TV or Not TV

TV ages us

2008-09-19T03:56:00.000-07:00

TV has established the Age of Irony. Naivete, innocence and credulity are not only laughable on television, they are mortal sins. TV hosts and pundits wink and smirk; kids on TV are wised-up before the age of puberty. Nothing in life is serious on TV, even making fun of life.

Going against the Flomax

2008-07-29T12:55:00.000-07:00

Flomax is supposed to be for all those guys who want to spend less time in the bathroom. What about all us guys who want to spend MORE time in the bathroom? Actually, Flomax sounds like it should be for us. And one of the guys in their commercial, running every night during Jeopardy, looks like he just had a good time in there in the restroom, as he is shown emerging and breaking into a laugh.

I’d personally rather spend my time in the bathroom working on a good dump than riding bikes with this over-the-hill gang.

Is TV dumb, or are we? (Part 1)

2008-06-07T01:27:00.000-07:00

“There is still so much we have to learn about TV!” – Kurt Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus.

Ever since Idaho farmboy Philo T. Farnsworth figured out one could scan a picture in a horizontal line with an electron beam and thus eventually send Viagra commercials into every home in America, watching TV has been one of our species’ guilty pleasures. I do it, you do, all God’s chillun do it, but none of likes to admit it.

That’s not quite right. The same wretched soul who’d rather die than recount the hours spent slumped on the sofa watching Jerry Springer or reruns of Bonanza is the one will doggedly wait for a lull in the conversation to offhandedly extol the wonders of The History Channel, as if that were his regular fare.

To own up to one’s true TV-watching habits is to confess to a character flaw.

Not our fave two

2008-05-22T05:23:00.000-07:00

Two characters we've had our fill of: Charles Barkley and Dwayne Wade. The cell phone spots were amusing the first two- or three-dozen times we saw them, but now they're as annoying as a cell phone going off in a theater.

Way back when we cared to think about them, some things we wondered:

If D-Wade didn't want to field Barkley's endless calls, why didn't he just not pick up? Didn't he have caller ID?

Why would Wade have his cell phone in plain view and turned on at a press conference?

And seeing as how, judging from these commercials, Charles Barkley would appear to have the cushiest job in America -- being Charles Barkley -- why would he ever want to be governor of Alabama?

For more on Barkley, visit NBA to Z

They should have nipped it in the bud

2008-05-19T08:32:00.000-07:00

Future multiple Oscar-winner Jodie Foster made her TV debut on this day in 1969, in Mayberry RFD, the lame follow-up to The Andy Griffith Show. She had a bit part. Her brother, Buddy Foster, played farmer Sam Jones's son, Mike, on the series. Aunt Bee was Sam's housekeeper. Andy, to our dismay, married Helen Crump and looked lost and surly without Barney.

Flummoxed by Flomax

2008-05-14T08:32:00.000-07:00

Their commercials show over-the-hill sportsmen and adventurers charging into the wild, all undaunted, in kayaks and on bicycles, only to be stymied by their unruly bladders.

So, I don't get the name Flomax. Aren't theirs already flowing to the max?

And the announcer makes a big assumption -- that everyone wants to spend less time in the bathroom. How about those who want to spend more time there?

And hello from Mary Lou

2008-05-08T13:00:00.000-07:00

Eric Nelson was born on this day in 1940.

Who's Eric Nelson, you say? If you know him, you'll know him as Ricky Nelson, and if you are a child of the 'fifties you'll think of him fondly, having watched him grow up before your eyes on the Ozzie and Harriet TV show.

At the end of every show, once he got to be old enough to sing and play a guitar, Ricky would do a song, and we liked it almost as much as we enjoyed Roy Rogers singing at the end of his show.

There was Fabian and then there was Elvis, but we always thought Ricky Nelson was the coolest, probably because we got to see him acting like a goofy kid around the house -- he was never a rock star, just a funny and personable guy who happened to play rock-and-roll.

What we thought was most cool about Ricky's performances was the way he closed his eyes to register intensity of feeling.

Happy birthday, Ricky -- I'm sure if you were alive today you'd have this to say:

"Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. Hi, Dave. Hi, everybody."

Grease II

2008-05-05T08:29:00.000-07:00

Moronic and insulting McDonald's commercial Number One Billion: The four young guys riding around looking for adventure and the cheapest gas prices suddenly spot a McDonald's marquee advertising $1 cheeseburgers, and they are, naturally, lured in as if they have heard the call of the Sirens. They blow their scant cash on a feast of gut bombs and then have to push their car -- but of course it is all worth it after the blissful banquet.

