Pryor's Place
Richard Pryor had a kid's show on CBS in 1984. It was produced by the Krofft brothers of Lidsville and H. R. Pufnstuf fame. Pat Morita guest starred. And the man singing the theme song is Ray Parker Jr., who did the Ghostbuster's theme song. It was called "Pryor's Place."
Suffice it to say, it failed. When you think about it, no any other fate could have arisen. The weight all these VH1-dubbed retro-artifactual people working in tandem like this had to have crushed it. Were it to succeed, it understood all too well the kind of scrutiny it would be under from peering hipsters twenty-odd years in the future, searching relentlessly for underground reserves of pop culture to mine. This is such stuff as Urban Outfitters is made on, and its little life is rounded with a sleep. (Urban Outfitters is also made of drywall and Puma shoes)
And who could deal with that? I mean, Pryor was tough. He ran around on fire. He grew up in his grandmother's brothel. But when it comes to the collective analysis of the occasionally-clever-but-ultimately-just-slightly-too-vacuous Klosterman-style culture pundit types (with whom I'd be myopic and hypocritical not to admit I sometimes fear I share too many similar traits, but dammit don't we all), who could ever deal with that? I mean, we've seen what it does to Vanilla Ice, and though Pryor's not in the least bit a comparable figure, the psychology's pretty much the same, I'd imagine.
On another note, though, I think it's kinda unfair to look at this outside of the context of being an actual kid that could've watched the show. If I'd been the proper age at the time, this all would've amounted to nothing. Absolutely nothing. For example, I was in the Shining Time Station's intended viewership, and to be honest, George Carlin replacing Ringo as the little conductor man meant nearly nothing to me until I was reminded of how strange all of that was in retrospect--Carlin, Ringo, repackaging British television, Frenchy from Grease, why Schemer wasn't just banned from the premises for chrissakes, the circle eyes silently expressing all emotions, the scary jukebox puppet band that took the nickels, the eerily stilted kids' dialogue, the lite-rock theme song--a few months back when I came across episodes on YouTube.
I guess childhood's being catalogued these days like it hasn't really before. A lot of older people say this kind of stuff and think they're really clever for it, so it's hard for me to realize it, but it's kinda true. If I want to relive the 3-2-1 Contact theme song, something with which I should be just barely familiar (and with which I probably wouldn't have been familiar had by brother not been 5 1/2 years older), I can. Easily. From 1980, 1983, and 1987, when the numbers look a lot less cool for being done on a better computer. That other people, my dad included, have lived through a time not only when this kind of access was totally unfathomable, but when there really wasn't much of a children's media to begin with is pretty mind-boggling.
If my dad wanted to look back at his childhood, he'd have Little Orphan Annie decoder rings. When I'm older, I'll have collaborative deconstructions of Ghostwriter episodes.
And I don't know what that means for us. But I know it's stupid to fear it.
Suffice it to say, it failed. When you think about it, no any other fate could have arisen. The weight all these VH1-dubbed retro-artifactual people working in tandem like this had to have crushed it. Were it to succeed, it understood all too well the kind of scrutiny it would be under from peering hipsters twenty-odd years in the future, searching relentlessly for underground reserves of pop culture to mine. This is such stuff as Urban Outfitters is made on, and its little life is rounded with a sleep. (Urban Outfitters is also made of drywall and Puma shoes)
And who could deal with that? I mean, Pryor was tough. He ran around on fire. He grew up in his grandmother's brothel. But when it comes to the collective analysis of the occasionally-clever-but-ultimately-just-slightly-too-vacuous Klosterman-style culture pundit types (with whom I'd be myopic and hypocritical not to admit I sometimes fear I share too many similar traits, but dammit don't we all), who could ever deal with that? I mean, we've seen what it does to Vanilla Ice, and though Pryor's not in the least bit a comparable figure, the psychology's pretty much the same, I'd imagine.
On another note, though, I think it's kinda unfair to look at this outside of the context of being an actual kid that could've watched the show. If I'd been the proper age at the time, this all would've amounted to nothing. Absolutely nothing. For example, I was in the Shining Time Station's intended viewership, and to be honest, George Carlin replacing Ringo as the little conductor man meant nearly nothing to me until I was reminded of how strange all of that was in retrospect--Carlin, Ringo, repackaging British television, Frenchy from Grease, why Schemer wasn't just banned from the premises for chrissakes, the circle eyes silently expressing all emotions, the scary jukebox puppet band that took the nickels, the eerily stilted kids' dialogue, the lite-rock theme song--a few months back when I came across episodes on YouTube.
I guess childhood's being catalogued these days like it hasn't really before. A lot of older people say this kind of stuff and think they're really clever for it, so it's hard for me to realize it, but it's kinda true. If I want to relive the 3-2-1 Contact theme song, something with which I should be just barely familiar (and with which I probably wouldn't have been familiar had by brother not been 5 1/2 years older), I can. Easily. From 1980, 1983, and 1987, when the numbers look a lot less cool for being done on a better computer. That other people, my dad included, have lived through a time not only when this kind of access was totally unfathomable, but when there really wasn't much of a children's media to begin with is pretty mind-boggling.
If my dad wanted to look back at his childhood, he'd have Little Orphan Annie decoder rings. When I'm older, I'll have collaborative deconstructions of Ghostwriter episodes.
And I don't know what that means for us. But I know it's stupid to fear it.
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