Please allow me to introduce Myself. I am Aunt Constance, & I have the Happy Honor of reading your Questions relating to Manners both in and out of the Home, Dress  Sense, from Top Hat to Hob Nail, & of course: Matters of Love;  –although upon that Subject, methinks Nobody can attest to being a true Expert…

I will welcome all reasonable Inquiries about how to partake of the Amusements of a Ball-room & conduct oneself at Assemblies. Dancing is one of the most genteel Accomplishments a young Lady can possess. It gives a natural, easy and graceful Air to all the Motions of the Body.   Let us not ignore the subject of Impropriety, and how to preclude unkind Gossip.

My Dear Ladies—& Gentlemen too, let me hear your Thoughts & and your own Tried & True Advice to Young Ladies on the Improvement of the Mind. I look forward to your interesting Missives which I will treat with no want of Respect and will respond to with the Language of the Heart.

ear Constance,

I’m just curious about what you think of all these Reality T.V shows. It seems like there are so many on right now. My wife and I used to like watching variety shows, and good detective shows but do you think we can find any? No sir!

We can’t believe the stuff that passes as entertainment. There are shows about people doing all kinds of embarrassing things, and quite frankly we are just not interested in it. We don’t like the crime shows that leave nothing to the imagination. Do the people who make T V shows ask their viewers what they want to see before they invent this rubbish?

A few years back we would watch shows like The Rockford Files and Murder she Wrote, but there’s nothing like that anymore. My wife liked Carol Burnett, and we both like a good comedy romance movie, but most cable T.V packages includes extras that we really don’t want.

Please Constance, what ever happened to the Golden Age of television? We are middle-aged and not what you’d call prudish but we can’t find a darn thing to watch—except the news. (And that’s getting pretty hard to watch sometimes)

Dear Douglas and Marilyn,

Let it be known that you are not alone in your quest for light entertainment. There are many of us who, filled with hopeful anticipation, gather nightly before the flickering blue light of the “goggle box” to begin our wanderings through the labyrinth of channels, but turn back disappointed, and unsatisfied.

Reality, Schmeality!! I pray with all my heart that one day Mark Burnett rues the day that he ever read Coral Island.  He has appropriated a long-standing childhood fantasy and reduced it’s appeal to that of a popular soap opera starring a so-called cross section of us—but with all our worst personality traits exposed for all to see. Shameful!
This show and the others of that ilke are all just variations of that most horrific of television shows: The Jerry Springer Show.

While I am very glad that adults can choose from a plethora of well-written dramas and documentaries on certain pay-TV channels, I truly believe that there is a dire shortage of family entertainment. If the phenomenon of television is to remain with us and, I believe—with mixed feelings—that it is here for a time, we must insure that there will be programs that can be viewed by children and their parents—at the same time. Where are the series about quests, adventures and mysteries like; Road to Avonlea,  Lost in Space,  Little House on the Prairie, and the likeable succession of folksy detectives who didn’t have any use for demons or derringers.

I  too lament the demise of the variety show genre—shows like; Ed Sullivan, Carol Burnett, Wayne and Schuster, Sonny and Cher and Your Show of Shows. Let’s lobby for their return!

Are we also so jaded now that we really need all these crime dramas dealing with forensic science? Where do you go with the genre after you have shown the inside of an expired human being? Quite simply there is nowhere else to go—except back to a kinder gentler era of good storytelling and warm-hearted music and comedy. We can take it; we’ve got the stomach for it—and the heart!!!!

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