The Last Book I Read

Some of my earliest memories of TV are of watching Car 54, Where Are You? and what must have been reruns of The Phil Silvers Show (Sgt. Bilko). As I recall, these were shows that made my Dad laugh too. I didn't know then that they were both the created by the nimble comedic mind of a guy named Nat Hiken, nor that Hiken also wrote for my favorite radio comedian Fred Allen (who I only discovered when I was in college, many years after his heyday in the forties). David Everitt's biography of Hiken was a fun read, as it is filled with behind the scenes stories of each of those series as it traces Hiken's career and impact on the first generation of television comedy. Everitt's goal is a bit more ambitious than just recounting how Hiken's crafted those classic shows; he succeeds in demonstrating how television evolved from a truly imaginative medium, built by talented writers like Hiken (as well as Paddy Chayefsky, Rod Serling, Carl Reiner, etc., etc.) only to be taken over by network executives who pursued the "lowest common denominator" method of programming in order to maximize their profits. It's a compelling theme, and Everitt makes a good case, first by deftly explaining Hiken's achievements and then his frustrations in trying to repeat them in the face of changing times in the 1960s. I found it refreshing to read what amounts to a show business biography that is almost wholly about the work and what it meant as opposed to relying on glamorous or sordid personal details (neither of which really seemed to be a part of Hiken's life anyway). One comes away from this book with some solid insights into the early days of television, and it's hard not to feel bad about not just Hiken's later troubles, but also what the TV audience missed out on as such creative types were essentially drummed out of the medium. One can definitely still see the results of that today, when junk like Two and Half Men sit atop the ratings.