Compare and contrast
The assignment for today will be simple. We’re going to compare and contrast two short stories. The only real change is that we’re going to use immediate presentation. From a lifetime ago. Back when TV was something that used to keep the audience in there chair from start to finish. I have gone back into the archives and found two episodes of programs that would have been very popular back when I was in high school. Specifically Dragnet and Highway Patrol. One in colour and the other in black and white. At this point things merge into a single theme. We will use cars and communications. The actors will be required to remain in contact with a central authority. Their chatter will be terse. In large part making sure that they are properly identified on both ends. Very difficult to lose track when one character is called 2950 and the other is called 2110. That was the summary of Highway Patrol. As I said there is some contrast. When the TV changed to Dragnet everything required a timestamp. The actors spent a large amount of time detailing what time something happened. Down to the minute. Not much else would be learned in watching an episode. We all knew who the actors were and we all knew that they were located in a similar geographic area. A lot of time would be spent going from place to place. Or waiting for something to happen. Yes they did shoot at each other but not as much as one might expect. I think bullets were also expensive. But the cars. The best that the American industry could provide. In fact we learned that a lot of the cars were provided by government agencies in return for cheap advertising. I suspected little has changed in the last half century. It takes time to drive from there to here. And if there had been some sort of crossover the actors could have driven from one community to another without hesitation.