Whenever we hear the term fast food we think of pulling a fast one.

A nation of watchers

2008-04-30T12:08:00.000-07:00

With another brutal summer looming here in the South, we all have another reason to stay inside and watch TV. As the average household’s viewing time hovers around 16 to 18 hours a day, the question is: Can we ever get enough TV?

Let me turn down the sound on my set and attempt to give a well thought-out answer to that.

The answer is: Of course not. We are all, as typical Americans, empty vessels that require filling constantly, with ideas and emotions and images – all the things that TV gives us. We all know the world outside our windows is confusing and annoying, what with its wars and famines and natural disasters and whatnot, and that human relationships can be a regular labyrinth of unresolved conflicts. So why get involved?

TV lets us experience the world without getting caught up in it.

Believe it or not, there was a time when all any TV viewer could get were two or three channels, and none of these were on for 24 hours! In those Dark Ages the only succor for the world-weary traveler through the long, lonely night was a test pattern. Life expectancy then was very short, and the vast general boredom led to such mischief as World War II and the Atomic Bomb.

In the 1950s and ‘60s television still crept upon its hands and knees, as Americans persisted in such activities as reading and going outdoors. But during and after the Vietnam War, as the world seemed to become a more dangerous place, TV watching took the place of action. Our eyes grew accustomed to the dark and a new generation evolved with built-in glassy-eyed stares and smaller brains, suited for the video environment in which they would spend two-thirds of their lives.

TV is the one constant in many lives. If our jobs are dumb or demeaning, our relationships tenuous, the myriad transactions of everyday commerce humbling or inutterably inane, we can find solace in TV, where ordinary occupations are invested with glamour (or at least comedy), where the grind of daily life becomes the stuff of high drama, and where every problem will work itself out in the space of 30 minutes or an hour, at most.

Any number of (self-appointed) experts will say that we watch too much TV. They urge us to turn off our sets and talk (Sure, so we can hear about someone else’s problems!), read (Naturally, since most of them are writers), or get outside into the fresh (Ha!) air. Do anything but enjoy ourselves, in other words. These guardians of our health and happiness are growing more numerous and louder every day. If they keep up, there’ll be only one thing to do:

Turn up the volume and drown them out.

Ads take their toll

2008-04-27T09:53:00.000-07:00

Reason #79 I'll never set foot in a Taco Bell:

The two babes stop into the bar, in their commercial, looking like they just stepped out of a Vogue photo shoot, and sit down and start scoping out the cute guys. One of them asks the other if she smells something.

Oh, that's the chalupa she brought with her. It's right there, in her purse.

Immediately three hot guys come over, drawn by the intoxicating aroma of the Taco Bell chalupa. They all proceed to just about swoon over the bewitching smell.

Never mind that these two dolls in real life would obviously never set foot in a Taco Bell, either. Never mind that they are such ravishing beauties as to render any other means of allure, even the song of the Sirens, superfluous -- that they could come into the bar wearing potato sacks and still draw a crowd.

The sheer stupidity of this ad -- its bell-ringing fatuity -- might pass unheeded if we saw it just once or twice or thrice. We'd be able to ignore it, brush it off, maybe even think it was cute or clever, without really thinking about it -- before it impinged on our subconscious.

After about 120 times, however, we may begin to pick it apart in our rage -- our rage against the slow death that is TV.

Ask not for whom the Bell tolls -- it tolls for thee.

The Bard of Avon calling

2008-04-26T08:31:00.000-07:00

April 23, more or less, in 1564, was the date of birth of Willam Shakespeare. He was baptized on April 26.

He died on April 23, 1616.

TV Or Not TV

TV, or Not TV -- that is the question:
Whether ‘tis notabler of the mind to suffer
The slurs and insults of absurd commercials
Or to take umbrage at a scene of trifles
And by unplugging end it. To quit, to stand
No more, and with our stand to say we end
The heartburn ads, the thousand cheesy spots
The box gives air to. ‘Tis a cancellation
Devoutly to be wished. To stop, to sleep –
To sleep, perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of peace what dreams may come
When he have shut full off this mordant churl
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of TV life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of tube,
The producer’s wrong, the loud man’s contumely,
The pains of despised ads, our show’s delay,
The insolence of actors, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his hiatus take
With a bare finger. Who would Oprah bear,
To gape and swear at such a dreary sight,
But that the dread of something in our mind,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus boredom does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the prospect of thought,
And enterprise of great pith and moment
In this regard the channels turn awry
And chain us to the action.

