My Love Affair with TV. Part 1

I love television.

When I was little, a person who loved television was dumb, and lazy. Nightly news reported on the dangers of watching too much TV. TV rotted peoples brains turning them in to zombies. TV hurt your eyes if you sat too close. TV was too violent, too sexual, too excessive. TV was a danger.

TV was amazing.

The ABC network combatted the negative image of Television by producing family friendly content in their Friday night line up from 1989 - 2000.  TGIF (Thank God it's Friday or Thank Goodness it is Funny) is where I spent my formative television watching years.

I cut my teeth on The Perfect Strangers, Full House, Family Matters, Boy Meets World, Step by Step and Hanging with Mr. Cooper.   If I was really good, or really quiet I got to stay up late and watch 20/20 with Barbara Walters. Or as my mom used to say, "Baba Wawa." I thought my mother was hilarious!  Turns out Gilda Radner was hilarious and my mom was just a thief.

The TGIF lineup was a staple of my life. From the age 3 through age 13 I took dance lessons two or three times a week.  On the Friday nights when my dance lesson ended at 7pm, my dad would pick me up in his car and would have his small hand held television set (from Radio Shack)  ready for me so I wouldn't miss the beginning of TGIF.  That tiny black and white screen was my first experience with "appointment television."

Image Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1d/Sony_watchman_fd210.jpg/220px-Sony_watchman_fd210.jpg

When I was in 4th or 5th grade I given my very first television set. It was a a portable radio/TV combo with a 3 or 4 inch black and white screen and a very long antennae.  

I loved that television. It was always great company when I got sent to my room for being obnoxious or because I needed to clean my room or for when my brother was being obnoxious.  That TV also got me into a pretty sticky situation.  

I was not a bad kid.  I never snuck out and I didn't drink or do drugs. I usually did everything my parents asked.  I would whine about it, but I did it. My fatal flaw was television.  When it came to respecting my parents wishes and not watching certain television shows, I was a bad kid.  I was a rebel and the FOX network was my cause.

Our parents let my brother and me watch The Simpsons.  I was always surprised when other kids my age told me that they were not allowed to watch it because it didn't seem scandalous to me.  However, I also was a dumb kid who didn't get 95% of the jokes.  The one show that I was strictly forbidden to watch was Married With Children.  Under no circumstances was that show acceptable viewing material for my child brain, with or without my parents.  

But as stated above, I love TV and I really wanted to know what made the forbidden show so forbidden and in my tiny, developing brain, I had my own TV. What my parents don't know, won't hurt me.    

My subterfuge was going swimmingly until one night at the dinner table my brother said something that brothers say to sisters to annoy them and I responded "You're a bastard!"

I didn't realize until after my parents stopped eating that I had said something pretty bad.  My mom asked me where I heard that word, and (because I was a dumb kid who was incapable of making up a good lie) I told the truth. 

"I heard it on Married With Children. ... No, I don't know what it means. ... OH! That is what it means? ... I am sorry for calling you a bastard. ... No, please don't take it away! I promise I will never watch it again!  ... But I said I was sorry!  ... indistinguishable sobbing noises." 

That one slip up cost me my tiny, private, television privileges for 3 months. Any and all television had to be watched in the living room so that it could be monitored at all times.  

Those were the dark days. 

I never watched a single episode of Married With Children ever again.