Farewell, Alistair Cook(i)e
I remember the first time I saw Masterpiece Theater - the opening shot, the camera panning through a room full of antique gewgaws and furniture (lingering just long enough on a decanter of port that you really wanted a fingerful), until at some point one of the pieces started speaking, and identified itself as Alistair Cooke. I had no idea who he was or what he had done and, really, have never bothered to find out. Philip over at Just Playing links to some interesting biographical material.
I probably wouldn’t even remember his name were it not for a Muppets skit called Monsterpiece Theater, hosted by Alistair Cookie (played by Cookie Monster, of course). Cooke did, however, exert a certain influence over our lives. During much of the 70s, we didn’t own a television. We could have, of course, but it was one of those affections of iconoclastic youth. Then in 1978 or so, my wife’s uncle died and we became possessed of his small color television. It suited our modest viewing purposes for a few years, especially after our son was born in 1981, but at some point it developed a short somewhere, and every now and then required a strategically-placed whack with a fist in order to function properly.
Sometime in 1983 PBS broadcast the Jewel In The Crown series on Masterpiece Theater and we started making it a regular household event. Showing at 8 or 9 on Sunday night, it became, for me, that last branch to grasp before being swept over the falls and into the cauldron of another Monday in public accounting. Just as we developed this NEED for the fucking thing, of course, the aforementioned malfunction started occurring more frequently, and my electronically gifted fist was less and less effective in providing a lasting cure.
One Sunday I woke up with a little pall over my mood, as I considered the possibility that the TV might not work that evening for a Jewel episode that we were looking forward to. With that in mind, and with the additional rationalization that my son should not go further in life thinking that physical violence was the primary tool in working with recalcitrant electronics, I headed down to Magnolia Hi Fi with the express purpose of returning with a television. I didn’t even make a pretense of shopping, I just marched in and picked it out based on its price and the fact that I could walk out the door with it.
So, I have Alistair Cooke to thank for nudging me to my first TV purchase, and with it another step away from my 20s.