Happy birthday, Jack

2008-04-22T13:21:00.001-07:00

Jack Nicholson is 71 today. He started out in TV. His first role was in 1958, in something called "The Cry Baby Killer," the tagline for which was:

YESTERDAY a Teenage Rebel... TODAY a mad-dog slayer!

He was in episodes of "Mr. Lucky," "The Barbara Stanwyck Show," "Tales of Wells Fargo," "Sea Hunt," and "Bronco."

He was in an episode of "Hawaiian Eye," playing a character named Tony Morgan (anagram: Tangy moron).

He was in four episodes of "Dr. Kildare," as Jaime Angel. Years later, he played the Devil, in The Witches of Eastwick.

He was in two episodes of "The Andy Griffith Show," in one of which he left a baby on Andy's doorstep.

Man and Superman

2008-04-16T07:31:00.000-07:00

When I was a boy TV was still in its infancy, and like any other infant it drooled a lot. Compared to some of the stuff we had to watch back then, most of the shows today, even the most idiotic and annoying ones, seem like Shakespeare.

Nevertheless, everybody who was around then remembers the early days of television as a kind of Golden Age. Maybe just the idea of being “entertained” in our own living rooms at just the twist of a knob was enough to keep us spellbound. (Consider, also, besides our fascination with the new thing, the fact that Dwight D. Eisenhower was president—a good indication of the country’s level of boredom.)

My favorite show as a kid in the 1950s was Superman. Along with about 40 million other kids I memorized the introduction (“Look, up in the sky…”), and I used to mimic the Man of Steel by leaping off the back of our sofa and making the wooshing sound that attended his landing. The show’s music stirred me, in particular the tinkling of the piano every time my hero got ready to take off.

Today, Superman in reruns (occasionally on Nickelodeon) is considered the epitome of corn, but I can’t recall whether I realized as a kid that the show was so hokey. Maybe I did. Looking at it now, one can’t imagine any kid, ever, above the age of four or five, not snickering. I guess what must have come into play, and what made the show so thrilling to me, was the willing suspension of disrespect: Once you accepted the ludicrous plots and the ham-handed acting as a matter of course, you could sit back and enjoy it all. (Or leap off your sofa.)

And, viewed in that spirit, Superman had some important lessons to impart:

The Power of Love. Everyone knew that a Superman/Lois Lane romance could never be—including Lois—but she kept hoping. We never saw any men in Lois’s life; mere mortals meant nothing to her. Every inch the professional woman, Miss Lane, as both Clark and Superman called her, threw herself into her work, and she was all business—aggressive, self-assured—except when Superman came around, whereupon she turned to mush. She kept the torch burning even when it appeared that Superman had---Great Caesar’s ghost!—married. (The marriage turned out to be a ruse to foil some crooks.) As for Superman, if he could have married any earthling, was there any doubt who it would have been?

The Power of the Press. The Daily Planet was the heartbeat of Metropolis. The city’s criminal element was always put out with one or more of the Planet’s three reporters and their dogged snooping. And citizens often took their problems to the paper instead of the police. (Partly because it was generally known that Clark Kent was a close friend of Superman.)

The Power of Suggestion. Clark Kent looked like exactly like Superman, except with glasses and clothes, but no one ever had even an inkling of a suspicion that they were one and the same. Why? Because while Superman could do anything, Kent was a klutz.

The Power of Geology. We learned that a simple lump of coal, subjected to a million pounds of pressure for ten thousand years, will turn into a diamond. (Superman/Kent turned the trick in just under eight seconds, by squeezing the coal, in the “Jungle Devil” episode.)

The Theory of Relativity. Though faster than a speeding bullet, able to fly to Egypt, the North Pole or even other planets in a twinkling, Superman could be maddeningly slow just getting across Metropolis. The explanation for this, of course, was that it just seemed that way, because of the element of suspense. As we all found out from experience, time can slow down when we’re eagerly waiting for something.

And speaking of relativity, consider the question: Has TV never been good, or always been good? Perhaps it depends on your point of view.

Put your Hans together

2008-04-15T09:22:00.000-07:00

Today is the birthday of actor Hans Conried, born in 1917. He died in 1982.

