Youth of the Beast

Recently I read Rob Schrab’s “Drywall Unzipped” in which two AWESOME Don Ho songs (“Happy Me” and “A Lover’s Prayer”) are referenced. When I was done with the comic I instantly sampled the songs on iTunes and bought them. They are pop perfection and I have been playing them incessantly since.

While listening to the songs on our way down to San Diego the other day, my lovely fiancé mentioned that Don Ho had appeared on an episode of her favorite TV show – “I Dream of Jeannie.” Tonight, having nothing to do, we found ourselves watching not only that episode but also two others featuring Phil Spector and Sammy Davis Jr. respectively. It is here that we encounter a, ‘chicken or the egg’ situation.

Watching these episodes I encountered so many period-specific things that I adore:

- Pathé Color©
- Mid-Century furnishings & fashion
- Lounge Music
- Space-Age obsession
- Animated title sequences
- Exotica
- Random musical numbers
- Self-deprecating celebrity cameos
- Crazy opticals & transitions
- Jabs at the youth culture of the time

I then began to wonder:

“Do I like these things because I watched “I Dream of Jeannie” as a child, or do I like “I Dream of Jeannie” because it has these things in it?”

I know that I watched a lot of “I Dream of Jeannie” when I was young, and I admit to looking back on my childhood with nostalgia, but is that enough to really build an obsession? Plenty of people my age watched this show and others like it growing up and they don’t give two fucks about the things that I find beautiful.

Where does obsession begin?

I guess it’s kind of like, “How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll© center of a Tootsie Pop©?”

The world may never know.


Mahalo.