Thanks Walt, It was Fun!

 

He was born on a mountain top in Tennessee, he was raised in the woods so he knew every tree, he was king of the wild frontier and to a much younger version of myself he was a hero, before I had an idea of what a hero was. Walt Disney had a hand in creating this phase of hero worship I encountered. In the mid 1950’s, Walt made sure that every young boy in America knew about Davy Crockett.

I was not exempt from the craze that swept the country in 1955. Of course, my parents have to share some of the blame in this mania. Hey, I didn’t go out and buy Davy Crockett coloring books or that little yellow plastic record with that song that I played over and over again. I wasn’t a hard sell though, I was all in, lock, stock and Ol’ Betsy’s barrel.

You would have thought that a character that made such an impression on me would have been someone I would have learned much more about. No, it didn’t happen that way. Actually, I have to admit that it wasn’t too long after the craze that Davy was replaced by Zorro!

But, just like a lot of kids during that fling, I ate and slept everything to do with Davy Crockett. My parents had a friend who apparently knew of little Jimmy’s fondness for the frontiersman. He came to the house one day with a complete Davy Crockett outfit. I say complete and it was, it included the coon skin cap, faux buckskin clothes and, this was the cool part, a plastic replica of Davy’s famous rifle Ol’ Betsy. Family lore has it that young James wore that outfit that whole summer. Decades later my mother would recall how the sweat would cascade down my face, but that coon skin cap wouldn’t leave my head.

Recently though, I decided to give Davy a little more attention. I picked up a couple of books about the hero from the Alamo. It was fun to read up on a lot of the stuff Walt Disney left out. First of all, it was never Davy. Everywhere he wrote his name it was always David Crockett. And, it was said that people always referred to him as David. However, Uncle Walt knew that Davy would sound better to all us kids.

The books painted a picture of a quiet unassuming guy, closer to a Fess Parker than the John Wayne portrayal. Apparently his main attribute was that David Crockett could tell a good yarn. This trait got him into politics, first local and then the United States Congress. The stories he told while campaigning is what made him a legend in his own time. Others went on to embellish his stories. In fact, short stories and plays were written about him to the point he became quite a celebrity around the young country. And, he wasn’t much of a fighter. He was in the Indian wars with Andrew Jackson, but his duties were mostly filled with hunting down food to feed Jackson’s army. In fact, Crockett would much rather hunt than most anything else. Also, when he took off to Texas, he really had no intentions of going to fight. He was hoping to find a new homestead. He was looking for land and hoping he didn’t have to pay any government taxes for it.

He did fall in with the Texans believing they could replicate the revolution of 1776. He just found himself in a rough situation, defending an outpost that really didn’t matter in the outcome of the Texas revolution. The men of the Alamo did hold out but the odds were against them. They all died defending the mission. Crockett’s death may have been heroic as Walt Disney would have us believe. However, evidence does exist that states Davy Crockett may have been part of a handful of Texans who surrendered but were then executed. 

It was never about how he died, not to us little kids in the 1950's. No for us it was about his adventures. His keel boat races with Mike Fink, his tomahawk duel to save his buddy George, his exploits in the Creek War along with Andrew Jackson and, yes, his trip to the Alamo! These adventures as portrayed in the Disney stories is what made Davy a hero to thousands of young boys. The adolescent medium of television made David Crockett the first TV hero to many baby boomers. Many more would follow, I told you about Zorro didn't I. However, I must say, it was fun to go back and spend some time with "The King of the Wild Frontier".

Fractured Flickers

 There was a time, quite a while ago actually, when if a friend told you about a show they saw on television, you could find that show easily. There were only three channels that it could be on. Three networks actually, CBS, NBC and ABC. If a show started to become popular, well everybody saw it, everybody talked about it. The day after a show aired, you could talk about it with friends, at work it was discussed around the proverbial "water cooler", neighbors would start up conversations "Hey Al, did you watch Bonanza last night", "Sure, I never miss it".

These days, you could watch a telecast of the Emmys and a dozen or more programs can be mentioned among the nominees that you have never heard of. Now your neighbor asks about the latest episode of  The Expanse and you have no idea what that means. 

How did we get here? How did we lose that shared experience that television was said to offer. If you're old enough, you might remember when they first started talking about cable. Cable will be fantastic it was said. There will be a hundred, maybe two hundred channels to choose from it was promised. No antennas, no commercials! You could watch movies uncut with no advertisements in the comfort of home!

Cable came. And, at first we all saw a lot of the same thing. If you got hooked up, the big draw was HBO. So we all got to see a lot of movies that had just finished there first run at theaters. It was cool really. Now at work, you could tell a couple of co-workers you just saw The Godfather and one of them comes back with "Yeah, I saw that on Wednesday." Back to chatting about it around the cooler. 

Those other channels started coming. There were hundreds and then some. Some of them turned out to be stations from other markets. There you were in Boston watching TV stations from Chicago or Atlanta. Well it was kinda neat but then you realize these stations were playing the same stuff you could see on UHF channels you already had! The three networks you already had were still your go to.

But cable evolved. There started to be a network for old "Classic" movies, then how about 24/7 news. Soon churches would televise prayer gatherings and preaching. Independent stations found a niche showing reruns. Apparently there was a need for Gilligan's Island all day long or a weekend marathon of The Brady Bunch. And, of course, the news channels begat other news channels. Now many news sources with many news opinions.

Cable opened up a Pandora's box of different content. Your neighbor was watching Turner Classic Movies, your co-workers were watching CNN, your mother was watching The 700 Club. The news you watched seemed to be somewhat different then the news Joe from the club watched. The "water cooler" didn't seem like a familiar place anymore. We all got caught up with programs we liked and to extent grew apart from others who were caught up with theirs. Streaming has added another dimension, you can control your content, when you want it. Now you can be watching every season of Breaking Bad or binge on The Wire while your sister-in-law is having a Walking Dead  marathon.

Did cable play a part in fracturing our sense of community? Now that we all watch different things and we no longer all listen to Walter Cronkite have we lost a sense unity? Does viewing many opinions divide us? I guess the optimistic outlook would be that having many sources should be a good thing. Diversity can be healthy I suppose. Now as a friend tells us of a new show we have to listen more closely. We may not be paying the extra $10.99 for Hulu+.