The versatile performer will be affectionately recalled by baby boomers and TV nuts like me as Uncle Tonoose on Make Room for Daddy. He also was the voice of Dudley Doright on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show and of Wally Walrus on Woody Woodpecker.

He did dozens -- even scores -- of movies and TV shows.

For everything you'll ever need to know about Uncle Tonoose and other great characters and shows of yesteryear, Visit this site

Gosh, but time flies

2008-04-13T16:39:00.000-07:00

Tony Dow, everybody's favorite big brother, is 63 years old today.

Gee, Wally, quit givin' me the business -- say it ain't so.

Wally and Beaver Cleaver shared a bedroom, and also a rapport -- Wally would never, ever be mean-spirited or cruel like your own big brother would. The most flustered he ever got was when he was commiserating with Beaver over the trouble the Beav was in now. He was even a buffer between his little brother and Eddie Haskell, the wise guy who was mean-spirited and cruel.

Wally always stuck up for the Beaver, because he remembered what it was like to be a stupid little kid.

Happy birthday, Wally.

Perpetual Commotion Machine (part 5 - final)

2008-04-09T04:34:00.000-07:00

Most of television is relentlessly upbeat. It wants us to like it. We may feel like turning to TV for a pick-me-up; it will assure us that we are unique and extraordinary, deserving of all the pampering we can get.

A little of that, of course, goes a long way. Before too long, TV's endless flattery becomes annoying for its transparent insincerity. And dispiriting, for pressing home to us all the things we are not, and all the things we will never have.

Those who justify TV say that it reflects society. Its detractors say that it gives us a distorted picture -- an exaggeration or caricature of life.

Both are right: TV, in one moment, can stun us with powerful images of the way we live, and, in the next moment, insult us with preposterous characters and impossible situations.

For the most part, TV's nuggets of gold are like needles in so many haystacks. Mining them takes diligence, patience, the capacity to sit (and sit and sit) and wait. It wears one out.

But TV never gets weary. It's always there, eager to please, accommodating, ingratiating, faithful, relentless -- tireless as eternity.

Soft Soap for $200, Alex

2008-04-07T08:35:00.000-07:00

Every evening I watch “Jeopardy” and “Wheel of Fortune,” the two best quiz shows on TV. And every evening during those two shows I’m bombarded by ads for products promising to relieve my aching bones and joints, curtail my frequent trips to the bathroom, pep up my sex life, end my bouts with depression and make me as relentlessly cheerful as a Golden Retriever – in short, to knock 30 years off my age and give me all the health and high spirits of a teenager.

Evidently I am part of the “target market” of these advertisers – somewhat advanced in years, maybe even retired (at home in front of the TV at 6 p.m.), but still having a desire to contribute to society while making the most of my declining years.

In that case, wouldn’t you think they’d give me a little credit for knowing the score (especially since I’ve tuned into the only two quiz shows on the air that require any intelligence), for realizing when I’m being flimflammed?

Jeopardy Betting 101

2008-04-01T09:10:00.000-07:00

Watching Jeopardy yesterday. It amazes me that so many fairly smart peope are idiots when it comes to wagering on Final Jeopardy.

Yesterday, for instance -- this lady is in second place going into Final J, with $12,200. She's $2,000 behind the first-place guy. So she bets $3801. Where did that come from? Did she decide, somehow, that the guy in front might just pluck the number $1800 out of the blue to bet, allowing her to win by a buck? More than likely, she was gambling that he would miss the final question, and if they both missed it, he'd bet more than her, allowing her to win. But why play it like that? There's too many contingencies.

The best way to do it when you're behind is to bet all your money. Chances are -- this is the way it goes in most games -- that the leader will bet $1 more than double your current score. And occasionally, the frontrunner will bet just enough to allow you to tie him if you bet everything.

Maybe the ones who do that are moved by the spirit of fair play or magnanimity, but I'd do it, if I were playing, for practical reasons. You've already proved you can beat the second-place player, so you've got to believe you can beat him again tomorrow. So let him tie you, and you both get to come back.

Finally, I've never understood why anyone bets their whole wad except for a dollar. Very, very, very seldom does anyone with $1 win the game, and why would you bet everything except a dollar, anyway -- do you want to guarantee a second-place finish and the lovely parting gifts?

By far your best move is to bet it all and hope that even if the leader knows the answer he will have followed my logic -- or his own -- and allow you to tie him.

For anyone interested in more Betting in Jeopardy 101, contact me.

