Defining a TV Icon

A celebrity of the past died recently. I heard him referred to as a “television icon.”

What? I looked him up. He was on TV for less than ten years. Sorry folks. That doesn’t make him an icon. I’m not saying he was a bad actor–I wouldn’t know. I’m not saying the program for which he is best known was bad–again, I wouldn’t know.

But I do know he was not an icon.

These people are television icons:

Bill Cosby (no matter how you feel about his alleged crimes, he’s still a TV icon. That can’t change)
Walter Cronkite
Dick Van Dyke
Mary Tyler Moore
Lucille Ball
Bob Newhart
Andy Griffith
Carroll O’Connor
Oprah
Betty White

These people are not:

Alan Thicke
nearly all of the cast of Friends
Alan Alda
Ted Danson
Kelsey Grammer
Jon Hamm
Bea Arthur
Anyone starting our in this millennium–they may be PENDING icons, but they’re not there yet.