Things I Didn’t Buy 19

Here are some 1950s ads I saw in a Life magazine. I thought this Pan American ad was interesting using Norman Rockwell art.

Here’s a Magnavox ad.

A Du Pont ad.

A Rexall ad—I just like seeing the toys from back in the day.

And I really like this Peter Pan Little X girdle ad. Super simple and graphic.

Things I Didn’t Buy 12

At a thrift store I saw quite a few interesting items. Here’s a toy washing machine. Toys of items that adults use in their everyday lives is odd to me. It’s like a type of brainwashing: play with this toy as a child, and when you grow up, doing this mundane task will be “fun.”

Broken head with marbles in it. [Pause.] I think there’s a lost marble joke in their somewhere.

Tube tester machine. So random.

Old TV sets.

Cool old radio.

Old adding machine.

This old telephone is so awesome.

Binge Watching

Sometimes it’s preferable to watch a TV series (for the first time) once the show is over because you can watch it on your own schedule. You don’t have to wait every week for a new episode and you don’t have to wait for the new season to begin every year. And you don’t have to try and recall what had happened previously (because it’s easy to forget characters and events the longer a series is). It’s nice that you don’t lose the momentum of the story when you can watch episodes continuously.

On the downside you’re behind everyone who has already watched the series, and while it may be shiny and new to you, they’ve moved onto other things. And any shocking moments of the series may be spoiled if you don’t watch the show right as it comes out because people like to talk about their TV shows. Certain shows are popular enough that it’s hard to avoid having any foreknowledge about it before you finally watch the show belatedly.  

It’s a dangerous thing to have so many episodes at your fingertips because it’s easy to binge-watch and watch episode after episode. It’s addicting, especially when there are cliffhangers egging you on to watch the next episode. It’s easy to get sucked into a good story and hours are quickly lost. I know that binge watching isn’t really the best use of my time, but sometimes a good show is just too hard to resist.

Why is This Not Popular?

It’s hard to find a TV show to love. A lot of TV shows on the air just seem to be like all the other TV shows that are already airing—all just variations of the same theme. So when something different and intelligent and surprising suddenly appears, it feels like you just got lucky (because there’s a lot of crap to sift through to find those TV show gems).

Sometimes everyone seems to realize that a show good so the show has strong ratings and stays on the air for many years. Yet other times a fantastic show (for whatever reason) doesn’t have a large audience and either continually struggles to stay on the air year after year or it may just quickly get the axe. It always depresses me when a show I love doesn’t get the recognition it deserves because good ought to be rewarded, yet so often it seems as though stupid shows are rewarded (which just seems so wrong).

Over the years quite a few of my beloved TV show have been unceremoniously cancelled and are generally replaced by TV shows that are vastly lower in quality (and this irritates me greatly). If my awesome TV show with its interesting storylines and amusing characters is given the axe, then at the very least it should be replaced by something good. Yet usually it’s replaced by something crappy—just more stupid people being stupid. [Sigh.] It’s a bitter pill to swallow when a “successful” TV show is based upon high ratings rather than its content.

Flashback to 1990s TV Shows Notebooks

Every so often I’d catch a stray episode of The X-Files on some random TV channel and was reminded of how much I liked the series. Many years had passed since I’d really watched it and I decided it was time to watch it again from the beginning (as I’d forgotten pretty much everything about it). The show still makes me smile; I find the weird and creepy stories quite entertaining, and enjoy the government conspiracies with its many shadowy figures. And of course, I like Mulder and Scully (as individuals as well as working as a team)…they amuse me.

End Before It’s Too Late

Sometimes one of the few TV shows I actually love comes to a point where it feels like they’re prolonging the inevitable end. American TV shows tend to strive for many seasons—which can be good and bad. With multiple seasons, characters can develop and stories can deepen, but it also means that a good series can last too long and start to decline, and you know things are going down when they add The Interloper.

Perhaps after a few seasons the ratings have dipped, so the writers or the higher ups decide they need to add someone new to “spice things up” and so The Interloper appears. A common Interloper is a relative—like a whiny child or teenager or a cranky elder. And while The Interloper can take many other forms as well (e.g. friend, co-worker, adversary, etc.), one thing is clear: they’re not welcome.

The Interloper is often one (if not all) of the following: stupid, annoying, inept, immature and just plain unlikable. They bring everyone and everything down around them. Every time The Interloper comes on the screen you just want to sigh in disapproval at the dumb things that come to pass because of The Interloper. And you keep hoping that The Interloper will just die (or at the very least move away), but for whatever reason The Interloper just won’t go away. [Sigh.]