Perpetual Commotion Machine (part 4)

2008-03-31T02:49:00.000-07:00

Everything having to do with TV involves a trade-off. We can have TV in schools, bringing information to kids, but we must have commercials.

Speaking of schools, TV has not yet -- the last time I looked, at least -- quite replaced human teachers, the way it often replaces human parents in homes.

Not all homes, though. Families still watch TV together, and many are enriched by the experience. In this light we can think of TV as an electronic campfire, where stories are told and retold, where we can warm our hands in the glow of good cheer.

For TV is nothing if not cheerful.

Perpetual Commotion Machine (part 3)

2008-03-28T09:19:00.000-07:00

The issues that divide people over television are, like TV sets themselves, hardly ever black-and-white.

Let's consider, for instance, whether TV has the capacity to educate the masses.

Yes, it is, we can say, as a surprising amount of what is on TV is educational in nature, at least in part; indeed, entire channels are dedicated to educational programming.

Then again, we might have to say no, because TV's primary aim is not to educate but to sell products -- and toward that end the majority of TV programs are designed, still, to benumb us, to soften us up for the kill.

Maybe, we could say, TV could educate the people who watch it the most, if it would not insist on hiding its light under a bushel.

Perpetual Commotion Machine (continued)

2008-03-27T04:15:00.000-07:00

The fact is, TV is a little bit of everything: Dream merchant, mentor, windbag, bore, enchantress, confidante, storyteller, hypnotist, braggart, buffoon, flatterer, sage.

TV is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. TV is the barking dog outside your window at night. TV is your favorite uncle, the one who cracks corny jokes, makes funny noises and always brings you presents.

TV is your cousin from Minneapolis who visits right at suppertime with his wife and your four cousins you've never met.

TV is all this, but none of these metaphors are exactly right. More than anything, TV just is. Perhaps the only thing that can be said with exactitude about TV is: It won't go away.

Given this, the question is: Do we use TV, or let it use us?

The perpetual commotion machine

2008-03-26T03:06:00.000-07:00

Can TV rescue us? Or is it TV from which we must be rescued?

Will TV end up being the most powerful educational tool ever invented? Or will TV finally plunge us all into a permanent stupor?

Is TV the benevolent agent of all that is good, a magic well of entertainment, a cornucopia of culture?

Or is TV the the evil agent of all that is bad, a purveyor of trash, a corrupter, a thief of time?

Well...yes and no.

(To be continued.)

NCAA's: Games (C)an't (B)e (S)een

2008-03-25T05:25:00.000-07:00

The NCAA Tournament gets serious this weekend, and so far it’s been another fun and fabulous ride in spite of CBS, the network that told us they were going to show it to us.

Sport’s most exciting event has been -- as it always is for one of the media’s biggest entities -- just another money-making opportunity.

At every timeout, instead of switching to one of the games whose running scores they were so tantalizingly displaying, the network went to commercials.

CBS has managed to sandwich some snatches of games in between its relentless schedule of ads.

The highlight of the tournament, from this vantage point and perspective, was Duke going down, its squeaky-clean coach outmaneuvered by one of the game’s renegades, Bob Huggins of West Virginia. It’s always a joy to see the normally placid Coach K, the white rat to us, start squeaking in the referees’ ears whenever the tide turns against him.

Sonic and Coke a cloying combo

2008-03-24T09:24:00.000-07:00

There are two commercials running on TV that drive me crazy. (Well, there are a lot more than two, but I’ll just mention two.)

One is the Sonic commercial with two dim-bulbs -- sometimes two guys and sometimes a guy and his girlfriend or wife -- sitting in the car and having conversations that I guess are supposed to be zany and hilarious. But what they are is annoyingly idiotic.

What, do you imagine, is the Sonic corporate marketing department thinking, using these unsavory characters as spokesmen/women? Do they think we’ll all want to run right down to the closest Sonic so that we can mingle with lovable losers like this?

The other commercial is for Coke Zero, I guess it’s called. It features two men in the Coke department of the company conferring with an attorney about the feasibility of suing the Coke Zero department.

I have to admit -- in addition to the fact that these two are as senseless and irritating as the Sonic specimens -- that here again I don’t understand, in the least, the company’s marketing strategy.

Maybe it’s just based on an utter contempt for the consuming public: We’re so big and well-known, Coca-Cola must figure, that we can dream up and put on TV any kind of incoherent drivel we want and people will still lap up our product.