I can't say that the news about the cancellation of "Law & Order" was like losing an old friend. I value old friends too much to put them on the same shelf as a television show. But just the same, I'll miss being able to spend time with it.
On some level -- the one that recognizes how each hour of sitting passively in front of the TV equals 60 minutes that could be spent doing something meaningful -- I might think that NBC's decision was like losing a candy bar from my youth; I'm probably better off if it's gone.
But I doubt that.
Nowadays I have to be in the mood for candy. Since acquiring my taste for "Law & Order," however, I've found that its sweet efficiency in getting to the point usually hits the spot.
Certainly, the rush to plot resolution that drives the show in shifting from criminal investigation to prosecution made New York City a natural choice for the filming location. Who moves faster than New Yorkers?
The pace also explains why "Law & Order" proved to be an easy watch for viewers unable or unwilling to invest their time in following character development or a story arc that advances with the speed of a glacier.
If your idea of great television means a season-long game of not only connecting the dots, but first having to find them, look elsewhere. This is the anti-"Lost."
For those who saw the appeal and embraced it, "Law & Order" has been series drama without commitment. The only requirement for full enjoyment is arrival in time to hear the signature opening ("In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate but equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys, who prosecute offenders. These are their stories.").
It's worked well enough to last 20 seasons, which is at least 100 in TV years, while becoming a franchise complete with spin-offs. Not bad for a show that reportedly was offered to two other networks before it found a home on NBC.
Right up until I learned that the cancellation was official, I had been rooting for the original "Law & Order" to notch the one more season it needed to surpass "Gunsmoke" in longevity among U.S. television dramas.
No doubt my father would feel differently. "Gunsmoke" with James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon, which ran on CBS from 1955 to 1975, was probably his all-time favorite TV show and obviously, millions of others loved it with similar loyalty.
Many had come to it by simply crossing over from radio to television. As a radio program, "Gunsmoke" had a following for nearly ten years prior to its debut as a television western that targeted an adult audience.
On the strictly-audio version, which relied on actors' voices without regard to physical appearance, William Conrad -- today, best remembered for his TV work as an overweight detective in the 1970s series "Cannon" -- was an ideal radio Dillon.
Television, however, is all about appearances, whether the on-camera task calls for playing a lawman or reading the news. In that respect, James Arness showed himself to be the man for the job.
Tuning into Arness as a no-nonsense marshal was as close as it got to having John Wayne -- for my father's generation, the poster boy for a man's man, if ever there was one -- walk tall in your living room on a regular basis. In fact, Wayne did a promo for the show's first episode.
I'm old enough to remember when "Gunsmoke," as a half-hour series filmed in black and white, reigned as king of Saturday night TV for several years. Given a chance to watch it now, I'd prefer the later episodes that were an hour long and in color. They may not have ruled the national TV ratings, but those were the ones I enjoyed most for their storytelling and the picture they painted of Dodge City, Kansas a few years after the Civil War.
I admit that I started paying attention to "Gunsmoke" much the same as I have watched other TV series for the first time --- that is, sometime after nearly everyone else. For what it's worth, I may be the last person on this side of the River Nile to have discovered the greatness of "Seinfeld" before that show ended its run.
It was no different with "Law & Order."
Unlike "Gunsmoke," which starred James Arness as Marshal Dillon from start to finish, with long-term steadiness in the supporting roles of Doc Adams (Milburn Stone) and Miss Kitty (Amanda Blake), "Law & Order" launched in 1990 with a cast that would never stop changing.
By the time I caught up to it, only one of the original six cast members -- Steven Hill, the first to play the district attorney in the series -- was still around. Michael Moriarty was the executive assistant district attorney under Hill for four seasons. But even with the reruns on cable networks, I have yet to see an example of his time on "Law & Order."
When I started watching "NYPD Blue," much of the motivation had to do with my work as a reporter covering the police beat for a newspaper in Queens County. The show may have used a fictional Manhattan precinct for its detective squad, but many of the stories were inspired by cases that had occurred in Queens, including ones that I covered. I got a kick out of following the series, especially whenever I was able to recognize some of the real-life events and characters involved.
