Monday, November 9, 2009

The Aging of Sally Field

This is probably going to appeal to less than 1% of my readers and the ONE person I know would enjoy it is still stuck with the abacus of internet access and will be unable to watch the videos. Sorry, Moo....

So for the other random person who Googled "Sally Field" earlier and stumbled on my blog, are you the least bit concerned about her appearance in the Boniva commercials? It just struck me the other day -- and hard -- and here's why...

Thanks to an endless loop of syndicated sitcoms during summer days in the 70s and 80s, I was able to develop a couch potato obsession with the TV show, Gidget. To this day, I find myself humming and/or singing the theme song:



Catchy, isn't it? Gidget was an awkward tomboy with an awesome Dad and I just ate up every episode.

Next up for Sally was The Flying Nun, which thanks to the wonder of TV reruns, was seen by me years before I ever saw an episode of Gidget. And frankly, I couldn't tell you what the premise was beyond the fact that her character's name was Sister Bertrille and she could fly thanks to the giant wings of her habit's cornette (yes, I had to look that up). Oh, but check out these special effects!!




When we next saw Sally, she shocked the world by doing a little sexy turn in Smokey and the Bandit and by bedding the film's very hairy man-whore lead, Burt Reynolds, in real life. Scandalous!

This movie is also notable for single-handedly starting the Trans Am and CB radio craze of the late 70s (for more on this, please see Breaker Breaker 1-9).

And now......... Sally got old. She's a constantly meddling, constantly worrying matriarch on Brothers & Sisters and she's doing Boniva commercials. I was hoping to find the current one, where she's sitting on a dock and they've got her in a pair of Chuck Taylors in a desperate attempt to distract us from the fact that she's selling an osteoporosis medicine, but couldn't. But this one'll give you the general idea:



I don't know why it's bugging me, but it is. Who knew I'd start to sense my own mortality from the aging of Sally Field, Sesame Street's 40th birthday last week, and spotting my old Swatch watch in an antique store on Friday. Yes, it's true. How the hell did a Swatch from 1985 become an antique??!!

2 comments:

Bert said...

I find the current Sally to be hot...very hot. But then again, I am not quite in the middle of many bell curves.

lauren said...

First of all, did you notice the camel toe she is sporting when they are on the surfboard together? And second, I had no idea you could take that many different pictures infront of a set of blinds. Amazing! Never saw an episode of "The Flying Nun"...but I have seen "Gidget".
Now, unfortunately, I will have to watch for her latest Boniva commercial. At least she isn't doing asiphex commercials...who thought of that name?