Glutton for Environmental Punishment
April 5, 2013
I Don’t Need no Stink’in Advanced Preparation
May 3, 2013
The inspiration for this essay came to me one night when I couldn’t decide between three different sitcoms to watch on various channels. Making these choices in life is such an excruciatingly difficult decision, isn’t it?
Word Count: 1024
A Different Type of
TV Viewing Experience
Every time I see some sort of expose about the way television used to be back in the 60’s and 70’s for me it comes with a caveat. Things were so different for my sisters and I while we were growing up, due entirely to the fact that we only had a single television station. Right up until I came home at Christmas my second year in college too. Since that was the case, the age of multiple television stations with more viewing discretions than a pot smoker has purchasing options at a café in Amsterdam didn’t exist.
Whenever I hear that people used to gather in front of a TV on the same night every week to watch a favorite show, the memories that flood back are very strong. If you really liked that particular show, you made it a point to be sitting face front and eyes glued to the screen at precisely the moment the program came on. The television station we had in Silverton was the CBS affiliate out of Grand Junction. They broadcast a few programs from the other major networks, but for the most part it was a steady television viewing diet of Columbia Broadcasting System shows. Reminds me of those stories you often hear about the strict parent imposing their will upon the child. Trying to get them not to gag on their vegetables, or do something the kid violently opposes like being within close proximity to a circus clown.
“You’ll like it, and smile while you’re doing it too!”
Thankfully, mom and dad never really pushed us to watch a particular show. If we didn’t like what was on TV at that moment in time we basically had three options: 1. Watch the show anyway and suffer through it in silence. 2. Get up, leave the room, and go do something else (why do you think I turned into a ravenous comic book collector?). 3. Turn the TV off.
Most older generation adults in 21st century America are incapable of doing this third option. I shudder went thinking about the fate of humanity every time I hear about televisions that get turned on in a household or community viewing area and left running for hours on end. Doesn’t matter whether it’s in western society or some backwoods village in a third world Hellhole. Television can be great, but it’s sort of like ice cream. Too much of it can lead to extreme sugar highs among other nefarious side effects.
The CBS cartoons on Saturday morning were a particular favorite of mine. All the old Warner Brothers-Bugs Bunny/Road Runner cartoons got re-packaged into one-hour blocks, and to this day I still consider these mini-motion pictures among the greatest developments in celluloid story telling. Waking up on Saturday morning when you were a kid in order to catch Bugs & Gang is among my greatest childhood television memories. Nothing but Junkie Heaven when you’re into that sort of TV viewing experience. Then again, after you’d seen certain cartoons for the 58thtime, and had reached your teen years sleeping in suddenly became a substantially more important endeavor.
Regular viewing of other TV shows had similar desirable effects upon my sisters and I. “Gunsmoke” always came on Monday night and “Bonanza” which was actually an NBC show, was broadcast on Saturday evening. You always planned to finish your homework in time to excitedly be in front of the TV the second a particular show started. In theory, even if an adult tried to bribe you with the latest toy sensation you’d tell them to get lose in favor of a more important endeavor.
The original “Hawaii 5-0” was broadcast on Monday night and Saturday was a smorgasbord of viewing which included “The Jackie Gleason Show”, “Mary Tyler Moore”, and “M*A*S*H”. Who cares that you’ve only got one choice in terms of your television viewing options. Life was amazing and the executives at KREX-TV in Grand Junction probably had little to no idea how much of a positive impact they had on their Silverton constituents.
I’ll always remember the time we went out to California on vacation and I faced a serious conundrum one Friday night. Three of my favorite shows were being broadcast at the same time, and the concept of having to make a television viewing choice caused me to sit there in stunned silence. Not such an easy undertaking for a hyperactive eight-year old like myself.
Television viewing changed in the early 80’s when a second, and then a third channel showed up. Suddenly you discovered why they’d invented that hand held remote control in the first place. Surprisingly enough it wasn’t some sort of Cold War related military cloaking device like you suspected.
These days I have a mixed relationship with the television set. There are still quite a few shows I tune into faithfully from week to week, and certain ones I’ll even watch on a daily basis. If I miss them my world doesn’t come to a screeching halt from an emotional standpoint.
Like a lot of young people I watch certain shows on their website with the computer. Thankfully, this doesn’t involve tuning into a program on a particular day and time like it did in the old days. You watch the show when and where you want to. I can even foresee the day when the traditional television set doesn’t even exist anymore. Multiple visual media options assure that one happening.
From a different perspective television can be looked at as a one-way medium. It feeds information to the person doing the viewing, and they can’t respond back. Although some people viewing particular sporting events off the TV set have attempted to turn it into an interactive experience. Despite the frequency and loudness of their yelling, the entity doesn’t seem to be responding back. No matter how hard they try either?
All right I admit it, I’m as guilty as the next guy of doing this (Is this only a male phenomenon?). Human nature and the nature of television viewing guarantee that.
