Championship Television

Thursday at 6:30 is quickly becoming my favourite television time of the week. I am loving Championship Bridge with Charles Goren on CGTV. The black-and-white show, airing on ABC from 1958-1962, is fantastic camp complete with corny commentating, stilted dialogue, and vintage advertisements.

I played a lot of Euchre in high school (too much some might argue), and while I do think that it is a fine game, I maintain that it is nothing when compared to bridge. With great players, Euchre is just second nature. The hands play themselves, and there is no way of making the great play that wins you the game. It's more a matter of luck of the cards than playmanship. It seems to me that to play Euchre well, you simply have to avoid screwing up.

I started playing bridge when I was in South America. My father and his friends taught me to play. It was a home rules variation that simplified it a little. Bridge is a very complex game and, while were certainly weren't playing it at its most sophisticated, I was hooked.

Championship Bridge is a great show that walks you through the game and allows you to follow along with players during some of their matches. It is a great insight into television history and is a refreshing change from the rest of the televised games, reality tv, and Deal or No Deal drivel.

One of the best aspects of the show is that it is aired with the original advertisements. I have long thought that it would be great to have a television show that airs advertising from the early days of television. It would feature great old ads from companies that still exist today as well as ones from long since bankrupt or conglomerated companies. The real appeal would be the real-life-sold-with-a-smile Mr. Burnsesque tributes to theories, practices, and products that have long become discredited, destructive, or found to be carcinogenic. It Seems Like Yesterday does it to some degrees, but as you can see by their crude website, their budget is poor and the show has an air of lethargic crumminess about it.

At the risk of sounding the curmudgeon, I have long believed that if you want something great, embrace that which pleases the aged. If want the best beer, just look for the oldest person in the bar and drink whatever they're drinking. If you want to the best cookies, find the oldest person at the bake sale and buy whatever they've made. If you want insight into music, rummage through the record collection of the oldest person you know.

Bridge is a fantastic game that I can't play simply because I'm the only person my age that I know who knows how to play it. I am no expert, and that doesn't help matters either since I don't know enough about it to teach anyone about it. I figure that if they can make poker an online sensation, and high-stakes backgammon a strong underdog, then competitive bridge has a lot of pop-culture explosion potential. If so, the creators of Charles Goren's Championship Bridge are ahead of their time, and if not, it's still quality entertainment.