It's difficult for the yung-un's of today, in their uber-hipster ironic coolness, to fully understand the very specialness of this time and place in American cinematographic history where "the trucker" was all the rage in terms of the quintessential blue-collar anti-hero.
Hollywood, yes THOSE people, decided somewhere around 1975 or so, that the fella behind the wheel of that big 18 wheeler that just blew past you, no doubt kicking up a hailstorm of asphalt missiles and thereby increasing your insurance rates, was the very embodiment of all that was right and good with America.
A rolling testament to the lives of Lewis & Clark, Daniel Boone, and Aldous Huxley and proceeded to color our collective consciousness with the likes of Smokey and The Bandit, High Ballin', and God Help those poor bastards when it comes time to meet their eternal reward, BJ & The Bear - I kid you not, an honest to God television series about a handsome young trucker who travels the hi-ways and bi-ways of this great land, solving mysterious, setting wrongs to right, meeting pretty young ladies, all with his pet monkey.
You are not hallucinating: a trucker who solves crimes.
WITH HIS PET MONKEY!!!
I am certain that Dante never gave pause to consider the long term ramifications of the type of man who would knowingly put into the hearts and minds of an entire generation, a television show about a trucker and his pet chimp.
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