Cheers to television, I love it, but admittedly I’ve been bewitched by it. Ever present during my lifetime, it’s been entertainer, baby sitter and timekeeper, ubiquitous, perhaps, but ever changing. Television presents old movies to new audiences. It delivers both amazing stories of real people and fantastic tales of a wonder woman or an incredible hulk. Occasionally, eureka, it will teach you something!
Defined by its very name, television, as one of the modern marvels, is a system of devices designed to transmit and receive sounds and simulated moving pictures. In it’s invention, it was conceived either as radio with pictures or as motion pictures telegraphed, except in contrast where motion pictures were preceded by still photography, television wasn’t preceded by the facsimile machine. Curiously, it was preceded by mechanical attempts each with a screen the size of a business card, a mere firefly compared with a giant, wide, flat screen of the 21st century. Doubtfully, the modern computer and Internet experiences wouldn’t be as fun or popular if they weren’t like enhanced televisions.
Television along with any number of video playback devices re-plays old movies, most of which without television I wouldn’t be able to see at the movies, and then to be forgotten to some twilight zone no matter the number of revival theatres. I think there’s more than just history appreciation to be gained by the daily show of classic films and legendary performances.
Friends and super friends of all sorts are introduced through television. It’s why I love Lucy, Reba, Lavern and Shirley. Maybe unlikely heroes will emerge from a group of freaks and geeks. Maybe you’ll see the Muppet show the celebrity guest lessons on being human.
Click through the channels to find a bonanza of entertainment tonight and live vicariously through the actions of fantastic characters. With a click you’ll leave a farm with a northern exposure in some small ville to get lost on a fantasy island. Click again and blast off on a star trek with a supernatural doctor who is an alien life form to the outer limits of time and space.
I may not necessarily get smart watching television. Although I’m unlikely to learn how fix my kitchen nightmares and become a top chef, I may be able to prepare 30-minute meals. I might pick up a little something to banter about at the office. While it’s unnecessary for television to assume the dirty jobs of being educator and counselor, I do get a little bit of glee to learn through televised, empirical demonstration that both thawed and frozen chickens can bust through an airplane’s wind shield and feel good for the knowing.
Everything else that I may click past is probably something some one else loves. So no matter who you are, what you watch, or when you watch it, television never says “no.”
p.s. 30 Rock, The A-Team, Battlestar Galactica, Burn Notice, Hill Street Blues, Johnny Quest, Mission Impossible, The Powerpuff Girls, Schoolhouse Rocks, Sesame Street, Speed Racer.
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