In that respect, my reason for watching "Law & Order" was very different. On "L&O," I enjoyed Jerry Orbach's veteran detective, Lennie Briscoe, and looked forward to hearing his weekly wisecrack at the opening crime scene. As a reporter, I'd certainly heard some good ones over the years at such sites.
In one case, I was on hand in a park as investigators discussed how the dead body nearby belonged to a victim who had been killed at another location and brought to the scene.
"Don't they know illegal dumping is a crime?" a detective said, and I was among those who laughed.
So, I had already developed an appreciation for the kind of dark one-liners viewers expected of Detective Briscoe. But that wasn't what got me started with "Law & Order."
In truth, it was the presence of actor Sam Waterston that drew me to check out the show in the first place. Years earlier, I had become a Waterston fan for life after seeing his film portrayals of two of my favorite characters in American literature --- Tom Wingfield, the son in "The Glass Menagerie," and Nick Carraway, the narrator in "The Great Gatsby."
Since joining "Law & Order" as Moriarty's successor, Waterston has endured with excellence, despite all the cast changes and a particular storyline. The latter boosted his character, Jack McCoy, to district attorney, but put him on a collision course with this state's governor.
In another example of how "L&O" stories were indeed "ripped from the headlines," as teasers would claim, the governor's sins included an all-too-familiar gubernatorial fondness for hookers.
In the end, the governor had about as much chance of intimidating Jack McCoy as the doomed gunfighter had of getting the drop on Matt Dillon in the opening of "Gunsmoke."
The final first-run episode of "Law & Order" airs next Monday, May 24. After that, there's always the reruns on cable TV, though it's hardly the same when you already know the verdict or the plea bargain that serves as a conclusion to the episode.
No doubt I'll miss watching Manhattan's chief prosecutor go after new offenders in our living room on a weekly basis, just as my father had been sorry to see Dodge City's marshal ride off into the sunset (though he did return in some made-for-TV movies over the years that followed).
Matt Dillon and Jack McCoy --- maybe it's only fitting that as the matter of longest-lasting TV drama is finally decided, they get to share the top shelf, after all.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
The Strange Return of Mr. Mum
There are many places where a man might want to sit down and spend his birthday on a warm spring day, if work isn't part of the plan.
An outdoor cafe, the ballpark or the deck of a boat are three possibilities that come to mind for an afternoon given to simple pleasures such as enjoying the sunshine and being glad to be alive.
No question, any one of the three would have been fine as I marked the anniversary of my arrival on Planet Earth recently and no need to stop there; feel free to add a beer garden to the list.
But the way it turned out, little time was spent outdoors or sitting down. There were no frosted mugs of brew being hoisted, although that might have made the experience a little easier --- or maybe not.
I know one thing: I wasn't expecting to find myself a part of the return of Mr. Mum.
For those who came in late, Mr. Mum was the star of a newspaper cartoon -- "The Strange World of Mr. Mum," drawn by Irving Phillips -- that was quite popular during the 1960s. The character, as I recall, was pictured with a canine companion and never failed to live up to his name. Ever the silent type, Mr. Mum would stroll from one odd encounter into another, each captured with humor in a single panel (except on Sundays, when a multi-panel strip appeared).
He was the would-be passerby who turns a corner only to be frozen in his tracks and thrust into the role of innocent bystander/involuntary witness amid some occurrence that's both unexpected and surreal. In his world, Mr. Mum was on the far side long before there was "The Far Side" by another gifted cartoonist, Gary Larson.
At some point in the 1970s, Mr. Mum and his pooch walked right out of the newspaper and into that land of the lost where cartoon characters go when their creator retires or a new feature comes along to bump them out of their space.
Whatever the circumstances, one day I noticed that Mr. Mum was gone.
Over the years that followed, I didn't give him much thought, until he suddenly showed up out of the blue on my birthday, of all days. I don't know whether Irving Phillips had ever dropped Mr. Mum into a scene at a New York State Department of Motor Vehicles office during his heyday, but that's where I encountered him when he made his comeback.
