Wait...The Dodgers Are Pitching WHO?

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com

Apparently the Dodgers are sending a Chad Billingsly to the mound today against the Cubs. No seriously. Chad Billingsly. Anyone with any concern for the awesome knows that Los Angeles has room for only two Billingslies in town, and both slots are occupied. *Ugh,*I'll break down what should already be known.

1) Barbara Billingsly. Pop Culture Icon June Cleaver on Leave it To Beaver. She will forever be the quintessential homemaker and famously battled the also quintessential duplicitous teenage snake, Eddie Haskel. More modern pop-culture junkies will be interested to know that she voiced "Nanny" on Muppet Babies. Any respected judge of television-mother-awesomeness ranks Barbara Billingsley's June Cleaver amongst the likes of Claire Huxtable, Carol Brady, and Lois Griffin as the coolest television mothers of all time. Anyone claiming to be a better Hollywood Billingsley is blasphemous. She is THE Hollywood Billingsley.










2) Peter Billingsley.

Just when you think your city has met it's quota for awesome Billingsleys, this guy comes along. Barbara had long been known as THE Hollywood Billingsley, much like Jean Shepherd long been hailed as THE story-teller of his day. Yet no one could have foreseen that Shepherd's book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash would one day become a movie that would change a young Peter Billingsley's life and launch him into pop-culture iconography. He'd go onto play Ralphie Parker, the lead role the film adaptation of Shepherd's book; a movie called A Christmas Story, which would go on to be the most popular Christmas movie in Hollywood History. That movie is now a househould staple, and "Ralph Parker", thus forever linking him with Barbara as the only Billingsleys of import in the history of Los Angeles.


So like all good icons, what happened to them? They were copied. The Beatles had the Monkees, Diff'rent Strokes had Webster, Nirvana had Pearl Jam, and Bill Hicks had Dennis Leary. So it's logical to assume that Barbara and Peter Billingsley would one day be copied.

Apparently that day is today. The Dodgers of Los Angeles are trotting out their latest in icon knock-offery, someone named Chad Billingsley. Who does he think he is???? Much like how I would never allege that France needs more black denim wearing guys with B.O.. And I'd never wish we had more Boy Bands to rival the legacies of 'NSync and the Backstreet Boys; America, much less L.A., has no need for another Billingsley. We just don't. L.A. has produced two inconic Billingsleys, and we need to make room for other last names to achieve iconic status. Cheering for Chad Billingsley or the Dodgers on Thursday would be like cheering for someone who called himself Kurt Cobain II, or a band called The Next Beatles; we're content with the prior namesakes, but thanks anyway. So be a good American and vote No for the L.A. Dodgers in tomorrow's election.