Farewell to Sherwood Schwartz

Sherwood Schwartz died today at the age of 94. Along with Mr. Schwartz went an era that we, the people of "T.V. land" will never see again. Sherwood Schwartz was the last of a now extinct breed of television writers who found their voices and a stage in our living rooms during what is called "the Golden Age of Television". Yet even so, I seriously wonder if he will be missed.

In light of the development of the Internet and the demand for endless hours of the new reality series genre, it seems that we as an audience might well have gone beyond a certain point from which there is no return. Just as young lovers can't go back to holding hands, I doubt that we will ever really be able to go back to the days when 7 unlikely castaways such as those created by Sherwood Schwartz that we found on "Gilligan's Island" would be able to even catch our interest. And what possible interest would there ever be in an idyllic, well adjusted, middle class family produced through the romantic union of two previously married parents? We have long since denigrated and deflowered the "Brady Bunch" family, both the on-screen television images as well as the individual members of the cast and their real world lives.

What a grand twist of irony it is that 1974, the year that saw the last season of the Sherwood Schwartz penned Brady Bunch, was also the year that a black clad, lanky, heavy metal rocker in demon make-up named Gene Simmons, bass player for the band KISS made his national television debut in front of a shocked, if not bewildered, live audience watching the Mike Douglas show. Today, just 38 years later, the number one show about family life on television centers around the household of Gene Simmons (now a rock and roll music icon with an estimated net worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars), his unmarried partner, former Playboy model and erotic actress Shannon Tweed, and their two children.

Admittedly, the Internet is an entirely new medium that is in it's own infancy and filled with promises beyond our most creative imagination. It is an exciting time to be alive and entertained. Even though there may be no room in our collective psyche for the simple scripted fantasies like those Sherwood Schwartz gave us, for those of us who were lucky enough to be the audience he wrote for, he will be fondly remembered.