Life yields rewards and punishments that come in all shapes and sizes. Neglecting to renew my driver license sooner, via online or by mail, meant having to accomplish the task in person, due to the requirement of an eye exam.
Once I realized this, I wasn't sure which would prove more painful --- the wait that awaited or the new photo that was unlikely to be an improvement over the mug shot already in use. But it didn't really matter. My license was due to expire on my birthday, so there was no alternative, other than waking up as a pedestrian the next day.
I kept telling myself that as I pulled into and out of the parking lot for the DMV office in Nassau County where there were no spaces to be had. Resigned to my fate, I drove away, continued across Old Country Road, into a residential section where on-street parking was permitted and left my car in front of a house that looked too nice to belong to a family of auto strippers.
This resulted in a hike that amounted to a week's worth of exercise and provided enough time to come to grips with the awful truth (as the late great thinker Bucky Fuller put it): I was going to walk into the place and find it packed.
So the good news was that I wasn't shocked at what I saw when I entered the DMV facility and as a preliminary to the main event, waited briefly to receive the all-important ticket with a number that represented my turn.
Once I had the ticket, I scanned the area for a good spot where I could join the standing-room-only crowd behind twin rows of benches that reminded me of church pews. From there, I would wait and watch the electronic boards above the broken oval of customer service stations.
The turn numbers were displayed in red lights and if anyone in the crowd had telekinetic powers to move the numbers to their advantage, I didn't see those powers in use. I certainly tried hard to develop any that I might have been given at birth but didn't know about.
Ever so slowly, the digits would change and it was enough to make one wish that initiating small talk with an employee in a government office amounted to a capital offense. No need to talk about the weather, the Mets or how anyone is feeling; just answer the questions, get what you came for and keep the numbers moving, thank you.
As for where to stand and watch it all, I knew that the spot selection was important. After all, waiting your turn at the DMV is not the same as waiting for your number to be called at the deli counter in the supermarket.
Ideally, you want a spot that is somewhere off from the big crowd, to keep the jostling to a minimum -- unless you happen to enjoy physical contact with rude strangers in a rush. But you also need to have the kind of vantage point that makes it possible to watch the electronic boards and, with a nod towards strategic planning, be able to move out when that glorious moment finally arrives and it's your turn.
Until that happens, there's not much else to do to pass the time, besides turning your attention to the TV monitors programmed with trivia quizzes and public service announcements or observing your fellow travelers from a distance.
I thought I was standing in a pretty safe spot to do all of the above -- behind and slightly away from a row of benches/pews -- as I recalled a Tennessee Williams line from "The Glass Menagerie" about "the long delayed but always expected something that we live for." I wondered if a visit to the DMV had had anything to do with the inspiration for it. Maybe Williams had waited too long to renew his license by mail, too, and suffered the consequences.
If so, I could only guess how long a wait had sparked the great playwright. But in my case, minus the musings of genius, I was left to do the simple math of harsh reality. The way I figured it, comparing the number on my ticket to the one on the boards, with the rate of change as a factor, I was looking at about a two-hour wait.
"So, there you go --- a line skipper," I heard someone say.
Next to treason, there may be no worse accusation one could voice in a public place. My knowledge of French history is limited, at best (and I side with the Belgians who say they invented French fries), but I've always thought that Robespierre and the Reign of Terror began with the beheading of some fool who had jumped a line.
"Yeah, that's what she did. She skipped a line."
The voice came from my right and belonged to a middle-aged guy who was wearing a baseball cap and the look of someone seizing his moment upon the stage. He was standing in close proximity to a short queue of people whose wait for service was exclusive of the red numbers on the electronic boards.
Due to a large sign encased in Plexiglas or something similar that stood behind me, I couldn't see or hear the woman who allegedly had walked up to the counter, ignoring a line of folks waiting their turn.
For me, it was like watching somebody talk on a phone and being limited to their end of the conversation. As the person on the other end, the woman could have been standing in a department store in Holman, Indiana.
On this end -- the one I could see and hear -- another voice piped up.
"As a matter of fact, I'm not the one who said it, lady, but if the shoe fits..." declared the fellow who was on line and at the head of it.
