The Slice: ‘Twelve O’Clock’ low

There’s no bore quite like someone who insists that every aspect of life was better back in the day.

Sure, a case could be made for certain attributes of yesteryear. But toxic levels of nostalgia blind a person. And the truth is some things we take for granted in 2012 certainly could have improved the quality of life back in the last century.

I was reminded of this while speeding through a recorded rerun of the TV show “Twelve O’Clock High.”

It was not a great program back during its 1964-’67 run. And it has not aged all that well.

The 1949 Gregory Peck movie of the same name is terrific. But the TV series about an American bomber group stationed in England was not the same caliber.

That did not stop me from watching it back then, of course. You know how some kids learn an astonishing amount about, say, dinosaurs or superheroes? Well, World War II aircraft was my field of expertise. So a program featuring archival film footage of actual aerial combat was not something I would have missed.

But there’s a problem with being a boy genius. You tend to think you know everything about your subject.

And watching “Twelve O’Clock High” did not cultivate my modesty. That’s because the show’s editors took countless outrageous liberties with combat-scene continuity.

A German fighter approaching a B-17 would be an ME-109, but the supposedly same plane flying past would be an FW-190.

On missions when the bombers were unescorted, shoot-downs of attacking Germans would be shown using gun-camera footage from U.S. fighters.

Once they even cut away to a scene of a B-17 dropping leaflets and the airplane shown on the screen was a B-29, for God’s sake.

Naturally, I loudly pointed out such hideous production errors. But these fleeting moments came and went before I could fully expound on the travesty.

You see, we didn’t have the ability back then to pause the action and then rewind. And play it back over and over.

I would have had a field day.

On second thought, perhaps it is just as well that we didn’t have that technology then.

Nobody likes a show-off – especially family members with the power to revoke your remote privileges.

Today’s Slice question: Who will be the first to get out of a 2012 lunch by saying “Let’s get together after the holidays”?