There's Nothing to Watch

When I was a kid, we had three channels - ABC, NBC, and CBS. PBS existed, but was known as "the educational channel" and was primarily used in schools. (I still remember watching science lessons on the black and white TV that would be rolled in and out of the classroom when I was in fifth grade.) The UHF channels didn't really come into their own for another decade and cable was unheard of.

There was no cartoon network. Cartoons were on Saturday morning and there were a few kids shows on weekday mornings before school. Howdy Doody and Mickey Mouse Club came on after school. Soap operas aired in between. And I had to behave and be quiet while my mom watched her "stories".

If I missed my favorite TV show I had to wait for it to re-air during the summer reruns. There was no recording device of any kind that allowed me to watch at my own convenience. You waited years (if not decades) for a movie to air on TV. No waiting a few months until it came out on video - there was no video - no Netflix download either. You went to the theater or you waited.

But even so, at the tender age of nine when I said "there's nothing to watch" - what I really meant was that there was nothing I wanted to watch. At that age I didn't care for drama and it's very likely that I'd already seen the comedies - even though I often didn't mind watching them again. 

But now, here we are with hundreds of channels - dedicated to sports in general, a sport in particular, comedy, news, cartoons, home decorating, cooking, history, the military - you name it and there's a network dedicated to it. There's more to watch now than there has ever been. (Worth watching is a very different story - and if I'm honest, much of what I watched as a kid wasn't really worth watching, either.) So when I hear grown people, (GROWN PEOPLE - not nine year old kids) moan that "there's nothing to watch" I'd like to slap them back to their childhoods, or better still, back to mine.