Chattanooga Pulse

Over the past couple of weeks, several key celebrity icons of my youth have passed on to their “final curtain call in the sky.” They dubbed the plane crash back in ’59 that took the lives of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper as “the day the music died.” But when Ed McMahon passed away, for me it was the beginning of “the week my childhood died.”

Back when I was a kid, and on into my 20’s, Johnny Carson hosted The Tonight Show. This was, of course, before Jay Leno, who replaced Johnny, and Conan, who recently replaced Jay. In fact, there were two other hosts before Johnny but because he sat at the desk for more than 30 years, no one my age really recalls Jack Parr, or that other guy.

Anyway, back then there wasn’t a David Letterman alternative, so late nights in front of the tube meant Johnny. And right beside Johnny sat Ed McMahon, his sidekick. Aside from announcing the evening’s guests during the opening sequence and introducing his boss with his famous “Heeeerrrrreeee’s Johnny!” (culturally referenced just as famously by Jack Nicholson in The Shining), Ed’s duties included guffawing at everything Johnny said in order to generate incestuous audience laughter.

Sometimes Ed would play the straight man in Johnny’s famous comedy skits. But mainly Ed just moved down the couch as each additional guest came out until he was out of camera frame completely for about the last 20 minutes of the program. All you could hear was his boisterous laughter and occasional, “You are correct, sir” or “Yes, ke-mo sah-bee” which he would spout off randomly to encourage whatever it was Johnny was trying to get us to believe. It was a riot.

A couple of days after Ed’s death, another icon from my childhood passed away. Farrah Fawcett was the first woman I, or anyone age 10 in 1977, ever loved. Her curly, bouncing blonde hair, bright shining smile and perfectly proportioned tanned body were just about all it took back then to ensure that you were headed down the hetero path just fine. In fact, everybody I knew had “the poster” of her, obviously cold, in a red bathing suit. And most of us strategically hung it on the BACK of our bedroom door (if you know what I mean).

She was one of Charlie’s Angels, a secret-agent-esque television series that featured what might well be the worst plot lines and acting that ABC has ever produced. But we didn’t mind. They could have just been sitting there staring back at us for all we cared. They were “angels.” And just when we were falling for Farrah, at the height of her career, she ran off and married Lee Majors.

Now, Lee Majors was the star of our second-most-favorite TV show, The Six Million Dollar Man. This unlikely tale chronicled the action-packed life of an astronaut who crashed his spaceship re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere, survived, and then was put back together with “bionic” parts that gave him super powers to be used specifically for high-profile crime fighting. And, his total transformation apparently only cost six million dollars. But remember, those were 1970 dollars.

Despite his super-strong grip and X-ray eyesight, Lee married OUR Farrah. And, even though he was about the coolest action hero on TV at the time, none of my friends or I could ever bring ourselves to call our angel “Farrah Fawcett-MAJORS.” We stopped at “Fawcett” in peaceful protest.

The final icon in my trilogy of fallen childhood heroes is of course, Michael Jackson. My first memory of pulling a vinyl album out of the sleeve and placing it on the phonograph was to play a Jackson Five record. I was probably 6 or 7 years old. Then when I was old enough to skate, I remember the soundtrack of the day being his Off The Wall album, played in heavy rotation at the rink.

But it was in my teenage years, after I hit high school and got MTV, that Michael pretty much became the focal point of pop culture. It wasn’t necessarily cool to actually like Thriller at my school if you were male and looked to Keith Richards, Ric Ocasek or Sting for your marching orders. But no one could resist the smooth grooves and infectious tunes of “Billie Jean,” “Thriller” and “Beat It” (which, because Eddie Van Halen played the guitar solo, made that song a lot cooler). Those songs always catapult me back to 1983 for some reason. I’m pretty sure they always will.

They say things come in threes. And if so, I’m glad the bloodletting of my childhood is over—at least for now. So to Ed, Farrah and Michael—RIP. You certainly have left your mark.

Chuck Crowder is a local writer and general man about town. His opinions are just that. Everything expressed is loosely based on fact, and crap he hears people talking about. Take what you just read with a grain of salt, but pepper it in your thoughts. And be sure to check out his wildly popular website  www.thenoog.com