Why do old people love Matlock?

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I'm 22 and just started watching this show a month or two ago in the early morning hours on WGN. I was surprised at first after seeing what it was. I knew nothing about this show but I knew that Simpsons quote. I had no idea Matlock was even played by Andy Griffith. But I got hooked into an episode and have been watching ever since.


Cane Dewey

There is some attraction to Matlock for old people. My grandmother barely even spoke English but loved watching Matlock into her 70's. I'm not even sure if she understood the plots, but there is something about Andy Griffith. Maybe the fact that Matlock is old and thus appeals to them.

If that is the case (and I like it and I am not old -- just grew up watching it) ... it could be because he is old and most of the guest stars are older too.

I'm a fetus, and I love Matlock! I've been watching it since conception!

it's complex.

first of all, i'm 61 and a half, and i'm not a fan, though i don't hate it. am i elderly? beats me. i'll let you know if i figure it out. but i can tell you that my mother, who wasn't all that much older than i am now when she died, did like such shows as matlock, murder she wrote and diagnosis murder, of which matlock is the most realistic of the bunch (which isn't saying much). i asked her once why she didn't watch, instead, something like law and order (more my thing). she said it was TOO REAL (by which she did not mean "too gory"; she meant exactly what she said, and law and order was not a gory show anyway). she didn't want that much reality, she said. she wanted to escape.

well, i can't blame her. what's wrong with escapism? i can tell you why it's all wrong for me (but i won't) but that doesn't make it bad or wrong. it also doesn't make enjoying such shows the exclusive purview of the old and world-weary. there are plenty of people, too, who don't even perceive the glossy unreality of such shows (which, again, i am not criticizing, except to the extent that i personally find them hard to watch).

i am sure a lot of the less age-deprived among matlock's viewers are watching purely for griffith, who has more charm and professional integrity than the scripts, the pace or the overlit production values deserve. (that's what makes it the best of the bunch.) someone born in the 1990s only knows the andy griffith show from syndication and has no sentimental attachment to it (as indeed i, whose childhood coincided with that show's run, do not); likewise the dick van dyke show is fondly remembered by people who in their later years just want to see a now white-haired dick van dyke no matter what he's in. ah, now the dick van dyke show -- that, for all its devices, had its roots in reality -- the reality of interpersonal relationships, and that's why all these decades later it still resonates. i was a fan as a child and i'm still a fan.

as for murder she wrote -- i find it painful to watch, not least because my first exposure to angela lansbury was in the original "the manchurian candidate," in which she was fabulously evil. i've seen her in a lot of films, even on stage, since then, and she is undeniably talented, and i like her, but there is always, at the back of my mind, that worst of mothers.... anyway it has that same gloss and slow pace, and is based on the agatha christie model, which never did work for me (and again, that's ME) but which lots of people of ANY age find comforting, and bless them, let them.

so why do the elderly like matlock? some of us don't, others do for sentimental reasons, and yet others who may or may not fit the stereotype like escapism of this sort.

g

lol. I went to the library and checked out the entire season on dvd. When people call and ask what im doing, I say "im watching matlock like an old person!!" im only 28

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