Off Their Rockers

Old people are awesome.

I've been saying it for years-- I love old people. I think they're adorable, and they get to have a lot of fun I couldn't get away with, because no one's going to say anything about it to a little old lady. And Betty White's new show, Off Their Rockers, is a celebration of that fact.

When I was young, my mom had this poem hanging in our downstairs bathroom:

WHEN I AM AN OLD WOMAN I SHALL WEAR PURPLE
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

I always liked that. It's the basis for the Red Hat Society, if you've ever seen any of the groups of Red Hat Ladies out and about. I don't like them quite as much as the poem-- I don't think they really get into the spirit of it. But Betty White? Yeah, she gets it. She just turned 90 years old and she poses in pictures with young men in speedos. And now she has this show, where a bunch of old people do crazy stuff and prank young people.

The first thing that happens in the show is a great example. An old man stops a young woman in a mall, and asks if she can take his picture. She agrees, and he tells her that he wants a running shot, so he's going to go around the corner and get some momentum. He disappears, and when he comes running back around... he's naked. He's smiling ear to ear and she actually does take his picture before he is tackled by security, at which point the girl is giggling to herself, not sure what she ought to be doing but extremely amused.

The whole show is like that. Most everything they do gets the same reaction-- a slow-dawning realization of "what the hell just happened?" followed by giggles. A little old man asks for help sending a text message to a lady friend. A young woman agrees. He asks her to send "You bring the wine, I'll bring the whips and handcuffs! Tonight's the night!" and when he leaves, she gets on her phone and tells her friend about the most incredible thing that just happened to her. An old man hobbles up with a cane, pulls a skateboard out of his bag, and proceeds to show up the little teens messing around in the area. Then he puts it away and hobbles off. I'm surprised no one got their phones out to take pictures, but all the spectators were grinning from ear to ear, unsure what they just saw, but delighted by it all the same.

It reminds me of Improv Everywhere, which you should look up if you've not heard of them. They're absolutely delightful. They do things like choreographed musical numbers in mall food courts, with everyone from the janitor to a girl working behind the counter in on it. Sometimes they'll even get spectators involved, like the time a guy got everyone on the subway to help him propose to his girlfriend. It leaves people delighted, because it's fun, and because it's totally unexpected.

So it is with the little old man coming into the grocery store and bowling with produce, or the guy whose motorized wheelchair tried to run away, or the little old ladies dressed as nuns who invite people to a party with a wet t-shirt contest, or, really, most everything that I have seen on Betty White's show. It's delightful. And it's on hulu-- go watch it!