julie Newmar not being human was "asking too much."

• ### Bewitched (1964-1972)

  • Premise: Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery), a witch, is married to Darrin (Dick York/Dick Sargent), an ineffectual mortal advertising manager.

  • Broadcast Milestones: An immediate hit, it featured the first television couple not married in real life to share a bed (October 1964 episode).

  • Samantha's Role: By suppressing her formidable powers to be a "normal" American housewife, Samantha became a hero to traditionalists.

  • Endora's Role: Samantha's mother, Endora (Agnes Moorehead), appalled by her daughter's choice, mocks Darrin and disdains the American Dream (marriage, children, suburban house, security). She is portrayed as a radical feminist character, appearing in psychedelic garb, cradling a hookah, and quoting Coleridge's "Kubla Khan."

  • Audience Readings (Fiske & Hartley/Stuart Hall):

    • Dominant Reading: Many viewers found nobility in Samantha's loyalty, restraint, and self-sacrifice.

    • Oppositional Reading: Many women took pleasure in Samantha's mastery and superiority, seeing her as smarter, more creative, and versatile than men (Douglas, p. $128$), contributing to "prefeminist agitation" (Douglas, p. $125$).

• ### I Dream of Jeannie (1965-1970)

  • Context: Designed to capitalize on Bewitched's success, but adopted a more strident anti-feminist stance.

  • Jeannie's Character: Portrayed by Barbara Eden, Jeannie is a genie in scanty harem garb (costume covered her navel due to network Standards and Practices) who lacks choice and dignity. She is impetuous, devious, and extremely jealous.

  • Relationship Dynamic: Her sole purpose is to "please her master," astronaut Captain/Major Anthony "Tony" Nelson. Sex is never spoken of as the couple is unmarried.

  • Enforcement of Power Dynamic: Many episodes ended with Tony literally putting Jeannie back in her genie's bottle.

  • "The Americanization of Jeannie" (1965 Episode): Jeannie adopts feminist rhetoric after reading about women's liberation, refusing wifely duties. She recants when Tony finds her independence unattractive and unfeminine, abandoning her quest for equality when her "sex appeal" is at risk.

• ### My Mother the Car (1965-1966)

  • Premise: David Crabtree discovers his late mother reincarnated as a 1928 Porter automobile that only speaks to him through its radio.

  • Critical Standing: Proclaimed by TV Guide as the second-worst TV show of all time.

  • Plots: David is caught between his mother's upkeep demands (e.g., complains of cold, gets drunk on antifreeze) and the schemes of antique car collector Captain Manzini.

• ### The Smothers Brothers Show (1965-1966)

  • Premise: Tom Smothers portrays an aspiring angel creating havoc, dispatched to provide spiritual guidance to his buttoned-down publishing executive brother, Dick.

  • Successor: Preceded the more popular and innovative The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

  • Significance: Last CBS sitcom filmed in black and white.

• ### The Flying Nun (1967-1970)

  • Premise: Sister Bertrille (Sally Field) possesses the ability to fly due to sudden updrafts caught by her cornette (headgear), sometimes vaguely attributed to God.

  • Public Perception: A target for ridicule. Unlike her previous role as Gidget, Sister Bertrille was a "cipher, a cardboard cut-out of cute," to be laughed at rather than with.

  • Sally Field's Experience: Field, still a teenager, became despondent over the role, saying "nothing I could make sense of."

• ### It's About Time (1966-1967)

  • Premise: Two astronauts inadvertently breach the space-time continuum and are stranded in the Stone Age.

  • Cast: Made watchable primarily by Imogene Coca, though a departure from her celebrated work on Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows.

  • Producer's Intent: Sherwood Schwartz's attempt to repackage Gilligan's Island, but lacked key ingredients—the "nudnik charm" of Bob Denver and the "sex appeal" of Mary Ann and Ginger.

• ### The Second Hundred Years (1967-1968)

  • Premise: Inspired by National Geographic archaeological discoveries, a prospector, Luke Carpenter, killed in Alaska in 1900, is found preserved 67 years later, still aged $33$ despite being reunited with his now-older son and same-aged grandson.

  • Plots: Features conflicts arising from Luke's incompatibility with modern life (e.g., shooting his TV during a cowboy show, "rescuing" a go-go dancer from her "cage").

  • Outcome: Few thoughts were provoked, and the show was cancelled after $26$ episodes.

Distinction from The Munsters and The Addams Family

• Not Magicoms: These two shows, though sometimes lumped with magicoms, are not a proper fit.

• Alternative Universe: In these shows, the strange and supernatural are not deviations from reality but everyday occurrences in an alternative universe.

• Focus: Both families seek domestic bliss through "monsterdom" (e.g., ingesting insects, cultivating dead plants, putting one's head in a vise).

• Social Commentary: Their domestic bliss is disturbed by "normal" outsiders who are not merely spooked but intolerant and vindictive. These shows are allegorical and poignant, foregrounding xenophobia and bigotry, balancing escapism with consistent social commentary.

