Bena Mae’s Kitchen: Smut is not funny

Lewd comedy is in. Respect for the audience is out. If you like good clean belly-laughing TV programs or comedians you’ll have to look long and hard to find them.
Harking back to the old radio days, the whole family could listen and enjoy without hearing language that was insulting or embarrassing. Not so anymore. Words that used to be taboo are now the common standard.  Have our brains turned to dust?
I am turned off by this. But that doesn’t make me a prude. Although I didn’t watch it, couldn’t watch it, the Charlie Sheen Roast on Comedy Central recently is a case in point. I would rather watch frogs mating on the Discovery Chanel. The Sheen roast was the opposite of the old Dean Martin Roasts of yesterday that tickled your funny bone without assaulting your ears or intelligence. 

Do thinking people have to submit to this new kind of sordid entertainment?  They do unless the public demands that the producers raise their standards. Is R-E-S-P-E-C-T becoming an endangered species?
I like to be entertained, informed and curiosity-driven as do most people when they sit down to watch TV. But that’s hardly possible anymore. Is this the reason our television set is called “the boob Tube?”
I can remember when I and many of my readers enjoyed the old benign radio days when shows like Lum and Abner, Fibber McGhee and Molly, and other programs of that genre made us laugh.
It is said, and I think I have this right, that when the Amos ‘N Andy Show was on, movie theaters stopped showing their movies for 30 minutes while the show was on the air so people could watch it. Historians agreed that it was the most popular radio show of all time. It was estimated that 40 million Americans tuned in religiously, almost one/third of the population at the time, our family among them. Pass any house in the neighborhood at around 6:30 p.m. and you would hear the radio tuned to Amos ‘N Andy with the whole family sitting around listening to it.
The show was extremely funny for those times. There was no gutter talk nor inflammatory rhetoric, just good clean fun. Which proves my theory that most people like to laugh at humor that doesn’t insult their intelligence.

It’s time to start collecting recipes for the fall holidays ahead. This one could be a dessert it’s so yummy.

Butternut Squash Souffle

2 cups cooked, mashed butternut squash
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat the oven to 325 degrees.
Grease a 1 1/2-quart casserole dish. Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until well combined.
Pour the mixture into the casserole dish and bake for 75 minutes or until set.
Serves 6 to 8.