And Now I Love TV

What I loved about TV in the 70’s and 80’s was that it was abig fucking deal.  TV was an event back then.  People planned their whole week around their favorite shows.  Season enders where actual cliffhangers and then you had to wait all summer long until you found out what happened.  Make some popcorn and gather around the TV, kids. Let’s find out who shot J.R.

Dallas was one ofmy favorite shows.  Pamela Ewing was my idol.  Her black 1976 Porsche 911 Carrera is still one of my favorite cars.  When she pulled into that long driveway in her sportscar you knew something was about to happen.  By the way, I have been to that house in Dallas, and it’s the size of a postage stamp in real life. 

I was also a fan of Knots Landing, Falcon Crest, Dynasty, and Hart to Hart.  The streetlights came on, and we were all home for the night, just in time to watch all these really grown-up shows that my daughter would be bored out of her mind watching today.

Not only did I have a love of the nighttime soaps, but I loved the daytime ones as well.  I was an avid Days of our Lives watcher from the time I was 10 years-old all the way through college.  I actually wore a dress to school the day Luke and Laura got married on General Hospital.  It was a big fucking deal.

There were no VCR’s or DVD’s or streaming, so if you wanted to watch a movie that at one point showed in a theatre, you had to wait until it was on TV.  I remember watching The Shining with my family and I think about how awesome it was that all the worst parts were cut out so a 9-year-old could enjoy it.  I kind of wish they still did this so me as a 40-something could enjoy it as well because I’m too scared to watch it now.

And Now I Love TV

Sometimes I think back, and I think we watched a lot of inappropriate shit as kids.  Our neighbors weren’t allowed to watch The Dukes of Hazzard because Daisy’s shorts were too short.  It probably never even occurred to me until they said that, and then I thought how stupid it was that they couldn’t watch a show because of a pair of shorts. 

What my daughter has available at her fingertips on a daily basis is a thousand times worse.  She’s an avid YouTube watcher and as a parent, it’s hard to monitor.  I know what her favorite channels are, but she can be searching for something innocent, and 15 search results will show up for things her eyes shouldn’t see just yet.

I wish we had appointment television again.  However, I would’ve missed out on my current obsession, Parks and Recreation.  Now I can binge watch it to my heart’s content.  But the stress I feel to get through 7 seasons!  It’s real.  I’m also about the jump on the Game of Thrones train and I can’t even think about the amount of shows I need to watch without having heart palpitations.  One episode at a time…                 

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