I recently found one of my Granny’s recipe for biscuits involving one cup of potato water, sugar, eggs, flour, and then, just below “1 Cup Wesson Oil,” is the following information:
Gary Ford Trial, Mon. Feb. 23rd Murder
Jerry Lyons Aggravated Rape
Russell Bowling Breaking & Entering & Rape
Yep, notifications of impending court dates that served as her favorite form of live theatre.
My Granny was an OG “Murderino.”
This is the new term for the legion of mostly female fans of true crime that listen to fantastic podcasts such as My Favorite Murder, Crime Junkie, and Best Case/Worst Case. I vividly recall accompanying Granny as her pint-size companion to trials for various crimes including murder by bow-and-arrow, aggravated rape, assault, DUI/vehicular homicide, parental kidnapping, and even the odd contentious divorce with decision by jury.
My parents had no patience for appropriate children’s television programming. The Disney channel didn’t exist, but I could luck out with an occasional A-Team, Family Ties, or Magnum P.I. (my dad’s fave… he even had a Ferrari and a ‘stache so he was practically Tom Selleck’s twin.) I was often treated to the investigative reporting of 20/20, Dateline, 48 Hours, and 60 Minutes.
This explains why, to my husband’s abject horror, I am a “Murderino” too. My kids will walk through the kitchen as I’m doing dishes listening to a true crime podcast, and ask, “Who got stabbed in the bushes?”
I often spent time at my Granny’s house after school. She would work a word scramble puzzle, and I would read her voluminous issues of True Detective. There were different variations of these true crime rags, but almost all had a picture on the cover of a woman tied up, being held at gunpoint, or in some other state of distress at the hands of an evil man.
I delved into these stories in utter fascination that these horrible things could happen in the world. My main goal was in learning how these women found themselves in these stories, and what on God’s green earth could I possibly do to avert a similar fate???
My mom loved Agatha Christie books, and delighted in our shared favorite flicks like Death on the Nile or Evil Under the Sun, which we watched on Betamax. But our true bonding time was Sunday nights when Mom turned on CBS and we’d hear, “Tonight, on Murder, She Wrote…”
I still adore the opening scenes of Jessica Fletcher completing her jog with the white towel around her neck.
Does Angela Lansbury push so hard to the point of requiring constant absorption of her sweat? Sure she does.
Lansbury commands the screen with all her Broadway gravitas and favorite Auntie charm. As a multiple Oscar nominee, Tony award winner and a Dame, she deserves every ounce of adulation.
Murder, She Wrote holds up.
The nostalgia of the 80’s plays a part, as the costumes, the hair, and the makeup are so on point you can practically hear REO Speedwagon.
I love that Jessica Fletcher is always the smartest person in the room and she is a woman.
She solves the case. She saves the day. She knows what you did last summer!
And thank God Jessica has friends worldwide for different settings as I was beginning to seriously question how the residents of small-town Cabot Cove remained living there after so very many murders.
And how lucky I am to live where I can take my kids on the Universal Studios lot tour where you get to experience the stunning combination of Cabot Cove AND Amity Island, all on one set.
I also let my children watch all four Jaws films. They are not remotely scared by Bruce the mechanical shark the way I was. My eldest did ask if there was a shark in Lake Arrowhead last summer, but isn’t fazed by going in the ocean. I used to be afraid Jaws would attack me through the hardwood floors between my light switch and bed.
So what would they think of Murder, She Wrote? I reasoned that my mom let me watch it, and it can’t be as bad as the real-life crime stories I saw on Dateline as a child. My first words should’ve been “Ted Bundy.”
The theme song begins and the notes on the piano make me jump up and down in joy.
My younger son, age 4, was totally bored, preferring to make a Play-Doh pizza. My 7 year-old will watch anything, as the TV is his drug of choice. I worried the actual reveal of the murder would be disturbing, even with its soft-lit 80’s innocuousness.
Then I remembered a video game my brother let him play in Tennessee where my son could barely hold the lifelike rifle to shoot half naked bloody zombies.
I did check in to see if he was bothered by any of the storylines of Murder, She Wrote. “Nah,” he claimed, “They didn’t even show the body in the bag.”
Kids these days… so jaded. He added that the show was fine if not a little dull due to lack of fighting; and then gave the mother of all reviews calling it, “Scooby-Doo for old people.”
It was grand to have my little crime-solving companion by my side, taking guesses as to which character the murderer would turn out to be.
It’s something my mom, Granny and I shared. I still recall how my Granny’s whisper was quite loud, and she would end up notifying the entire courtroom of her opinion on the defendant’s guilt.
She was always fascinated by crime and would snap open the newspaper to the obituaries like it was her sports section exclaiming, “Let’s see who’s dead.” Granny would take us to funerals as well as criminal trials. I’m not going to go that far with my kids as I hate attending funerals myself but I sure enjoyed playing pretend TV crime-solver with my little buddy.
However, I think we can enjoy their innocence a little longer. I definitely don’t catch Dateline while they’re awake. They are clearly not built to handle that level of upset. They’re already living through a pandemic, racial injustice, and a Capitol insurgence.
I think we should keep it at Scooby Doo for now. Maybe they’ll need my help figuring out who would’ve gotten away with it if it weren’t for those darn kids.
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