Slice of Life: The wide world of ubiquitous, invasive TV

BY TOM HASHAGEN

When my students ask me how old I am I tell them I am as old as television, which is mostly true. Really, television broadcasts began in 1939, but hit the big time 10 years later. That year, 10 million black and white televisions were sold across America, facilitating the promise of, get this, “higher learning and cultural advancement.”

My dad bought a TV that had a giant cabinet with a screen the size of a slice of bread. It was a big deal. Early television was sort of like visual radio, with people reading things in front of a camera. In the early 50s my favorite programs were the cartoons, like Coco the Clown, Farmer Gray and Popeye. My later favorites were Groucho Marx’s “You Bet Your Life,” “Sgt. Bilko” and “The Jack Benny Show.”

Just about the time the novelty of television was wearing off, color TV was introduced, and the country went wild. Shows like Walt Disney’s “Wonderful World of Color” and “Bonanza” were the ones I most remember as being able to demonstrate the incredible difference.

Color TV was actually ready to go prior to 1960, but the government got involved to make sure that what was being broadcast in color could also be aired in black and white, so as not to tick off the aforementioned 10 million people who had bought black and white TV sets only a few years before. Color TVs were only for the well-to-do, a status symbol if there ever was one.

My grandpa had a huge RCA console with a zillion color controls and a corded remote with a mute switch that he loved. He hated advertisements, which was sort of ironic since he was a Madison Avenue executive.

Television also had a role in the election of John F. Kennedy to the presidency. A poll taken after one of the Nixon-Kennedy debates indicated that people who had listened to the debate on the radio thought that Nixon had done better, the opposite of what those who had watched the debate on television thought. For better or worse television was here to stay, and you know what? In this writer’s humble opinion, it has definitely been for the worse.

Our household has not subscribed to cable TV for maybe six or seven years. When this comes up in conversation, especially with younger folks, I get a look like maybe I need medication or counseling. Something must be wrong with me, they think. I dropped cable when I was forced to pay for a zillion channels I didn’t want in return for the dozen or so that I did want.

Fred Allen was quoted, more than half a century ago, as saying “Television is a medium where anything well-done is rare.” In the event that something shows up on the tube that is worth watching, I’ll eventually see it on DVD. I get my daily news from my internet home page and the radio. Besides, all you have to do is go anywhere at all and you can watch television all day long.

At sports bars there are easily 30 to 40 sets, some showing the same game, or maybe seven or eight different events at once. To make sure you’re not missing anything, there’s usually a ticker at the bottom of the screen that tells you what’s happening in a game that is usually on one of the other screens.

The epidemic of flat-screen monitors has infected almost every aspect of public life, as advertisers have become desperate for screen time in the age of the internet and cable subscription services. Besides the local elbow room, I have seen televisions attached to beds waiting for surgery as well as in the hospital lobby and of course each room.

I’ve seen them at anyplace where you have to wait for anything, like car repair shops, bus stops, airport gates, banks, gas pumps, ferry boats, hotel lobbies, on the backs of car seats, airplane seats and at super market check-out lines. Been to a doctor’s or dentist’s office lately? Guaranteed the periodicals on the corner table are all at least five years old.

Go to the local gym, and either there are three or four giant panels on the wall, or even better, a miniature screen on each treadmill. Just a little while ago I was lamenting the ubiquity and invasive aspects of everywhere television to my nephew, who is a huge sports fan. He told me of a chain of sports bars that even has screens at each urinal in the bathroom! Is nothing sacred?!

Instead of being driven to distraction we are driven with distractions. You can be a passenger on an eight-hour road trip and remember nothing of the countryside because of the drop-down television or DVD player. Auto-body shops across the land have benefited first hand from the ever-increasing sea of information displayed on the dashboard. We don’t do a lot of thinking because we’re told what to think and when to think it by talking heads at every turn.

I wonder how easy it would be to go a whole day without looking at one screen? Imagine, one whole day with no tickers, blogs, stock reports and mind-numbing advertisements.  I think I’ll try it, right after I download the next episode of “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”