Shadow Puppet Storyteller

Memories of Hot Topic TV

ABC Afternoon Special, yes, I remember the specific network, as it was part of the show title. I can actually remember the voice of the announcer declare, The ABC Afternoon Special...stated as confidently as newspapers once used to be cited with the auspicious use of "The" at the beginning. Chicago Style Manual or Strunk and White may still declare it necessary, but I would be surprised if college professors now are requiring as strict adherence as my own did once.

I think about the authority of television networks in the Seventies and Eighties, who were FCC contained and dictated to, and I wonder about whose sensibility decided to market the made-for-television movies aimed at issues of the day. Were they ever really meant for the children, or did they heighten the news market the television giants of the time also had to sell advertising time for? The topics of the shows and the actors they'd use seemed to be really for the mothers of the children, at this time it wouldn't be for the fathers, much as yet. And simply because it aired in the afternoon (After-school) it was "special" rather than primetime.

The disconnect, which I've only sensed decades after I was in their audience, is they magnanimously offered these special topic shows up AS IF most youth would be watching with an adult. I was not one of those kids -- I was a latch-key kid, and a media junkie, so I pretty much saw all these hot topic long-form docudramas on my own, to hash out for myself, and to reassure myself that if Henry Winkler could save the kid in the end, then of course, some adult in my life would appear to guide the way as well. The scriptwriters maybe were a bit more aware than the marketers, since the protagonist was usually a teacher or a coach, not the troubled kid's actual parent. Divorce was a huge reality, and usually it could be a contributing factor to the kid's troubles in the script. It could even be the main topic.

I also remember John Travolta as The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, which was primetime, and I probably had my parents present, but it wasn't like we talked during the presentation, or the commercials.