Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 4, 1992 TAG: 9201040008
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
IT'S BOGEY BY 10 OVER BRADSHAW
I wouldn't want you to try in your home something I did recently, and I mention it only to show that Old Bennie here never rests in his Quest for Truth.I hope you won't write letters to the publisher saying what a courageous journalist I am. If you want to send money, that's up to you.
What I did was toy with my own mind most of New Year's Day, which brings us all of these useless football games and parades on the TV.
I carefully studied the schedules and found that, in addition to the games and parades, the day also offered a Humphrey Bogart marathon and three episodes of "Anne of Green Gables."
The idea was to see how the mind might respond to certain varied stimuli.
That is, you watch Lauren Bacall for a while and suddenly switch to Terry Bradshaw's commentary - which is enough to make serial killers out of the gentlest of persons.
Also, you take the risk of some brain damage from those commercials in which Suzanne Somers sits there grinning like an idiot while using her trusty Thighmaster. This commercial probably would have a R rating if it weren't so dumb.
I was lucky, which is probably why I am sane enough to be writing this column. I ran into Suzanne and her Thighmaster only once and avoided any of those spots in which Art Linkletter urges us to trade in our old chairs.
The parades, or at least the people who describe them, can also render you temporarily insane:
"Goodness gracious, Marvin, those are the loveliest flowers on that float."
"Yes, Hygeia, they are grown on Tibetan mountain slopes and tended by simple peasants, who would be arrested if they ever came to Pasadena."
So there I was, abusing the remote and making funny noises. First there's Anne's wholesome adventures, then the Cotton Bowl and Bogart in "The Petrified Forest."
Incidentally, Leslie Howard, who wimped his way through "Gone with the Wind," also appears in this movie. Bogart mercifully plugs him.
I know that at this point, many of you are saying that these are just the ravings of a couch potato.
That's not true. I didn't eat potato chips, cheese, peanuts, Twinkies or Little Debbie cakes shaped like Christmas trees during my experiment.
I ate a half dozen tangerines, which are good for you.
At supper, an apparent imbalance of brain chemicals caused me to act like a hog.
I also know that some will say my hazardous experiment was stupid and didn't prove anything.
Oh yeah? How about Bogey/Anne 10, Terry/Bowls 0?