Mar 19 2009
Coffee Stains: Watch more TV
Yes, that’s right: you should watch as much television as you want. And, I would suggest that you watch some good television with your family. And, I’d like to mention: television is one of the best ways to grow your mind and strengthen your relationships. Sure, television has gotten a bad rap, but you have to admit: there’s some really good television programming out there and to not watch all of that creative impulse would be a shame.
Oh, and don’t believe all the garbage folk say about the glory of reading books; sometimes television is just better.
Some of my fondest memories growing up have more to do with something I watched on television rather than from reading a book. For us, it was home from school, then 2 hours of television, dinner, and another 2 or so hours of prime-time programming. On Fridays, lots of television and Saturdays were a day specifically made for kid television from 7 in the morning all the way to American Bandstand and, if you really were daring, you might watch Soul Train (if you understood it, which I did not). Outside for some riding around on bikes in the afternoon and then incredible television Saturday night and then there was Sunday…kind of boring stuff until Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and then, most grandly, the Wonderful World of Disney.
Growing up with television in the 70′s and 80′s was a very satisfying activity and I am no more less stupid because I didn’t read many books. I loved television and started to like reading during these years. Book reading is an individual luxury; television watching, a social imperative.
I think at this point I hear the voice of one of my student’s from English 10b: “You’re being hyprocritical,” she says in response to something I said or did. Oh, I read some children’s books yesterday and I just got finished telling the class that I was going to treat them like they were juniors (I said this in response to somebody writing “I’m gay” next to somebody’s picture on the seating chart on the back board).
“You’re being hypocritical,” she says and I’m taken aback. For some reason, I suppose, she was experiencing some disconnect with how I started class Monday and what I was saying Tuesday. I also think that my response was supposed to be “No I’m not.” Instead, I went with the teacher question of “why?” and she explains about the children’s book thing Monday and my junior comment Tuesday. And I respond “So, that’s being hypocritical?” and she caves and says something about it not being a big deal.
Back to those kid Saturday mornings and the 4 or 5 hours of television watching: those were really cool times for cartoons. I was usually the first person awake in our house and I would begin the watching around 7 a.m. But the really good stuff came on at 8 and aside for breaks to get more cereal, I camped out in front of our color television, soaking in wonderful shows such as Hong Kung Phooey, Land of the Lost, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids and the many educational learning opportunities from School House Rock. Honestly, nothing really compares to Saturday morning television in the 70s.
And then, the quality programming didn’t end in the morning: Saturday evenings provided one of the best back-to-back drama/fun combinations ever: The Love Boat followed by Fantasy Island. Two hours of special guests (lots of Charo for some reason) and great theme songs and time to watch good, solid, and incredibly predictable plots and subplots on the small screen. (A close second to the back-to-back combo might be Happy Days and then Laverne and Shirley, but I found Fonzi to be an annoying character and Laverne’s sewed-on “L” a bit distracting. Again, though, great theme songs…”We’re gonna do it!”)
We put limits on the boys’ television watching and honestly, they really don’t watch much television (though there was the 2 month stretch when they desperately wanted to watch SpongeBob Square Pants and we put an end to that quickly or, perhaps, they grew out of it). The boys really watch videos more than anything else: all the Pixar stuff and a lot of the DreamWorks features and all of the Star Wars films. They both read books and we read to them and we talk to the boys about their books. We did breakdown and bought a PlayStation 2 a year and a half ago and we also have limits on game playing time (about 30 minutes a day).
But they don’t watch much TV, ever. We did, though, have the television on when the Space Shuttle Columbia exploded over Texas and we made sure that they were watching when the US troups helped tear out the statue of Sadam Hussein and we had them watch Barack Obama become the 44th President of the United States. On our New Years Eve family celebration, we watch Dick Clark (uncomfortable as that is) count down the dropping of the ball. And, about the only shows we watch together are Star Wars: Clone Wars and America’s Funniest Videos. We all sit on the couch and watch the Clone Wars because we like the stories and the characters and there’s just something timeless about what is happening in that 30 minute frame of time. It’s not so much because we’re Star Wars freaks (though, I did see the original movie 12 times in the theater…a fact that I think sometimes frightens Evan a bit). No, I think it’s because the show is about the things we all want from ourselves and each other: hope and honesty and humor. And it’s when we are all there, all four of us, watching this show that makes me smile…knowing that in 5 or 10 or 15 years from now we’ll talk about the show we used to all watch and enjoy together in the house in Goshen.
As for the AFV thing, I don’t know. Maybe one never tires of seeing a cat fall off a table, a kid on a skateboard on a trampoline break a window, or a guy getting hit in the crotch a million different ways. It never gets old and you could never recreate any of those moments as effectively in a book.
You simply have to watch it on television.