The "Folderol": Why Magicoms Appeared and Succeeded

• Beyond Supply and Demand: More than just "giving the people what they want," the radical detachment from reality in magicoms was the primary point; evasion was the creative strategy.

• The 1960s Context: An answer is suggested by the era's anxieties:

  • Kennedy's "New Frontier" (1960): A speech infused with both hope and deep foreboding about "unknown opportunities and perils," "unsolved problems of peace and war," and "unconquered problems of ignorance and prejudice."

  • Troubling News Images: As the 1960s progressed, news was fraught with images of inner cities under siege, women burning bras, hippies, and yippies. Sitcom advertisers and producers wanted no part of this.

  • "Nervousness in the National Consciousness" (Gerard Jones, p. $180$): Magicoms were an expression of fears popular culture wasn't ready to confront directly.

  • Inanity as a Shield: Magicoms' "headlong dive into the deep end of dumb" reflected a deliberate aversion to controversy or relevance. Inanity served as a "protective shield," lending deniability and placing them outside rational discourse.

  • Sly Comments: Writers could slip in sly comments on social issues "with the impunity of a fool or court jester," never to be taken seriously.

  • Spigel's View: While Spigel credits magicoms for taking up the challenge of the New Frontier, she notes they presented "a highly irrational, supernatural discourse in private life" instead of a "rational-scientific discourse on the public sphere" (Dreamhouse $117$).

• Rigid and Traditional Discourse: Magicoms served as "advance troops" mounting a militant defense against threats to the domestic status quo, especially hippies and "women's libbers."

  • Lack of Social Commentary: They had little to say about civil rights or tolerance (unlike The Munsters and The Addams Family).

  • "Non-recognition Era": Television was in a "Non-recognition Era" (Cedric Clark, pp. $18-22$) where people of color were simply absent, except for occasional celebrity guest appearances, only changing in the late 1960s with shows like Julia and The Bill Cosby Show.

• Feminist Perspective (Susan Douglas):

  • Challenge to Patriarchy: The rise of women in the workforce, sexual liberation (birth control pills introduced in $1960$), and manifestos like Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique ($1963$) posed a serious challenge to entrenched patriarchy.

  • "Counter-revolutionary Narratives": Douglas suggests that the feminist movement threatened domestic order, leading to counter-revolutionary narratives like the (mostly) reactionary plots in Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, and My Living Doll.

  • Fear of Sexuality: Fear of sexuality was not new (networks complied with Hays Code), but it evolved from fear of fornication to fear of shifts in the entire balance of gender power.

Television Industry Evolution and Constraints

• Rapid Growth and Centralization: Television grew rapidly from thousands of sets in the late 1940s to $20,000$ purchases a day by the mid-1950s (Miller and Nowak, p. $338$), leading to increased centralization of control and curtailed autonomy for local stations.

• "Dead Centerism" (Gerard Jones, p. $34$): By the 1960s, despite ongoing standardization, TV's cultural power led networks to adopt programming practices that avoided content that might offend any audience segment.

• Shift to Hollywood: A geographical shift to Hollywood for production, rather than New York, fostered a "Californian ethos of self-invention." Characters became "projections of generalized, stereotyped, homogenized American types," an "ethnic cleansing" that reflected a detachment from the civic sphere.

• Escapism as Safe Harbor: Deep-seated fears over the Cold War and integration led producers to see escapism as a safe harbor for themselves and the audience, diverting rather than reassuring viewers.

• "Radical Caution" (Nussbaum, p. $80$): Experimentation was undermined by pressure to act as a paternal agent, leading to an insistence on conformity. The "deep escapism" (Marc Comic $106$) of magicoms unintentionally created an "atmosphere of almost radical caution," narrowing the spectrum of permissible behaviors and ideas on television even as society experienced upheaval.

Newton Minnow and the "Vast Wasteland"

• Minnow's Speech (1961): FCC Chairman Newton Minnow's brutal assessment of television as a "vast wasteland" is often credited as a catalyst for reforms.

• Subsequent Reforms: These included expanding the evening news to a half-hour ($1963$), airing more documentaries, and the Public Broadcasting Act of $1967$, which created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (leading to PBS and NPR in $1970$).

• Limited Impact: However, the "wasteland became considerably vaster after $1961$" as the FCC stopped short of using its regulatory power (withholding license renewals).

• Ouellette's Critique: Minnow never questioned the commercial TV model, arguing only for "worthier" programming. His mistake was dismissing popular formats (sitcoms, Westerns) as "worthless" instead of advocating for "more creativity and diversity within them" (p. $55$). Conformity at networks predominated.

Economic and Technological Factors Driving Magicoms

• End of "Cultural Uplift": Magicoms, by letting the "genie of escapism out of the bottle," rendered the notion of television as an instrument of pure cultural uplift no longer supportable. Classical music, documentaries, and theatre were subsequently "safely ghettoized" on PBS.

