A tip of the hat to J.R.

Young, childless and carefree, we lived in midtown Manhattan in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. When the work week ended, there were thousands of things we could have done to amuse ourselves – go to bars and restaurants, to Broadway or off-Broadway productions, to clubs, concerts, you name it.

But we didn’t. Every Friday night, like millions of Americans, we stayed home and watched Dallas.

Dallas was riveting TV for the simple reason that J.R. Ewing, its central character, was the best villain ever. He drove his wife, Sue Ellen, to drink. Repeatedly screwed over his sanctimonious dim-witted nemesis, Cliff Barnes. Schemed to defraud his brother Bobby out of his share of Ewing Oil. And viewers loved him for it.

Dallas gave the city of Dallas – where JFK was murdered – a chance to redeem itself. Thanks to Dallas, Dallas became respectable again.

We traveled to Ireland the summer of ’80. The Irish, we learned, were more into Dallas than Americans were. Almost everyone we met asked us, as if, because we were from the USA, we knew, “Who shot J.R.?”

Just about every character on the show had a perfectly good reason to shoot J.R. (including Miss Ellie, his mother, who most of the time managed to overlook his dastardly doings) but the shooter's identity, of course, was a closely-guarded secret known only to the writers and producers – even the cast didn’t know. We were as surprised as anyone when the answer was revealed that fall. (Kristin, Sue Ellen’s sister.)

Larry Hagman, who played J.R. and was starring in a new version of the show on one of those off-networks whose name I can never remember, died Friday. He was 81 and had been battling health issues since before the original Dallas ended in 1991.

Hagman may well be in heaven but J.R., it’s a safe bet, went straight to hell.

Which, suddenly, has become a lot more entertaining place.  At least on Friday nights.