From Ozzie & Harriet to the Kardashians

Enjoying vestiges of America 1.0

Recently, I discovered that Pluto TV has all the episodes of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. You have Pluto if you have a smart TV. So that’s become my new nightly routine, watching them until the warmth and nostalgia eventually breaks down my chronic insomnia. It was a remarkably well done show, starring really talented people.

Ozzie Nelson was a former popular big band leader, as well as a star athlete. He played several instruments, including the banjo. Harriet was the primary vocalist for Ozzie’s band. They had two sons, David and Ricky, who both appeared on the show as themselves. It was a personal look into their private lives, with some scripts taken from real life events. David projected kindness, and was the big brother anyone would want. Even better than Wally Cleaver. Ricky, though, was the star of the family, and the television series. In the early episodes, he was featured playing the drums. Before long, Ozzie- who was in full control of their careers, realized that he had the first modern teen idol on his hands. Sinatra, Elvis, didn’t appeal primarily to teenage girls. Ricky Nelson did. He paved the way for Fabian, and Frankie Avalon, Bobby Sherman, David Cassidy, the Jonas Brothers. But Ricky was by far the most talented of them all.

Ozzie began inserting performances by his youngest son, with his trademark “Rick” guitar, singing his latest number at the end of nearly every episode. It was a brilliant marketing strategy, and helped Ricky to sell millions of records. Ricky’s band was renowned, especially lead guitarist James Burton, who is still alive and playing music. Keith Richards, among others, was said to be a huge fan of Ricky’s music, and especially loved the guitar work of Burton. The shows are a blend of long antiquated family values and humor, and music that holds up really well. Many of the scripts were written by Ozzie’s brother Don Nelson, so this was really a family affair. When David married actress June Blair, she was cast as his wife on the show. Shortly after that, Rick married Kristin Harmon, and she also became his onscreen wife.

Ricky Nelson, who started referring to himself as the more mature sounding “Rick” at about this time, was one of my early favorites. My sister gave me his Greatest Hits LP for my seventh birthday. I was already rocking in second grade. My first two 45s, at that same birthday, were Ricky Nelson’s “It’s up to You” and Lou Christie’s “Two Faces Have I.” I can’t remember if my sister or my cousin gave them to me. At any rate, my brother Ricky loved Ricky Nelson, too, and started wanting people to call him “Rick” at about the same time the youngest Nelson did. Not surprisingly, my brother’s family disrespected him enough to ignore his request. He would remain Ricky to all of us. I would keep buying Ricky Nelson records, but it wasn’t long before the Beatles and the Beach Boys took over, and most of my meager allowance went to their latest hit, whenever I bought records. The Nelsons were a good looking family, but Ricky was Cary Grant-level handsome. And I say that as non-gayly as possible.

Was this early sitcom, which began airing in 1952, as funny as The Andy Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, or Green Acres? No, of course not. But it was heartwarming, and the messages it conveyed were not heavy handed, unlike today’s “Woke” proselytizing. I haven’t seen a show yet where any of the family really engaged in much of an argument. No yelling. And the boys, even when they were busy with their college fraternity, and then married and on their own, literally told their parents everything that was going on in their lives. Ozzie & Harriet knew who they were dating, the names of all their friends, and were there to pitch in and help with any little bump in the road. There was not the slightest bit of dysfunction displayed to the audience. They all loved and trusted each other. Now, I know that their incredible closeness probably didn’t mirror that of many families of that era. But if feels good to watch.

Both Ozzie and the boys were great athletes. Ricky and David became accomplished trapeze artists, and this was sometimes incorporated into the show as well. Ozzie was still playing volleyball regularly and in seemingly wonderful shape when he was stricken with cancer and died at only 69. Ricky, of course, died at only forty five in what seems to have been a very suspicious plane crash on New Year’s Eve 1985. Like his father, Ricky had a great affection for ice cream, milk, and hamburgers. It’s hard to believe that drug use had anything to do with his untimely death. Rick Nelson’s Stone Canyon Band is now looked at with respect by music critics, and he is often given credit for inventing the country/rock blend that the Eagles took to new heights. I communicated some with his actress daughter Tracy, before she deleted me from Facebook, almost certainly because of my forbidden views on COVID.

It was a long and winding road from Ozzie & Harriet, Leave it to Beaver, and Father Knows Best to “reality” family shows like The Osbournes, Jersey Shore, or The Kardashians. While Rick Nelson and his family will never be forgotten, the likes of Snooki and “The Situation” already bring blank stares in polite society. The messages from these shows, and the “sitcom” Modern Family, are the inverse to those coming from Ozzie & Harriet scripts. While not many families in the 1950s were as seemingly perfect as the Nelsons, how many reflect the gay/transgender friendly “warmth” of Modern Family? While perhaps unrealistic affection was on display in Ozzie & Harriet, monstrous dysfunction was promoted and celebrated as “entertainment” in The Osbournes, starring the family of former Black Sabbath front man Ozzie Osbourne, whose lifetime of drug abuse left him largely incoherent. But he was no Cousin It.

But The Kardashians show is really the yin to Ozzie & Harriet’s yang. At least Ozzie Osbourne was at one time a rock and roll star. The entire Kardashian clan are a bunch of whining, lazy, narcissistic and talentless modern females. The brother is largely invisible, and we all know too well what happened to husband Bruce Jenner. I suppose mother Kris Jenner might be annoying enough to cause a complete break in sanity. The star of the show is daughter Kim. Or actually Kim’s very large ass. That is really the extent of her “talent.” We only know about Kim’s ass because of a sex tape she did with some Black “star” I’ve never heard of. But then again, I’ve never heard of almost all of these new “celebrities.” Kim rode that “only sleeps with Blacks” to cultural prominence, which will happen when the culture is as anti-White as ours is. Her youngest sisters, one of whom is inexplicably a billionaire, love only Black men, too.

