“Bless me father for I have sinned. It’s been over 15 years since my last confession. I still don’t know who shot J.R. Ewing in the original long running soap opera drama series, Dallas, that ran on CBS from 1978 to 1991.”
I must have broken some unwritten commandment. When I posted the comment on Facebook the night of June 13, 2012 that in the twenty years since the soap opera drama, Dallas, went off the air, I still don’t know who shot Texas oil tycoon J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman), a friend on my page responded back to my post saying for me to “Please turn in my man card right now.”
Up until then I had no idea I actually had a “man card.”
My not knowing who shot J.R. Ewing is not the only piece of useless “Dallas” trivia I know nothing about. I’ll have you know looking over that ten question quiz about the television series in the June 2012 issue of D magazine, I also have no idea what show beat the Nov. 21, 1980 Who shot J.R. episode in 1983, what role Brad Pitt played in the series or what Texas governor was featured in the Ewing Rodeo episode? And no I had no idea there was a rodeo episode.
That’s not to say I never watched the original series. I know die-hard fans of America’s dysfunctional greedy first family of the “Lone Star State” will say this doesn’t count. I did, however, watch the final two-hour series finale in 1991, which was a rendition of A Christmas Carol where the devil, played by Joel Grey, shows J.R. how much life would be better for everyone if he hadn’t been born. The only reason I watched that episode is I make it a habit to catch every finale of a show that’s been on for more than five years even though I never watched the series the whole time it was on.
If I add up those two hours I spent on that fateful night May 3, 1991, 21 years ago, it doesn’t even come close to the time I spent over the summer watching the new series which comes out to around 45 minutes. I did watch the first two episodes in June and when I say “watch” it means I had the TV on while I was doing stuff on the computer occasionally looking away and then back again.
I actually remember the times I did actually stop what I was doing, three to be exact. There was the opening scene of Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy) at the doctor’s office being told he has terminal cancer, the scene where Bobby visits J.R. at a hospital and the final scene where family conspirators, Marta Del Sol (Leonor Varela) and John Ross (Josh Henderson) meet up on the 50-yard line at Cowboys Stadium. I wonder if God was looking down on them from the Heavens the way people believe the reason there is a hole in the roof of Cowboys stadium is because the Almighty likes to watch his favorite team play.
“Old fogeys like me don't e-mail darlin',” J.R. says in episode 2. “We talk to each other, personally.” Or in my case, I just don’t say anything and blog my thoughts in long winded columns.
And three, when it came to my deciding what to watch the night of August 8 be it either the season one finale of Dallas or to see volleyball champions Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings win their third gold medal at the Olympics, I chose female eye candy in skimpy bikini outfits over the Ewings. Seeing Misty May-Treanor do a little victory dance on the sand only comes once in a lifetime, especially since I have yet to see a clip of it on YouTube.
So those of you die-hard Texans and devoted Dallas fans demanding I turn in my “man card”, I am more than happy to surrender it to you. Just tell me what it looks like. Is it shaped like the state of Texas on that NC-17 movie poster of "Killer Joe" that looks like a deep-fried mozzarella stick? Should I turn my storage shed upside down going through years of old magazines, comic books, movie posters, computer equipment, printers and old newspapers to find it?
Perhaps I left it in several boxes of Star Wars toys I have been selling to a local dealer the past ten months. You think if I ask the dealer if he found a “man card” inside some of the stuff I gave him would he know what I am talking about?
If, and when I do find this “man card” you people demand I hand over, could you also do me the favor and tell me who shot J.R.? That would really save me the trouble of the penance the priest told me I must do in order to be forgiven, and that’s having to sit through 356 hours of 356 episodes of a long running soap opera drama I was not the least bit interested in watching back when it first aired decades ago.
©8/12/12
I must have broken some unwritten commandment. When I posted the comment on Facebook the night of June 13, 2012 that in the twenty years since the soap opera drama, Dallas, went off the air, I still don’t know who shot Texas oil tycoon J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman), a friend on my page responded back to my post saying for me to “Please turn in my man card right now.”
Up until then I had no idea I actually had a “man card.”
That’s not to say I never watched the original series. I know die-hard fans of America’s dysfunctional greedy first family of the “Lone Star State” will say this doesn’t count. I did, however, watch the final two-hour series finale in 1991, which was a rendition of A Christmas Carol where the devil, played by Joel Grey, shows J.R. how much life would be better for everyone if he hadn’t been born. The only reason I watched that episode is I make it a habit to catch every finale of a show that’s been on for more than five years even though I never watched the series the whole time it was on.
If I add up those two hours I spent on that fateful night May 3, 1991, 21 years ago, it doesn’t even come close to the time I spent over the summer watching the new series which comes out to around 45 minutes. I did watch the first two episodes in June and when I say “watch” it means I had the TV on while I was doing stuff on the computer occasionally looking away and then back again.
I actually remember the times I did actually stop what I was doing, three to be exact. There was the opening scene of Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy) at the doctor’s office being told he has terminal cancer, the scene where Bobby visits J.R. at a hospital and the final scene where family conspirators, Marta Del Sol (Leonor Varela) and John Ross (Josh Henderson) meet up on the 50-yard line at Cowboys Stadium. I wonder if God was looking down on them from the Heavens the way people believe the reason there is a hole in the roof of Cowboys stadium is because the Almighty likes to watch his favorite team play.
There are only two things I learned paying very little attention to the new series over the summer, okay three. One, I have now added another item to my bucket list of things I want to do that I seriously doubt I will ever accomplish before I die which is to one day feel a big block of frozen methane to see if it is really hot when you touch it.Two, I learned that J.R. and I actually have one thing in common which is we are not that fond of today’s technology as he doesn’t care for communicating via email either.
“Old fogeys like me don't e-mail darlin',” J.R. says in episode 2. “We talk to each other, personally.” Or in my case, I just don’t say anything and blog my thoughts in long winded columns.
And three, when it came to my deciding what to watch the night of August 8 be it either the season one finale of Dallas or to see volleyball champions Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings win their third gold medal at the Olympics, I chose female eye candy in skimpy bikini outfits over the Ewings. Seeing Misty May-Treanor do a little victory dance on the sand only comes once in a lifetime, especially since I have yet to see a clip of it on YouTube.
So those of you die-hard Texans and devoted Dallas fans demanding I turn in my “man card”, I am more than happy to surrender it to you. Just tell me what it looks like. Is it shaped like the state of Texas on that NC-17 movie poster of "Killer Joe" that looks like a deep-fried mozzarella stick? Should I turn my storage shed upside down going through years of old magazines, comic books, movie posters, computer equipment, printers and old newspapers to find it?
Perhaps I left it in several boxes of Star Wars toys I have been selling to a local dealer the past ten months. You think if I ask the dealer if he found a “man card” inside some of the stuff I gave him would he know what I am talking about?
If, and when I do find this “man card” you people demand I hand over, could you also do me the favor and tell me who shot J.R.? That would really save me the trouble of the penance the priest told me I must do in order to be forgiven, and that’s having to sit through 356 hours of 356 episodes of a long running soap opera drama I was not the least bit interested in watching back when it first aired decades ago.
©8/12/12
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