Red Voodoo
Well Known Member
Hi gang?
I hope you?ll all indulge me in a little stroll down Memory Lane. This is going to date me (but who cares?). Back when I was in the first or second grade (after the Earth cooled but before the Kennedy administration), Saturday morning television included a lot of live action adventure shows, as well as cartoons. There was Roy Rogers, and Fury, and Rin Tin Tin, and My Friend Flicka. They were all set in the West, which, to a kid growing up in the flatlands and swamps of southeast Georgia, seemed pretty exotic. All of these programs featured simple plots, lots of action, and usually a lesson about doing right.
But the best (my favorite, at least) was Sky King! I mean, the guy lived on a big ranch in Arizona, flew around in HIS OWN AIRPLANE, and helped people in trouble (or thwarted those trying to cause it). It was great! His constant companion was his young, blonde niece Penny (I was much too little to have any particular interest in her
).
Well, fast forward a few decades, and last week my wife and co-builder, as a reward for services rendered in some home renovation work, allowed me to buy the recently-released, 72-episode DVD box set. Booyah! What a sublime if simple pleasure, to sit down and watch an episode or two. I haven?t seen much that I remember from my childhood, but the feeling I get watching Sky King now is hauntingly familiar; kind of comfortable. I guess it?s just good to escape, if only for a little while, from these tumultuous times and retreat to an era where things at least SEEMED simpler.
And yet, in one of the episodes, Sky breaks up a plot to smuggle Mexican laborers into the U.S. to work for nothing in return for the promise of citizenship in a year. So, there in the middle of a fifty-year-old television show is a theme that still resonates today. Anyway, I just had to share these thoughts; I?ll bet there?s someone else out there who remembers Sky, Penny (and her brother Clipper) and the Songbird, and the Flying Crown Ranch. And I?ll even wager that someone will admit to being influenced toward aviation by the show. I certainly was?
I hope you?ll all indulge me in a little stroll down Memory Lane. This is going to date me (but who cares?). Back when I was in the first or second grade (after the Earth cooled but before the Kennedy administration), Saturday morning television included a lot of live action adventure shows, as well as cartoons. There was Roy Rogers, and Fury, and Rin Tin Tin, and My Friend Flicka. They were all set in the West, which, to a kid growing up in the flatlands and swamps of southeast Georgia, seemed pretty exotic. All of these programs featured simple plots, lots of action, and usually a lesson about doing right.
But the best (my favorite, at least) was Sky King! I mean, the guy lived on a big ranch in Arizona, flew around in HIS OWN AIRPLANE, and helped people in trouble (or thwarted those trying to cause it). It was great! His constant companion was his young, blonde niece Penny (I was much too little to have any particular interest in her
).Well, fast forward a few decades, and last week my wife and co-builder, as a reward for services rendered in some home renovation work, allowed me to buy the recently-released, 72-episode DVD box set. Booyah! What a sublime if simple pleasure, to sit down and watch an episode or two. I haven?t seen much that I remember from my childhood, but the feeling I get watching Sky King now is hauntingly familiar; kind of comfortable. I guess it?s just good to escape, if only for a little while, from these tumultuous times and retreat to an era where things at least SEEMED simpler.
And yet, in one of the episodes, Sky breaks up a plot to smuggle Mexican laborers into the U.S. to work for nothing in return for the promise of citizenship in a year. So, there in the middle of a fifty-year-old television show is a theme that still resonates today. Anyway, I just had to share these thoughts; I?ll bet there?s someone else out there who remembers Sky, Penny (and her brother Clipper) and the Songbird, and the Flying Crown Ranch. And I?ll even wager that someone will admit to being influenced toward aviation by the show. I certainly was?
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