Tonight I got MJ to watch the Jack Black movie "School of Rock" for the first time ever.... cute movie, good trivia study material with different rock bands and songs, catchy music, and kids! Always a good formula for success, except even in 2003 (just 21 short years ago!) some of the humor would be unacceptable nowadays. Definitely a movie that still works though, and especially needed in times of anxiety and hand-wringing about kids. It also featured one of the most brilliant 3-week runs of a substitute teacher ever turned in by rock music lover Dewey Finn played by Jack Black, and it got me wondering what it would be like to be a substitute teacher. Well, I looked it up.... the pay is terrible, but most school districts in large urban areas kind of need them, especially with the amount of permanent teachers who have a difficult time now at school after the pandemic with distractions and social media and smartphones, etc. Just imagine if School of Rock had happened in 2024.... the kids would just all be on their phones while Jack tried to convince them to start a band. Also I looked up which school subjects are the most popular....apparently math and science teachers are in the most demand, which makes sense because people with those backgrounds usually can find a job in other sectors, while English and social science teachers don't have as many options to choose from and have to "settle" for being a teacher. I would love to learn science again the right way, especially chemistry and physics, because I don't think I was taught correctly in high school or at least didn't have the interest in it that I should have. I wonder what substitute teachers do nowadays..show movies? Try to teach something on their own? Go off of what the permanent teacher's notes were? Hard to tell.
Recently I've been hooked no watching old "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" episodes which came out 1999-2002. (Guess I've devolved into literally living in the past through TV shows that came out in the "Glory Days" pre-smartphones). In addition to a good host, good questions, and good format to keeping viewers engaged with lifelines, etc., the show is significant to me because it marked the last time that ordinary random people showed up on prime time national TV. I'm not talking about the contestants of The Bachelor, or Survivor, who are usually culled by the TV executives to fit the demographics that they need, matching specific criteria, one of them being that they need to be telegenic and exude sex appeal or look like a model, I'm talking about ordinary office workers, accountants, teachers, lawyers, truck drivers, police officers, who got on through calling a toll-free number, answering questions, and then flying to New York. There was very little "culling of the herd" by TV execs to get exactly the right contestants they wanted, it was more by merit and open to all who qualified to get on TV. That just doesn't happen anymore, and game shows like Jeopardy are the last bastion of "real people" like me getting on any kind of national TV (although I suspect even Jeopardy has a little bit of filtering for people). Millionaire didn't do that.... they let everyone have a chance. What it got them was often casts of very, very, very white people who all looked pretty much the same (mostly white males, plus Regis Philbin a white male host), but.....IT STILL GOT EXCELLENT RATINGS. It came on almost daily eery week at its hey day and one of the highest rated shows on televison, showing that even as late as 2001 (I know, maybe ancient times by today's kids' standards) you didn't need to have sex, violence, etc., or made-for-TV characters or gimmicks like drag queens, D-list actors, comedians, etc. I'd argue that the audience resonated with the down-to-earth folk even more. If only they'd try it again ( I guess the business of TV has changed where it might never happen again). Here's hoping it will!! Or I'm allowed to time travel back to pre-2008 days in my current adult form (not my pubsescent years of acne and insecurity).
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