"Well, I said it and I'm looking at you!" the actual accuser interjected.
With that, a large man -- younger and more physically imposing than the other two -- rose up and out of the last row of benches/pews as he proceeded to make his way towards the line.
"You're looking at her? Well, now you can look at me --- that's my wife you're talking to!" he roared, offering the first guy a sufficient amount of trouble, if that's what he wanted.
That proposal was countered in short order by a younger male who had been standing on the line. He stepped forward and what he lacked in bulk he made up for in volume.
"You're talking to him? Well, why don't you talk to me? I'm his son and you want trouble with my father, you can start with me!" the newest participant screamed.
(Note: I have left out more than the gestures that accompanied their words. I like to think that while working many years as a newspaper reporter in Queens County, I quoted people correctly in presenting various heated exchanges that took place at school board meetings and public hearings. But possibly because I never filed a spot news story on line jumping, I cannot remember a time when -- for the sake of my more polite readers, if I have any -- I had to go to such lengths to soften the words of others through the subtraction of profanity as performed above.)
Seeing that I stood on the fringe of what seemed to be a contest to determine the angriest man/loudest cusser, as the son and husband squared off, I took the opportunity to display arguably my best footwork in public since the seventh grade, when I had danced The Twist with Patty LaReddola and we were the best couple on the floor until I ripped the seat of my pants.
Now, when it could mean a matter of life and limb, I deftly pulled off a 30-foot lateral glide to my left that was worthy of a "10" from judges Carrie Ann, Len and Bruno on "Dancing with the Stars." Meanwhile, a more daring fellow came up behind the husband and tried to hold him back, obviously unaware of the high casualty rate for peacemakers.
By then, whatever other conversations that had been going on halted and people had something else to watch besides the electronic boards and TV monitors. Some found the whole thing hilarious. From my new spot, I came to a sudden realization: I was viewing an amateur production of a professional wrestling scenario, with kibitzing managers and vulgar loudmouths full of bravado, threatening each other for entertainment and each determined to have the last word.
Just as the drama's fire seemed to go out, sure enough, it would flare up again. At one point, another big guy -- apparently a buddy of the husband -- entered the fray and demanded to know if this was where the trouble was. It was not unlike the wrestler who comes running out of the dressing room in a frenzy to help a friend from being unfairly outnumbered in the ring.
The only thing missing was the announcers.
Finally, the sound and fury died down in earnest, with no punches thrown, and business at the DMV went on as usual once again. I knew the show was over around the same time that I glimpsed the presence of a security guard for the first time. Since I don't know and am left to guess, I'm willing to accept the notion that he had gone out for a Wendy's Value Meal just prior to all hell breaking loose.
But before he made his appearance, others made theirs. Some Nassau County cops showed up and with the assistance of a DMV person who identified the various performers one by one, they escorted those individuals from the premises.
"Oh, sure, I have to leave now after waiting three hours," one griped.
"Sir, how long you waited today might prove to be the least of your problems," the cop advised.
They moved past Mr. Mum, who celebrated his birthday afternoon without much sunshine or the company of a dog, but eventually got what he came for -- new photo excluded -- and in considerably less time than he had calculated.
After one more walk, he drove home to sit down and hoist a cold one.
An outdoor cafe, the ballpark or the deck of a boat are three possibilities that come to mind for an afternoon given to simple pleasures such as enjoying the sunshine and being glad to be alive.
No question, any one of the three would have been fine as I marked the anniversary of my arrival on Planet Earth recently and no need to stop there; feel free to add a beer garden to the list.
But the way it turned out, little time was spent outdoors or sitting down. There were no frosted mugs of brew being hoisted, although that might have made the experience a little easier --- or maybe not.
I know one thing: I wasn't expecting to find myself a part of the return of Mr. Mum.
For those who came in late, Mr. Mum was the star of a newspaper cartoon -- "The Strange World of Mr. Mum," drawn by Irving Phillips -- that was quite popular during the 1960s. The character, as I recall, was pictured with a canine companion and never failed to live up to his name. Ever the silent type, Mr. Mum would stroll from one odd encounter into another, each captured with humor in a single panel (except on Sundays, when a multi-panel strip appeared).