Can we imagine Harriet Hilliard, or Barbara “June Cleaver” Billingsley promoting a sex tape? Even with White 1950s- crew cut types? Yes, Marilyn Monroe had a pretty big ass, herself, but it wasn’t the sole reason for her fame. She was a captivating presence onscreen, and could sing as well. All the “sex symbols” of the era, like Jayne Mansfield, had some acting ability. Kim Kardashian has no acting or musical ability at all. She’s really good at that resting bitch face thing, which all female celebrities must master in America 2.0. And she has the world’s most famous transsexual for a stepfather, and only wants Black men. Plus her big ass is always rear and center. So how could she not be famous? Her mother Kris I think has gone Black as well, without even a big ass. If only the Nelsons were alive. Imagine the possibilities of The Nelsons meet the Kardashians.

Regardless of how well audiences from 1952-1966 (Ozzie & Harriet had the longest running sitcom in TV history until The Simpsons broke their record) mimicked the behavior of the Nelson family, at least the messaging was good and wholesome. If we could, wouldn’t we want families to be like the Nelsons? Loving, encouraging, always there to support each other? While life undoubtedly imitates art, unfortunately the negative programming has always been more receptive with younger viewers than positive programming. I think it’s obvious that audiences of the 1970s absorbed the early feminist messaging in awful shows like Maude more readily than what was probably already seen as the “corny” antics of the Nelsons in the 1950s. We know how successful the anti-White and anti-male messaging was, by looking all around us. And now we’re seeing the transgender propaganda showing up far more in real life.

In the 1970s, it was Maude having an abortion. Or Edith Bunker getting raped. Well, I think it was actually attempted rape. The point was that rape isn’t about sex, even if the weapon is a penis. So even the Dingbat was in danger. Must see TV. Single mothers ruled! Little House on the Prairie had a different virtue signaling point almost every week. I know they had one show starring a paraplegic, right about the time they were making every place wheelchair accessible. Well, by that I mean they inserted 1970s-’80s leftist issues into stories set a century earlier. They didn’t bother to cut the hair of male actors playing 1930s or 1950s characters. One way or another, they had to fit disco style, blow dried hair into everything. Charlie’s Angels could overpower any male, as long as he was White. It’s a Great Replacement thing, you wouldn’t understand. By the 1990s, Ellen DeGeneres “came out” on her television series.

And once the 21st century hit, and we turned into America 2.0, mixed race couples were everywhere. Blacks became so wildly overrepresented in all forms of advertising that it boggles the mind so few Whites questioned it. If they were to watch Ozzie and Harriet, they’d certainly notice the lack of “persons of color” in the Nelson’s neighborhood, or at Rick’s fraternity parties. Not a gender fluid to be found. If the cultural overlords get their way, soon we may see as few Whites on television as there were Blacks in Ozzie and Harriet’s day. That’s progress. And their definition of “diversity.” One thing is certain, no Whites would complain about it. So we can now enjoy Black characters in medieval times. Usually with White characters pining for them. If you could cast Morgan Freeman as God, and not a single racist complained, who’s going to care if you recast a Black as some fifteenth century queen?

Watch shows like The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet while you still can. I’m amazed that every old show produced before the explosion of Norman Lear influenced leftist indoctrination in the 1970s hasn’t been banned by the Fact Checkers. Way, way too White. Ozzie slapped Harriet on the ass in one episode I saw. For no reason at all. Just did it and grinned broadly. Harriet yelled, “Hey!” but was grinning, too. Somehow I can’t see pre-transitioned Bruce Jenner, great athlete though he was, slapping his Harpie wife on the ass. The old shows represent a patriarchal society where White men were undeniably in charge. Today’s culture reflects the sordid mess it created; a matriarchy laced with even more poisonous transgender influence, and a world where the only White males who aren’t scorned as “mansplaining” are gay, or transwomen. Shows like South Park laugh at pedophilia, as long as the victims are little boys.

I’m not talking about something like Pleasantville, an interesting but disturbing 1998 film, which featured a literal black and white fantasy world. The wife has an affair with a guy from Pleasantville. What bothered me about this is that her husband was depicted as a kind and caring man. He didn’t mistreat her. He didn’t beat her. He didn’t cheat on her. But the scriptwriters expected the audience to sympathize with her character, who had an affair with another man out of sheer boredom. Just picture the sexes reversed. No husband with a kind and loving wife, who cheated on her, would ever be seen in a positive light. That’s the matriarchy we live in. This double standard is universal in media now. If a woman has an affair, she’s the victim. If the man does, she’s the victim. Harriet wasn’t about to cheat on Ozzie. And if she had, the calm and mild- mannered Ozzie wouldn’t have reacted like a colossal cuck.

So, I’ll be returning tonight. Very late at night. To the campus malt shop, where much of the action takes place. Do they even have malts any more? Where the cast is always White, and always straight. Or to Ozzie’s neighborhood, where his best friends were played by early talkies leading man Lyle Talbot and Frank Cady, best know as Sam Drucker on Petticoat Junction and Green Acres. I guess not enough young people watch these kinds of old shows, to make an impact. If they did, the wholesomeness just might appeal to at least some of them. Culture is the foundation of civilization. We have no art left. CIA-financed “modern art” destroyed that. “Music” has been taken over by vulgar and untalented rappers. There is no literature. “Wokeness” has killed Hollywood. So we listen to old music. Watch old movies and TV shows. Read old books. Dream of something that once was, and hope it can somehow be restored.