We criticize it, complain about it, yell at it and take it for granted, but we can’t ignore the squeakiest wheel in the house, and the reason we celebrate
NATIONAL TELEVISION DAY!
Whether you prefer Kimmel to Colbert, GMA to Judge Judy, or “Hard Core Pawn” over The Science Channel, our not-so-silent partner, Mister Television, shares our daily lives.
From the irritatingly chipper young weather reporters first thing in the morning, through the bland lunacy of Maury, Jerry and the View, to the 40 year-old melodramas featuring some guy with perfectly gray-streaked hair named Doctor Drake Stone, through our evenings filled with sitcoms about witty slobs from the outer boroughs of New York City, Cop Shows and more Doctor Dramas, the tube is almost always on.
Beginning in the 1950s, Television transformed life itself in America, and soon the entire world. In the late 50s and early 1960s, network television announced and vogorously promoted the sea change in popular music by featuring Elvis, Jerry Lee, Chuck Berry, the Shirrelles, the Everly Brothers and The Beatles. It opened with a Golden Age, then slid down and uphill over the decades, but today is more vital than ever, with an unprecedented array of choices.
Another Golden Age is in progress thanks to Cable TV, where a lot of extraordinary talent is on display, alongside people with more tattoos than teeth fishing in muddy swamps with their bare hands.
You can watch 250 channels on a flatscreen TV the size of a Ping Pong table, or on your cell phone, tablet or computer. As much as Television has grown and evolved in 6 decades and where it is heading now, The Tube remains the perfect mirror image of the best and worst of humanity.
•Suggested Activities: Going on a Channel Surfing Safari.