Review: To Head The Classics
Do I smell franchise in American Classics? Why not, since the franchise business must be an American classic itself. Just ask McDonald’s. The Good Humor Man. Or even — wouldn’t grandma be shocked? — Playboy. This lively four-part stroll along the picket fences of American culture follows the quick-hit vignette form of such History Channel successes as History’s Lost and Found (also produced by Atlas Media) and “This Week in History.” After tonight’s hour surveys the classics with which our nation defined itself — George Washington, Uncle Sam, the cowboy — American Classics gets down to the business that pays.
That would be extolling the vast importance of all the little stuff we love anyway — “we” being those modern folks who wallow in the nostalgia of our own old times. The “American classics” explored this week are overwhelmingly products of the last five decades. No boring not-in-our-lifetime topics like Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (its 19th century manuscript recently seen on Lost and Found).
The job of host Dick Clark — an American classic himself thanks to “American Bandstand” and those rockin’ New Year’s Eves — is to wax enthusiastic about everything from the ‘57 Chevy to the smiley face, stopping in between at Levittown. The stated goal of his gush is tantalizing indeed: to assess “what icons symbolize our national heritage as Americans.”
As Clark narrates over reams of stock footage, news photos, expert analysis and memorabilia, he does put a little meat on the show’s bones, such as the time he proposes a classic is “something that lasts because it’s changed with us” (i.e., Muhammad Ali).
Many vignettes offer other intriguing observations — that the Washington $1 bill is “America’s first classic,” that the cowboy is “the one original contribution America has made to mythology.” The first hour delves into our need for such an untamed icon at the dawn of industrialization, then plunges into how product brands and packaging spoke to an immigration nation with their language-free visual cues.
Even recent classics can have some soft heft. Friday’s hour beautifully dissects “It’s a Wonderful Life”: the movie’s emotional appeal, the practical reasons behind its ubiquity, the archetypes of its all-American small town story (the bad girl, the class clown, the absent-minded uncle).
Tomorrow’s “America in Motion” hour delights in the 1950s automotive tail fin being “blatantly excessive” and “vulgarly expressive.” Thursday’s “America Transformed” becomes its own smiley face, grinning over the “fabulous modernity” of the post-war era when “artificial was kind of a good thing.” Friday’s conclusion, “Let Us Entertain You,” also emphasizes the ’50s-Marilyn Monroe, “I love Lucy,” Elvis Presley — which makes one wonder why they didn’t just limit this mini-series to that decade and start another one to cover the rest.
Ah, but that’s easy to do in the next version, and the next, and the next. Merely glanced in passing this week are such likely subjects as Classics Illustrated comic books and “Broadway Open House,” the late-night tubefest that evolved into “The Tonight Show.”
