OK. Here is the third and last part on some reflections on TV.

When I was watching a lot of TV back in the 1950s and 1960s, and even to a lesser degree in the 1970s, there was one common trait--the character actors. These were the type of actors who were never major stars, and you never saw them on the talk shows, but they instead made a pretty good niche for themselves playing the same basic character, no matter what TV show they guested on. Typically, these roles were those of drunks, hobos, mildly sinister characters, and those who were filled with their own importance. By today's standards, these character actors were misfits. Consider the type of people guesting on TV and game shows from decades ago. Remember Wally Cox? He also did voices for various cartoon characters, but the guy was short, wore glasses, and had no sex appeal whatsoever. You or I may not be able to name many character actors from the past, but we'd know them by their face. The were all wrong by today's standards. They were either older, were balding, overweight, too short--just the exact opposite than what is going on today. Today, the emphasis is on glamour and physical perfection. Its the Jennifer Aniston types with perfectly white teeth, perfect hair styles, perfect figures, and perfect faces. And even though they haven't necessarily done anything, they are always on the cover of teen and gossip magazines, or are always appearing on various talk shows. What happened to bring about this change? The leading female comedian of the 1960s was probably Phyllis Diller, an older looking hag with a wild hairdo and strange laugh. Would she ever make it today with that same personna?

Consider some of the James Bond female villains of the early 1960s. They were basically hags that deserved to die, if only because of their looks. BY the 1970s, female Bond villains were glamerous and seductive.

Remember "Ralph" from Green Acres? She was the carpenter from the show who was so plain looking that if you looked up the meaning of "plain looking" in the dictionary, you would see here picture. Yet, here was this not so attractive actress making a living for herself. Likewise, with the actress who played General Burkhalter's sister in Hogan's Heroes. She was an older actress, and was the definition of a lack of sex appeal, but here she was making a living for herself as an actress. Go figure.

One thing that has not changed about TV is that it continues to get into areas that it cannot get itself out of without losing respect or credibility. One scenerio that continues to pop up is the pregnant woman who is going to have a baby right during a moment of crisis where people's lives are at stake. Of course its up to the hero to deliver the baby, and how does he do it? By delivering the baby right through the woman's underwear, and the end result is that the baby is delivered clean as a whistle with no mess, and already 3 months old. It would be better off if Hollywood didn't even go there, but they still do, as an episode of "Walker Texas Ranger" recently showed. In the future, don't even go there.

One thing I have never been able to fully understand is an actor's fear of being typecast. When millions of people may be out of work, and millions of others are working for $10 an hour in factory jobs, here comes a Hollywood star who quits his job that is paying him $15,000 a week. Once they quit their job, they most often fade into obscurity, never to rise again. Remember Don Knotts from the old Andy Grifith Show? Whatever happened to him after that? He made some forgettable movies--one about a talking fish--and it was 10-15 years before he got a job in a series again. By that time he was only half as funny.

How about Pernell Roberts from Bonanza? He quit the show around 1964, and spent the next 20 years doing very occasional guest roles on other shows. I really wonder how some Hollywood stars manage to make a living. They are in a hit TV series for three years in the 1950s, and then you never hear from them again, except for some nostelgia reunion shows.

It will be interesting to see what happens to TV when all the chaff of the world gets burned away. How much of TV will end up standing?