Revolution… Not Televised…
- I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
- dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
- Angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
Yeah, Sure. But at least they got televised.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers in the instant replay. There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers in the instant replay. There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process. There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving For just the proper occasion. Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and women will not care if Dick finally gets down with Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people will be in the street looking for a brighter day. The revolution will not be televised. There will be no highlights on the eleven o’clock news and no pictures of hairy armed women liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose. The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb, Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.
Wait. Were Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies and Hooterville Junction ever “so demaned relevant”?
The 1970–71 season failed to gain a top 30 Nielson placing[15] and the show was cancelled in 1971 after 274 episodes. The CBS network, prompted by pressure from advertisers seeking a more sophisticated urban audience, decided to refocus its schedule on several “hip” new urban-themed shows and, to make room for them, all of CBS’s rural-themed comedies were simultaneously cancelled, despite some considerable Nielsen ratings.[16] This action came to be known as “the Rural Purge.” Pat Buttram, who played Mr Haney on Green Acres, famously remarked that, “It was the year CBS killed everything with a tree in it.”[17]
In addition to The Beverly Hillbillies, the series that were eliminated included Green Acres, Mayberry R.F.D., and Hee Haw, the last of which was resurrected in first-run syndication, where it ran for another twenty-one years. Petticoat Junction had been canceled a year earlier due to declining ratings following the death of its star, Bea Benaderet.
And thus was born Spiro Agnew’s “Silent Majority” of (rural) (white) (square) resentment, seeing their old comfortable favorites ceasing to be televised? The Complacency will not be televised.