The Interloper puts a stain on an otherwise great series and often becomes a marker between the “good seasons” and the “bad seasons”. Instead of having that unwanted distinction, a good series should just end before Interlopers appear and ruin everything. Let a good show end on a high note rather than a low one by ending things in a timely fashion. All good things must come to an end...unless you wait so long that it’s not even good any more.

It’s Déjà Vu (I Knew I Liked You)

Pretty much any TV show you could possibly imagine is on DVD or online for your viewing pleasure (which can be somewhat overwhelming at times). There are so many options available, but sometimes watching something that you once loved but haven’t seen in years is what you want—something nostalgic. Something good. And although the TV show is blurry in your mind like a dream that you can’t quite remember, you know it was a good dream and want to remember it.

Past-loved TV shows only accumulate with time, as what was once new ends and is replaced by shiny newer TV shows. Many of these past-loved TV shows I could recite the basic premise to, but over the years have pretty much forgotten everything about them (including major story arcs and important characters). So while there was some familiarity about certain episodes, overall I’d forgotten enough to make the series feel fresh and new—like I was watching it again for the first time.

Not everything you once loved is worth loving. Every so often your memory deceives you. You recall certain TV shows from childhood with great affection only to watch them again when you’re older and you can’t help but think, “Why did I like this? I didn’t think I was a particularly dimwitted child, but maybe I was and just didn’t realize it…” It’s disappointing when you realize that not everything you loved was in good taste and that your love for it was misplaced. [Sigh.] But I think for the most part my original positive assessments of my past-loved TV shows remains true; and watching them again with fresh eyes, I still find them funny and interesting with characters I enjoy watching—and it’s still awesome. I knew I liked these TV shows for a reason and I was right to like them.

How-To Fill Two Minutes

Like most people, I find TV commercials an unhappy interruption during my TV program. It’s rare to find a TV commercial that I will watch of my own free will. [If it’s an amusing one, I may actually pay attention…but how often does that happen? (Pause.) Practically never.] No, most commercials are dull or stupid or repeated so many times that you can’t bare to watch it one more time.

To me, commercial time means that I have a couple of minutes to get a drink or I might check to see what other shows are on. But most often I’ll just mute the TV until my program comes back on. Silence is sweet when the alternative is hearing about “consulting your doctor about the side affects of this drug” or something equally riveting.

If it’s one of the few TV shows that I actually watch (rather than half-watch while I’m doing something else, like cooking, knitting, drawing, crafting, etc.), then I generally have a book nearby to read during commercial breaks. Because if I’m watching a TV show in its actual time slot (that lasts an hour), then a good quarter of that time is filled with commercials. That means I have at least fifteen minutes to kill, and reading a book is an easy way to fill a couple of minutes until my show comes back on.

I’m sure advertisers hate people like me, who try to avoid their very expensive commercials. [Pause.] My response is: make it better. If it’s not interesting, then I’ll just find some other way to amuse myself to avoid the white noise that is most commercials.

The Slap-Happy Circus

Many reality TV shows I would classify under the “guilty pleasure” category, but really, it’s come to the point where I find little pleasure in them and far too much guilt. I used to half-pay attention to some of the “people living their lives” reality TV shows, but eventually I found myself just not terribly interested in the “drama” of it all. And “love” competition reality TV shows I’ve always avoided like the plague (as contestants have a better chance of winning the lottery jackpot than finding love, marrying and staying married to the person everyone is competing for).

The main problem I have with a good chunk of these shows is the meanness of it all; I don’t want to watch people being terrible to each other with the name-calling, backstabbing and throwdowns (both verbal and physical). This is not a good time for me. [Pause.] But I guess it’s a good time for many people. A friend once told me that it makes her feel better about her life to watch the people in these shows, and I could see how it might make people feel smug and superior that that’s not them. But it doesn’t make me feel better about myself or about the world around me. It makes me feel sad. Sad that these people are acting the way they are. Sad that these people are on TV. Sad that people watch them on TV. And sad that people care.

I realize that not all reality TV shows have the slap-happy characters that I find so distasteful (some really are just fairly normal people living their lives). But I would hazard a guess that it’s the stupid, violent, rude, petty and mean individuals that people are more apt to watch—because people are always curious about the car wreck that is someone else’s life. I guess not much has changed over the centuries; the Romans had their circus’ where people fought to the death for the public’s entertainment—and we have reality TV shows. And while reality TV stars don’t actually fight to their deaths, their fifteen minutes of fame may die off—which may be just as devastating to them.