Thanks to the repository of useless knowledge that is the internet, I learn that today, Sept. 2, 2010, is 90210 Day: 9/02/10. This is, of course, absolutely unsignificant, and yet the date acts much as Proust's madeleine, bringing back to me memories of my early teenage years.
This is not because I ever watched Beverly Hills, 90210. I don't believe I ever saw an episode in its entirety, and it was seldom that I even saw clips. But it held a kind of allure for me at age 14 or 15, because it was the Hot Thing. I read about it in the papers, I heard commercials for new episodes on the radio (remember when radio was big enough business that TV advertised there?), and people talked about it. I wanted to know what the buzz was about, and I had a sneaking feeling that I was missing out on something. Certainly it seemed like the characters on the shows, regardless of their Hollywood problems, had achieved some ineffable level of coolness. Could mere association by viewing grant me coolness by osmosis?
Time has wreaked its usual havoc, and the actors and characters of 90210 have all slunk off to obscurity. I live a far more rich and beautiful life now than any scriptwriter would have the courage or imagination to portray. Popular shows come and go, but I myself endure. And that's pretty cool.
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9 comments:
+JMJ+
A friend of mine who is a fan of the new 90210 decided to start watching the original series again. She said she was surprised by how innocent it was--innocent in spirit, if not in content.
She and I both remember the time when it seemed to be the most controversial show on TV. Now that we have teen dramas like The O.C. and Gossip Girl, the original 90210 has all the bite of a toothless lion.
Which, I think, says more about our times than about the show.
Is this a suitable forum to ask how the U.S ended up with a month-day-year structure while we have day-month-year? The British system seems to follow a logical progression, and of course we felt the pang of nostalgia back in February.
I've certainly no objection, though I'm not sure if any of us know.
I'd always assumed it was an attempt to replicate the spoke date order. One generally says (on this side of the pond at any rate) September second, rather than second September.
Thus you get:
Sept 2, 2010
and
09-02-10
The US military uses a logical progression for dates, though they use it in either direction. Thus today's date might be either
2010FEB03
or
03FEB2010.
Joel
+JMJ+
I use day-month-year myself, but I know that if I had missed the first 90210 day (9 February 2010), I would have been glad to have this second one to fall back on. As it stands, though, I've missed both. =P
Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be with you) wasn't nearly so complicated.
+JMJ+
See you next May the Fourth, then! =P
And I've just realised that my proposed 9 February 2010 is "92210" rather than "90210." Oh, well . . .
I loved the original 90210, I watched it all the time. However, I can trump this on numbers, this year my birthday falls on 101010! Buy a lotto ticket!
May the Fourth be with you, E!
I must admit that "90210" is barely on my radar screen. "Room 222" and later "James at Sixteen" were about as much teen drama as you got in my day (I expect to draw a collective blank--I bet those shows don't even exist on the retro channels anymore.)
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