He was the would-be passerby who turns a corner only to be frozen in his tracks and thrust into the role of innocent bystander/involuntary witness amid some occurrence that's both unexpected and surreal. In his world, Mr. Mum was on the far side long before there was "The Far Side" by another gifted cartoonist, Gary Larson.
At some point in the 1970s, Mr. Mum and his pooch walked right out of the newspaper and into that land of the lost where cartoon characters go when their creator retires or a new feature comes along to bump them out of their space.
Whatever the circumstances, one day I noticed that Mr. Mum was gone.
Over the years that followed, I didn't give him much thought, until he suddenly showed up out of the blue on my birthday, of all days. I don't know whether Irving Phillips had ever dropped Mr. Mum into a scene at a New York State Department of Motor Vehicles office during his heyday, but that's where I encountered him when he made his comeback.
Life yields rewards and punishments that come in all shapes and sizes. Neglecting to renew my driver license sooner, via online or by mail, meant having to accomplish the task in person, due to the requirement of an eye exam.
Once I realized this, I wasn't sure which would prove more painful --- the wait that awaited or the new photo that was unlikely to be an improvement over the mug shot already in use. But it didn't really matter. My license was due to expire on my birthday, so there was no alternative, other than waking up as a pedestrian the next day.
I kept telling myself that as I pulled into and out of the parking lot for the DMV office in Nassau County where there were no spaces to be had. Resigned to my fate, I drove away, continued across Old Country Road, into a residential section where on-street parking was permitted and left my car in front of a house that looked too nice to belong to a family of auto strippers.
This resulted in a hike that amounted to a week's worth of exercise and provided enough time to come to grips with the awful truth (as the late great thinker Bucky Fuller put it): I was going to walk into the place and find it packed.
So the good news was that I wasn't shocked at what I saw when I entered the DMV facility and as a preliminary to the main event, waited briefly to receive the all-important ticket with a number that represented my turn.
Once I had the ticket, I scanned the area for a good spot where I could join the standing-room-only crowd behind twin rows of benches that reminded me of church pews. From there, I would wait and watch the electronic boards above the broken oval of customer service stations.
The turn numbers were displayed in red lights and if anyone in the crowd had telekinetic powers to move the numbers to their advantage, I didn't see those powers in use. I certainly tried hard to develop any that I might have been given at birth but didn't know about.
Ever so slowly, the digits would change and it was enough to make one wish that initiating small talk with an employee in a government office amounted to a capital offense. No need to talk about the weather, the Mets or how anyone is feeling; just answer the questions, get what you came for and keep the numbers moving, thank you.
As for where to stand and watch it all, I knew that the spot selection was important. After all, waiting your turn at the DMV is not the same as waiting for your number to be called at the deli counter in the supermarket.
Ideally, you want a spot that is somewhere off from the big crowd, to keep the jostling to a minimum -- unless you happen to enjoy physical contact with rude strangers in a rush. But you also need to have the kind of vantage point that makes it possible to watch the electronic boards and, with a nod towards strategic planning, be able to move out when that glorious moment finally arrives and it's your turn.
Until that happens, there's not much else to do to pass the time, besides turning your attention to the TV monitors programmed with trivia quizzes and public service announcements or observing your fellow travelers from a distance.
I thought I was standing in a pretty safe spot to do all of the above -- behind and slightly away from a row of benches/pews -- as I recalled a Tennessee Williams line from "The Glass Menagerie" about "the long delayed but always expected something that we live for." I wondered if a visit to the DMV had had anything to do with the inspiration for it. Maybe Williams had waited too long to renew his license by mail, too, and suffered the consequences.
If so, I could only guess how long a wait had sparked the great playwright. But in my case, minus the musings of genius, I was left to do the simple math of harsh reality. The way I figured it, comparing the number on my ticket to the one on the boards, with the rate of change as a factor, I was looking at about a two-hour wait.
"So, there you go --- a line skipper," I heard someone say.
Next to treason, there may be no worse accusation one could voice in a public place. My knowledge of French history is limited, at best (and I side with the Belgians who say they invented French fries), but I've always thought that Robespierre and the Reign of Terror began with the beheading of some fool who had jumped a line.