• Cost-Effectiveness: Comedies were cheaper to make than dramas or variety shows (only quiz and "reality" shows cost less).

• Nielsen Ratings: The Nielsen ratings, expanded to television in the 1950s, became the industry's guidepost, determining ad rates and show renewals. "Good numbers" equated to profits, leading to repackaging successful formulas (e.g., The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Mister Ed, The Beverly Hillbillies).

• Videotape Technology (Ampex, $1956$):

  • Cost Savings: Enabled significant savings through re-use of videotape in the early 1960s.

  • Increased Network Control: Shift to tape gave networks greater control.

    • Before videotape, live broadcasts meant executives had limited control at airtime.

    • Networks had already wrested production control from sponsors via the spot-ad system.

    • Live productions necessitated latitude for producers and actors; networks chafed at this, fearing glitches or slips of the tongue from improvisational iconoclasts like Sid Caesar and Ernie Kovacs.

  • End of Spontaneity: Videotape spelled the end for live television, removing spontaneity for performers and anxiety for networks.

  • Paradox of Control: While seeming to liberate producers, tape led to much more vigilant oversight. Production became "increasingly sealed off from reality," a "no-fly zone" where caution was paramount.

  • Avoidance of Topicality: Networks controlled for controversial content and ensured programs avoided topicality at the concept and script stage. Storylines referring to current events were angled to uphold traditional values and denigrate countercultural ideas.

  • Sexual Expression: Sex was only "tastefully alluded to for titillation and humor" but never addressed directly or realistically, continuing compliance with the spirit of the Hays Code despite increasing societal permissiveness.

Impact and Legacy: The Psychological Traces of "Deep Escapism"

• Public Ignorance and Nostalgia: The public was unaware of these machinations, and for many, the "ridiculousness" of magicoms now only adds to a nostalgic glow. Adults critical of current media often don't apply the same critical lens to the programming of their youth.

• Psychological Traces: Magicoms, occupying significant prime-time slots and attracting millions of viewers, undoubtedly left "psychological traces."

• Television as "Metamedium": Neil Postman (pp. $78-79$) argues television is a "metamedium" that directs both our knowledge of the world and our ways of knowing.

• "The Medium Is the Message": Marshall McLuhan's famous aphorism highlights that communication technology creates its own environment, obliging us to experience the world in specific ways due to inherent forms and biases.

• "Hyperrealism" and "Structures of Denial": Lynn Spigel (Dreamhouse $46$) describes television as delivering "not merely an illusion of reality…but a sense of 'being there,' a kind of hyperrealism." She calls sitcom tropes like laugh tracks, farfetched plots, and harmonious resolutions "structures of denial" (Dreamhouse $117$).

• Cultivation Theory: George Gerbner's longitudinal studies show that regular TV watchers gradually perceive the world as it's portrayed on television, forming attitudes on violence and other social concerns.

• Vulnerability to Covert Suggestion: McLuhan and Postman showed how immersive media experiences leave viewers vulnerable to covert suggestion. Magicoms served as a "smokescreen to hide reality" and a "seeder and spreader for retrograde ideas and attitudes."

  • Their popular and enthusiastic reception, combined with foregrounded ideologies, increased the likelihood of these beliefs infiltrating belief systems unconsciously.

• Shifting Preferences: While dramas like Ben Casey or Bonanza might not be significantly more realistic, the public gradually came to prefer the "pap" of magicoms over serious programming.

• Depoliticization: The anti-intellectualism and civic detachment, expressed through ridiculous plots and subtextual ideology, infiltrated the public subconscious to become mainstream values. The goal to avoid anxieties led to "depoliticization through escapist fantasy" (Marc Comic $1997$ $106$).

• "Narcissus Narcosis" (McLuhan):

  • Myth Reimagined: McLuhan reinterprets the Narcissus myth: Narcissus was transfixed by an image created by the medium (the pool) that was both him and not him, rather than just self-regard.

  • Electronic Media's Effect: McLuhan argues electronic media affect us similarly. As extensions of our senses, we don't recognize technologies as external agents, embracing them as familiar. This undermines objectivity and exposes us to messages that are external intrusions.

  • "Numb State": The sensory disequilibrium caused by electronic communication technologies renders us helplessly enthralled, inducing a "numb state" called Narcissus Narcosis.

• Contemporary Relevance: McLuhan aimed to increase awareness of mediation. Despite deeper immersion in electronic media, media literacy hasn't improved. We become more susceptible to the "culture industry's" persuasion (Horkheimer and Adorno).

• A Piece of the Puzzle: The text questions if the magicoms are an "overlooked piece" in understanding contemporary societal divisions, such as the inability to agree on scientific questions. It posits whether less enchantment with these fantastical shows $50$ years ago might have prevented living in a "trance-like, magicom universe" today.