Nope, R1. Gracie Allen was funny precisely because it was obvious that she was intelligent. You'd have come a lot closer with Matt Lauer, who celebrates his own ignorance. "Ess wonderful" indeed.
Blondie & Dagwood, Ozzie & Harriet, the befuddled, the dumb, the scattered and simple, yes we have all found comic relief in mass marketed stupidity of one kind or another.
What is so dangerous about our modern cultural markers is that we now have new technology so we can get dumber faster, and literally watch the coarsening of our culture in five year increments now, instead of 20 yr increments.
Victoria Jackson
It really is true. You can never go broke underestimating the taste of the American public. Just look at the infomercials!
Certainly Lucile Ball is a great example of this.
It's been going on forever. And ever. It used to be with new technologies such as planes or TV or radio, you put on your best. But in real life, stupidity has always been celebrated. Yes, HL Menken said it best, r5. And I'm fine with that especially since it's become socially acceptable to wear jeans (and worse) on a plane.
