How did it come to this? How did I get so spoiled? That I have opportunity at my beck and call to do as I please when it comes to my television viewing pleasures?
Survivor? No problem — it’s on the day after it airs in the event I miss it. (Actually, it’s ready to fly come midnight out my way on CBS’ site.)
That special something I’ve been pining for? Just so happens “that particular network has been promoting the bejeebers out of it and I can catch it a week before it even premieres on The Monkey Business Channel.
*Gah!* I missed my most favorite “Drama Of Inane Dramas” a couple days ago! “Real” friends forced me to get out into the “real” world causing me to forget my “priorities” for a few minutes. (Luckily, I had my DVR set to “engage” …)
“Hey! Guys! The next 3 episodes of ‘Spreading Your Ass Even More On The Couch’ is available to ‘first come, first served’ via the Slingbox!” Woot, Woot … !!!
“Uuhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm … so … Michael? What’s your point?”
My point, Gentle Reader, is that we are a society of collective ne’er-do-wells who’ve got it made in the shade. We want it, we’ve got it, Toyota.
There was a time — not so very long ago — when I used to love heading to the grocery store with my mother on Tuesdays. You see … that was when the new TV Guide came out for the following week. I remember snagging it out of the grocery bag when we got home and heading directly to the Saturday listings to see what Grimsley or Sinister Seymour would be providing for the Saturday afternoon/evening double Creature Feature. Sometimes it was War Of The Gargantuas. Or an old Frankenstein flick. Giant insects! An alien creature of yuckiness! Godzilla! Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman! More! It was a smörgåsbord of wonder in my mind that I couldn’t wait to get to.
My point, Gentle Reader, is that discovery and anticipation grew within me at the very hint of a longed-for program … and there wasn’t a single thing I could do about it except hurry up and wait.
There were no video recording contraptions. No YouTubes. No DVRs. No Hulus. No HBO on Demand. No DVD outlets of which I could stroll into with a jaunt in my step to peruse titles I may have missed. No Redbox. No Slingbox. No Blockbuster or NetFlix.
The fun, you see, was getting the gang together and demanding of Mom more popcorn, more avocado sandwiches and more Coca Cola while Gamera began spinning round on our (barely color) console set, getting ready to launch across some Japanese landscape on his way to right a wrong. The fun, you see, was wondering when the next time we got to see Vincent Price in The Fly. The fun was to pretend we were caught in a phone booth while The Blob attacked, screaming like banshees for all the neighborhood to hear.
Now? Well … now we have the convenience of just about everything at our fingertips.
Internet … mobile phone ordering … Joe Blow’s “I Got That Download Right Here” … more, more, more. Instant freakin’ gratification.
The kicker is I don’t use 85% of what’s available to me. I’m kind of a hold out. But I’m getting better at becoming a lemming. There’s hope yet.
And … damn, I’m spoiled. How did I get so spoiled? Anyone else out there as spoiled as me?
Clacked by Michael Noble 
on Sep 29, 2011 @ 12:00 EST5EDT
I love your flashback to grabbing the TV guide. I also remember that well and would immediately plan out the week. The killer part of trying to watch tv when I was a kid was that I didn’t get a “portable’ tv till I was in high school. So if I couldn’t convince my parents to watch what I wanted..I was screwed! That is why I know all of the Lawrence Welk feature players, it’s not because I wanted to!!!
I am as at least as spoiled as you if not more so.
Did you say Eight Channels? Hell you were spoiled then too!
I remember 3 channels, and one of them was so full of snow that it didn’t pay to even try to watch. We all had to wear aluminum foil hats to assist the rabbit ears get any reception, and sometimes the smallest kid had to stand next to the TV with his hand on the rabbit ears and miss the show if anyone else was to see anything.
Howdy Doody & Buffalo Bob, with a liberal sprinkling of Clarabell thrown in. Heck I remember Howdy getting his 49th freckle when Alaska was admitted as a State! And all those Hercules movies! Now that was ENTERTAINMENT :-)
ahh … the glory days of UHF channels …
Hey! I resemble your title!
*POST AUTHOR*
. . . . .
An:
As you well know, you were the inspiration for this post.
Thank you!
Wow, 8 channels? We had 4 channels….1 of those being PBS which was only on 8 hours. And we couldn’t afford the TV Guide soooo it was a daily browse through the newspaper. Didn’t even bother to get a colored TV until the late 70’s. Now a days it is soooo confusing with so so many channels. I flip flip flip flip through gawd knows how many channels (we pay for) and it is all the same old same old same old. Ironically, found ONE channel I thought..WOW, this would be a great one…Smithsonian…and wouldn’t you know it..when I tuned in I got the: You must sign up for this station…please contact Time Warner Cable. CLICK…back to the radio.
I’m with you, Michael. I still remember having to manually program my VCR to tape episodes of Law & Order. In fact, I still have my sizeable collection of VHS tapes, since many of the shows I used to tape never came out on DVD. (And I still read TV Guide, though not as frequently as I used to.) I’m really grateful for my DVR, but part of that is because I know how much it’s improved my viewing habits from those days of struggling with the VCR.
My parents loved television which I suppose is how I ended up being an addict myself. In our house after 7 p.m. Central time the only response you would get from any speech was, “Shhh…” accompanied by a finger pointing at the television “set.”
My folks loved TV so much that we had one of the tallest antenna towers outside our home in town. That sucker was made of 3 steel pipes with ladder rung type metal slats between them so you could climb it from one of 3 sides. It was anchored in the ground with a huge slab of cement and bolted into the frame of the house at the roof line. Of course it was controlled by one of those “fancy” knob-box thingies that sat on top of the set and each channel was penciled in on the compass-like display so you’d know just where to turn the knob for best reception.
We got 6 whole channels like that and my friends loved to come over and watch. Strangely, when we finally had cable installed we only upped our channel number to 8.
My folks also subscribed to TV Guide in the mail and I couldn’t wait for the day it was delivered. Since I loved science fiction and horror, I would thumb through the listings for the “genre” tags after each show looking for the word “melodrama” because that’s the only way TV Guide characterized those kinds of programming back then. I had a red pen and would underline the shows fitting my tastes along with a little red arrow should I miss the underlining. My wife & I were subscribers to the TV Guide until the day they went to the “People Magazine That Had Incidental TV Listings” format. That ended my life-long lovefest with that little mag real quick.