11/24/2012

R.I. P. Major Nelson

As you undoubtedly have heard already Larry Hagman has passed away. And while it is sad, people will without fail be lamenting the loss of good ole’ J.R. and making hackney jokes about who shot him. People I may add; that are far too young to have actually remembered watching the show. I am 35yrs old and I recall my mother buying me a Who Shot JR shirt at a flea market in 1985- five years after the episode aired. I was to young then to even know what the hell it was about but her and her friends thought it was cute so I played it off like I knew then I began watching and continued right up until it was cancelled in 1991. Still I was way too young to get half of it and way to young to be watching Primetime soap operas (which sadly aren’t even a thing anymore). Even though it was the role of J.R. Ewing that made Hagman one of the highest paid television actors before the Seinfeld and Friends cast broke the bank and paved the way for reality shows where they didn’t have to pay the “actors”. That was not his most important role in television history. Sure the whole “Who Shot J.R.” thing is apart of American pop culture history and television history in general, but what about his first hit television series. You know what I’m talking about (you can see the picture right), I’m talking about Mother-fucking I Dream of Jeanie bitches! Hell yeah!
bw jeannie with major nelsonHagman was Major Nelson the only man smart enough to go into space but too dumb to know what to do with a hot blonde in a bikini who wanted nothing more than to marry him and grant his every wish. Where most people only get three wishes from genie's that sound like Robin Williams and look like a hipster demons from Bagdad! this man got a smoking hot Barbra Eden who gave him 5 years worth of hijinks filled wishes. None of which involved him putting his penis in places that in 1965 would have been considered ungodly. I on the other hand would have wasted no time wishing for her to to tricks on my dick!
This was how I knew Hagman, having grown up in a area when there were UHF and VHF channels. UHF being the ones on the lower knob that played endless reruns of Janie, Sandford and Son, Good Times, and the Brady Bunch. I spent more hours than I can count with the Major and Jeanie, far more than I ever did with J.R. And I’m guessing so did most people my age or younger. You can still find I dream of Jeanie playing somewhere on some channel right now if you look. They don’t really run reruns of Dallas. As for the new remake on TNT, sure it garnered some good ratings but remakes of classic TV shows are never as good as the originals. And as far as Hagman reprising his role as the greatest villain on 80s Primetime TV; well let’s just say it packed less of a punch now that we all know how far he was from the stereotypical cowboy oil tycoon he portrayed. He was in fact an advocate of medicinal marijuana and a huge champion of green technology. He ran his 43 acre estate on solar power and was in fact everything the character JR would have hated.

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