"To a Boy of the 1970s, the Line Between Comic Books and Real Life People Was Hopelessly Blurred" →

(via DaringFireball.net)

I love this.

You have to understand that to a boy of the 1970s, the line between comic books and real life people was hopelessly blurred. Was Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man, real or fake? Fake? Well, then, how about Evel Knievel jumping over busses on his motorcycle? Oh, he was real. The Superman ads said, “You will believe a man can fly,” and Fonzie started jukeboxes by simply hitting them, and Elvis Presley wore capes, and Nolan Ryan threw pitches 102 mph, and Roger Staubach (who they called Captain America) kept bringing the Cowboys back from certain defeat, and Muhammad Ali let George Foreman tire himself out by leaning against the ropes and taking every punch he could throw. What was real anyway?

It never occurred to me that before television, children probably didn't live in a world where reality and fiction were so confusingly intertwined.

It reminds me of a quote I heard (can't remember or find a source) along the lines that "The magic of Disneyworld wasn't in making people believe that it was real, but making them believe that the rest of the world wasn't just an illusion."