They Made America (WGBH)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C Episodes: B+
We hear all kinds of empty talk today about needing to
innovate; yet from those same voices, we get absolutely nothing to encourage
and build a foundation to make that possible.
Some are even tearing the country apart and saying this to cover their
hatred of innovation and progress because it threats their power. The WGBH/PBS set They Made America
(2004) offers four terrific shows featuring key figures in who were in the U.S.
or came here and created ideas and products that changed the world. The kind the country used to have al the
time that made it the most successful, powerful and emulated country in the
world.
Rebels offers the rise of two men, Ted Turner and Russell
Simmons, who bet on two things that all the major entertainment and fashion
powers that be thought would never work.
Turner saw opportunities in broadcast television everyone else thought
could never work. He went from his
little would-be Super Station in Atlanta showing just anything, to launching
CNN at a time 24 hour news was thought to be a concept one could not fill with
enough information (that we now think of as annoying) that is no longer alone,
to buying MGM/UA, reselling it minus the MGM/RKO holdings, then slowly
acquiring other businesses (New Line, Castle Rock, Hanna Barbera) until he was
bought out and pushed out of AOL Time Warner.
His installment sites CNN as the turning point. Simmons proved once and for all Rap and Hip
Hop was not a fad and through clever marketing (like not letting his clothes
line be relegated to an “urban section” in the back of stores) proved the
financial success of something safer like Thriller would be the limit of
the reach of Black Music. Less “safe”
music could be a hit and the rest is history.
Revolutionaries include Jon Fitch, who founded
the steamboat, in a tale that tells us about early America in a way we usually
do not hear about. These earlier
stories are particularly compelling for the majority of those who do not know
much about early history. Robert Fulton
revived the idea and the rest is history; the first of endless vehicles that
ride on their own power source. Lewis Tappan
created the credit system, while Sam Colt created the more efficient revolver
that built the West for better and worse.
Newcomers is concerned with immigrants
like A. P. Gianni, who created banking for the great majority of people who
could never access it, started with one bank and eventually created an empire
still with us today. Samuel Insull had
a huge business empire that collapsed totally, but helped Thomas Edison turn
his battery of patents in General Electric, though the development of massive
power plants that brought power to all.
Ira Rosenthal created the brazier, changed the look, role and freedom
status of women. The result was The
MaidenForm Company that is still with us today.
Gamblers concludes the series with Ruth
Handler, who launched Barbie when she was the founder of Mattel Toys. She was even vice-president. Juan Trippe, recently played by Alec Baldwin
as a very bad, monopolistic figure in Martin Scorsese’s amazing The Aviator. It does give him credit where credit is due,
but does not shake what he pulled to try and bring down Howard Hughes. It also shows why he was powerful enough to
be Hughes’ adversary. Tom Watson Jr.
was a big innovator at I.B.M. and put them on the course to be the number one
computer company for decades to come, only challenged in the 1980s by new
innovators. “Big Blue” unfortunately
created systems that helped the Nazis hunt down and exterminate people,
especially European Jews, but this special says they created machines for
things like “payrolls” and the like.
Watson Jr. came up with the multi-tasking computer (The 360) that changed
the status of computers and their power as just an industrial toll for big
companies to where it is now and growing.
All are must-see segments!
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is pretty good,
though this is more of a documentary program than it would first appear, so
several video clips are of poor enough quality to hold back the overall quality
of this nicely produced, edited and transferred program. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has no major surrounds,
but plays back very well just the same.
Extras include the usual DVD-ROM printable materials, weblinks and a
making of program on the first DVD on both DVDs and runs about 10 minutes.
- Nicholas Sheffo
