Have any of you seen anything worth watching lately? I Conn't decide if I have or not.
It's been nearly five years since east Kentucky's favorite billboard dummy was nabbed in a Honduran Pizza Hut. The stuffed crust hijinks of Eric C. Conn officially came to an end with one more trip to the salad bar.
Unfortunately, most of Conn's clients were disabled and deserving of SSI benefits. But well over a thousand were declared guilty by association and lost benefits without a hearing from the Social Security Administration. Many were ordered to repay.
The story is far from over. But Conn's part of the story is, so a couple of pretend documentary makers decided to make a movie about Mr. SSI.
The series in question, The Big Conn, premiered on Apple+ streaming service last week and I'm betting many of you have already subscribed. If you have, I'm sorry.
If you haven't, well, figure out a way to see it free. Justify that as an homage to the hillbilly Robin Hood.
I should note here that I have long been a fierce critic of Apple and have successfully lived a good life without putting one single cent into that company's bottom line.
But I did watch the 4 part series and here we are. I think the opening shot of the series sums it all up about perfectly.
There's a slow pan shot of a serene mountain valley. Anyone who ever travelled south on US23 from Norton can tell you exactly where the shot was taken. The Powell Valley in Virginia is a truly breathtaking vista.
Halfway through the shot, a caption reads "Pikeville, Kentucky". The shot transitions into an Eric C. Conn commercial. The Big Conn indeed.
Granted, most of the folks watching this have never been to Powell Valley or Pikeville, so what does it matter?
It's a documentary. If the opening shot is a lie, what about the 3 hours and 59 minutes to follow? Maybe you should ask the guy who once wrote a rap jingle for Conn. The filmmakers liked him so much they included him in every episode. He didn't really know anything, but he had some good tales.
Too bad Doctor Don wasn't still alive. They could have gotten a lot more than good tales from him.
And that seems to be what much of this is--a collection of good tales with the minimum of facts sprinkled in. They couldn't even get a firm number on how many wives Eric had. Wouldn't it be interesting to know how many SSI clients there were?
The Big Conn might really be the story of how a couple of producers convinced one of the largest companies in the world to give them millions for a docu-series.
The truth is there is a documentary to be made. But not of the Connman. It's the story of how a government agency looked the other way while its own poisoned the well, then attacked the people who drank the water when they had no where else to go.
There's a bill due, but its doubtful the social security administration will ever pay it back.