Panel Derides Today's TV Shows

So what does actress and director Penny Marshall think about today's reality TV shows? "They stink," she told an audience of 9,000 people gathered to hear her and other TV greats from the 60s and 70s discuss "The Golden Age of Television," a panel in the opening program at Vegas@50+.

In addition to Marshall, who starred in "Laverne and Shirley," the panel included her brother, writer and director Garry Marshall, one of the writers of "The Dick Van Dyke Show," John Amos, who played the older Kunta Kinte in "Roots," and James Evans on "Good Times," and George Takei, Mr. Sulu on the legendary "Star Trek."

"When I did 'Happy Days,' there were censors," said Garry Marshall. "We weren't allowed to use the term 'virgin.' We had to say, 'She was pure as snow, but she drifted.'"

"Now they don't rehearse," Penny Marshall said. "There are lots of cop shows and murder, and who needs to rehearse pointing a gun?"

With their candor in offering personal trivia, the group proved that one thing hasn't changed: Comedy is still king.
"I got kicked out of every school I ever went to for acting out," said John Amos, speaking of how he got his start in the business. "I figured I could make a living at it."

Marshall, who is a grandmother of three, noted that she is currently "stuck between kids who don't leave you alone and the question of whether you put your parents in a home." An admitted late-night person, she said she wears her trademark sunglasses and baseball cap to hide rings around her eyes. Still, she said she'd jump at a chance to take another great TV role—"if they shot at night."

Laughs aside, the panel—moderated by TV and radio correspondent Denise Richardson, most recently of "Dancing With the Stars"—agreed on one key point: The Golden Age of TV is gone, and it's our collective loss. "Quality programming and the edification of the masses has been replaced by a lust for the dollar," Amos said.

"Television used to be the social and intellectual glue that held us together," added George Takei. Now the TV landscape "is so fractured, and, as a result, we're less united."