That same summer, TV continued their stale old sales pitch of “War is Fun”, with new shows like “Hogan’s Heroes”, “The Wackiest Ship in the Army”, “Mr. Roberts” and “Mona McCluskey”, added to the ongoing “Gomer Pyle”, “McHale’s Navy”, “No Time for Sergeants” and “Broadside”. In honor of Texan, LBJ, TV even presented Army fun set in the Old West on “F-Troop”. Boomer boys did not rush right down to their local Army recruiters. TV networks decided to pull another old trick out of the hat… the Red Scare. “Look out! There are Commie spies everywhere!” Television then offered to save us with its amazing group of counterspies: a British spy (in honor of the Beatles) on “Secret Agent”, a black spy (in honor of MLK) on “I Spy”, and, “Would you believe”, a silly spy on “Get Smart”? Again, in honor of Lyndon, the networks even claimed that spies and counterspies once roamed the Old West in “The Wild, Wild West.”
“Like, sorry Mr. TV network Dude. Boomers aren’t digging the ‘War is Fun’ or the ‘Commies are hiding under our beds’ concepts. Kind of stale. Leaves a bad aftertaste in our mouths.” TV moved on to Plan C… Teen Utopia. That whole scene began with the movie Gidget in 1959, and TV tried to revive the dead with a series with the same name, staring Sally Field. The Beach Boys jumped back on the Beach Party bandwagon, with (“I wish they all could be”) “California Girls.”
Hollywood joined in, offering misleading hints of sex in Beach Blanket Bingo and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini. Boomers passed on Teen Utopia, and the Movie Industry snapped back (like a woman scorned) with Village of the Giants… a horror film that delivered a warning to, and about, rebellious teens. Plot: Six Boomer teens steal a young boy’s scientific experiment, and the formula enables them to expand their bodies to six times their normal size. The rebellious giants take over the town, terrorize the citizens, laugh at the local authorities and dance to a lot of music that could only be called Rock & Roll in the context of a low-budget teen-scene screamer. The tyrant teens overpowered the adults, but preteen scientist, Ronny Howard, saved the day by spraying an antidote on the big punks to shrink them back to normal size. The message was aimed at younger, preteen Boomers, to warn them that they must avoid the evil influence of their older siblings. Boomers, of all ages (the few that saw it anyway), thought that Village was the silliest flick of the year.
The Stones provided an answer to the Great Society’s sales pitch to the youth of America: “Hey, You, Get Off of My Cloud” and (“Don’t play with me ‘cause you’re) Playing With Fire.” The naughty band headlined the T.A.M.I (TeenAge Music International) Show, which promised something for everyone… soul, teen idol, beach sound and British Invasion. But, the raw power and excitement of Jagger and the Stones brought a live concert ambiance to the movie. When Mick sang, “It’s All Over Now”, the performance served as an obituary for jukebox musicals and lip-synch TV shows like Hullabaloo, Shindig and Bandstand, because now, the old styles seemed hopelessly out of date by comparison.
Barry McGuire, no less subtle, sang (“Why don’t you tell me over and over again, my friend, that you don’t believe we’re on the”) “Eve of Destruction”: “You’re old enough to kill, but not for voting/ You don’t believe in war, then what’s that gun you’re toting?” The song belonged to the new “Folk Rock” genre that saturated the pop charts in 1965. Dylan opened the doors with “Subterranean Homesick Blues” in March, and an army of imitators followed. The lyrics shouted angry protest, but the music rocked for fun… the ideal combination that Boomers needed. Many Rock bands covered little-heard pure folkies, much the same way that White Teen Idols covered Black R&B originals in the mid-Fifties. The Byrds hit the charts for the first time in April with “Mr. Tambourine Man”, just a month after Dylan’s folkie version failed to dent the list. In June, they also covered Bob’s “All I Really Want to Do”. The Turtles debuted in July with Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me, Babe”. Glen Campbell scored a big hit with a cover of Buffy Sainte-Marie’s powerful anti-war song “Universal Soldier” in August (The original version had flopped in 1964).
Dylan announced the birth of Folk Rock when he walked onto the stage at the Newport Folk Festival on July 25th with an electric guitar in his hand. Accompanied by the Butterfield Blues Band, Bob blasted the sedate audience out of their seats with a rocking version of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” (Was he talking about acoustic music?). Folk purists (War Babies) hated it. Their Bob Dylan had defected to the Boomer Camp, and he smirked, “Don’t Look Back”. The Animals warned, “We’ve Got to Get Out of This Place”, and some Boomer teens acted on their advice and ran away from home. A month later, Dylan asked, “How does it feel to be on your own/ With no direction of home/ A complete unknown/ Just like a rolling stone?”
Boomer kids still watched “The Fugitive” (an innocent man, forced to run and hide), and now, found a new show to identify with. In “Run For Your Life”, Paul Bryan learns that he has an incurably illness with only a few months to live, and then decides to use what little time he has left in the pursuit of adventure and happiness. With the draft hanging over their heads, Boomer boys could dig it. Didn’t Dylan just tell us, “Let me forget about today until tomorrow”?