If You Ever Fear Editorial Judgment. . .
Remember There Was Once a SitCom About a Guy’s Mother Who Came Back As a Car
You spend nights typing away at the computer to draft the most eloquent final essay for your college class only to receive a very poor grade. You burn the midnight oil countless nights to prepare your department’s quarterly report or to apply for some initiative only to find your work met with drooping ears and rolled eyes. You spend hours tweaking a piece you cannot wait to publish on Medium, Wattpad, or Substack only to receive negative responses. After all of these efforts, you may feel like you should take an extended break from writing out of fear of more intense judgment. Hey, we’ve all been there. But before you throw in the towel perhaps you should remember the countless not so easily understood projects that have steamrolled much farther than yours.
Talk about steamrolling. .remember there was once a sitcom about a man who found his mother reincarnated as a car.
Indeed, My Mother the Car aired from 1965 to 1966.
Though the show was only one season and considered by critics then and now to be a commercial failure, it still carried itself through one season. The success it did see was due in great part to the exceptional performances of leads Jerry Van Dyke and Maggie Pierce. It may have gone longer if it wasn’t for another protagonist, a 1924 Ford Model T that contained the spirit of the character David Crabtree’s (Van Dyke’s) mother. But again, that was the whole main plot of the series. To take out the car would be the same as taking Kevin McCallister out of Home Alone.
How does such a plot work itself out?
So imagine in the 1960s that a working-class father and husband visits a local used car lot. Instead of picking out a conventional station wagon, a 1920s fixer-upper catches his eye. As he looks inside, he hears his mother’s familiar voice on the radio. Soon, he is wheeling the old clunker into his driveway and trying to convince his wife that they should keep his newly reunited family member and. .uh. .car. And that is where the series takes off for one season (you can view all the episodes on YouTube). While many critics disparage the series as one of the worst sitcoms ever, many will find aspects of the show enjoyable.
Such a show aired on primetime television in front of countless viewers. Even though it may have made more sense as an Alfred Hitchcock special rather than a mainstream comedy, it is still referenced several decades later. Despite some aspects being poor in taste or quality, the series still held enduring value and meaning.
Any idea, vision, project, or invention you have does not need to meet some outlandish parameter or qualification for you to bring it to fruition. Your work may not be well-suited for certain groups or domains but can be of the highest value for others. As long as your work does not bring harm to others or violate laws or anyone’s rights, what is stopping you from bringing great new things into the world?
Don’t ever let the fear of being judged or criticized hold you back. Sometimes, criticism or judgment (ideally in a positive form, of course) can be the thing to propel your work to the next level.
At the very least, does the story of a sitcom about a man finding his mother coming back in the form of an antique car motivate you at all? Maybe for your craziest or most misunderstood whims or fancies, does it not at least push you to ask “Why not?” and follow them?