"Yeah, that's what she did. She skipped a line."
The voice came from my right and belonged to a middle-aged guy who was wearing a baseball cap and the look of someone seizing his moment upon the stage. He was standing in close proximity to a short queue of people whose wait for service was exclusive of the red numbers on the electronic boards.
Due to a large sign encased in Plexiglas or something similar that stood behind me, I couldn't see or hear the woman who allegedly had walked up to the counter, ignoring a line of folks waiting their turn.
For me, it was like watching somebody talk on a phone and being limited to their end of the conversation. As the person on the other end, the woman could have been standing in a department store in Holman, Indiana.
On this end -- the one I could see and hear -- another voice piped up.
"As a matter of fact, I'm not the one who said it, lady, but if the shoe fits..." declared the fellow who was on line and at the head of it.
"Well, I said it and I'm looking at you!" the actual accuser interjected.
With that, a large man -- younger and more physically imposing than the other two -- rose up and out of the last row of benches/pews as he proceeded to make his way towards the line.
"You're looking at her? Well, now you can look at me --- that's my wife you're talking to!" he roared, offering the first guy a sufficient amount of trouble, if that's what he wanted.
That proposal was countered in short order by a younger male who had been standing on the line. He stepped forward and what he lacked in bulk he made up for in volume.
"You're talking to him? Well, why don't you talk to me? I'm his son and you want trouble with my father, you can start with me!" the newest participant screamed.
(Note: I have left out more than the gestures that accompanied their words. I like to think that while working many years as a newspaper reporter in Queens County, I quoted people correctly in presenting various heated exchanges that took place at school board meetings and public hearings. But possibly because I never filed a spot news story on line jumping, I cannot remember a time when -- for the sake of my more polite readers, if I have any -- I had to go to such lengths to soften the words of others through the subtraction of profanity as performed above.)
Seeing that I stood on the fringe of what seemed to be a contest to determine the angriest man/loudest cusser, as the son and husband squared off, I took the opportunity to display arguably my best footwork in public since the seventh grade, when I had danced The Twist with Patty LaReddola and we were the best couple on the floor until I ripped the seat of my pants.
Now, when it could mean a matter of life and limb, I deftly pulled off a 30-foot lateral glide to my left that was worthy of a "10" from judges Carrie Ann, Len and Bruno on "Dancing with the Stars." Meanwhile, a more daring fellow came up behind the husband and tried to hold him back, obviously unaware of the high casualty rate for peacemakers.
By then, whatever other conversations that had been going on halted and people had something else to watch besides the electronic boards and TV monitors. Some found the whole thing hilarious. From my new spot, I came to a sudden realization: I was viewing an amateur production of a professional wrestling scenario, with kibitzing managers and vulgar loudmouths full of bravado, threatening each other for entertainment and each determined to have the last word.
Just as the drama's fire seemed to go out, sure enough, it would flare up again. At one point, another big guy -- apparently a buddy of the husband -- entered the fray and demanded to know if this was where the trouble was. It was not unlike the wrestler who comes running out of the dressing room in a frenzy to help a friend from being unfairly outnumbered in the ring.
The only thing missing was the announcers.
Finally, the sound and fury died down in earnest, with no punches thrown, and business at the DMV went on as usual once again. I knew the show was over around the same time that I glimpsed the presence of a security guard for the first time. Since I don't know and am left to guess, I'm willing to accept the notion that he had gone out for a Wendy's Value Meal just prior to all hell breaking loose.
But before he made his appearance, others made theirs. Some Nassau County cops showed up and with the assistance of a DMV person who identified the various performers one by one, they escorted those individuals from the premises.
"Oh, sure, I have to leave now after waiting three hours," one griped.
"Sir, how long you waited today might prove to be the least of your problems," the cop advised.
They moved past Mr. Mum, who celebrated his birthday afternoon without much sunshine or the company of a dog, but eventually got what he came for -- new photo excluded -- and in considerably less time than he had calculated.
After one more walk, he drove home to sit down and hoist a cold one.
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