Saratoga News

Columns

Turning off the television ... just in time for bed

By Dick Sparrer

The television set was turned on in our house on Monday night. It was on again on Tuesday, and it will be on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and probably into the wee hours of the weekend.

So I have to say sorry to those folks who came up with National TV-Turnoff Week. We're just not participating.

The reason is simple. If we want the TV on, we'll turn it on. If we want the TV off, we'll turn it off. And we don't need anyone to tell us when to do it. Get the picture?

I'm not trying to tell anyone else what to do during this week of television rebellion. I'm just telling you what we're doing at our house.

Now, my boys are grown men, so our family is not exactly the target of the April 24-30 National TV-Turnoff Week. But even if they were small, I'd feel the same way.

I've watched TV since the days of Ding Dong School, Uncle Milty and Our Miss Brooks, and I'm no blithering idiot (uh, don't ask the boys for their opinions on that one). Because of it, I know that "Trix are for kids," that "Tide gets clothes cleaner than any soap" and that Edward R. Murrow exposed Sen. Joseph McCarthy for the evil man he was.

And my boys were raised on Sesame Street and Scooby Do, and they're both doing OK (though for the longest time the youngest did refer to pretzels as his "Scooby snacks"). Both were honor students in schools, and in a month both will be college graduates--one with a master's.

Sure, there are a lot of silly programs on television. But, then, that's why we have remote controls. Of course, no one watches the dumb shows. In fact, if you ask some people what they watch, they'll tell you they don't watch TV at all.

I think it's interesting to talk to folks about their TV-watching habits. No one seems to be watching, and the ones who do only watch PBS documentaries, Discovery and the History Channel. Yeah, I guess that's why sponsors pays seven figures to sponsor shows such as American Idol, Deal or No Deal? and Desperate Housewives.

You know, if all us are so interested in educational television, how come we all know the Gilligan's Island theme song by heart?

Because it's a bunch of baloney! When people ask, we like to tell them that we don't watch the junk that's on television. We're all too busy reading Tolstoy's War and Peace or whipping up a simple meal of "Twice-Baked Parmesan Soufflé with Romano Beans and French Butter Pears." Yeah, right!

The execs at Pepsi, Budweiser, Downey and Toyota know what we're doing. And it has nothing to do with Tolstoy, unless he's written a made-for-TV-movie recently (which would be a neat trick considering the fact that he's been dead for nearly 100 years).

Sure, parents need to monitor the television for their children. It can't be the substitute for quality family time and it should be off during the homework hours. But TV is not quite the tube monster some would make it out to be. And we're not better parents just because we pull the plug. It's not that simple.

You know, when the oldest was just a little guy, we had these next-door neighbors who had a son his age. The boys played together all the time, even though the neighbor kid's parents were like the Ozzie and Harriett of the neighborhood and we were considered to be more like Homer and Marge.

They were the politically correct type: no toy guns, no treats between meals, only selective TV watching, brush after every meal ... you know, all that radical stuff.

And when Jason would come to the house for a sleep-over, he would run for the plastic machine gun that rattled like a real machine gun when you cranked back the lever and pulled the trigger, he would eat all of the Hershey's kisses in the candy dish, he would snap the TV to Diff'rent Strokes and we would never see his toothbrush.

So what's the point? Well, Jason didn't turn out so great and our boys did. Was it the TV? Heck no ... that had nothing to do with it.

Of course parents need to use discretion and common sense when it comes to TV time. But while a half-hour with the Brady Bunch on Nick At Nite might be mind-numbing, it won't cause any permanent damage.

No, you know TV watching has caused permanent damage when:

* you ask your son for the time and he puts his answer in the form of a question ... "What is 11 o'clock?";

* he blurts out "Doh!" after spilling his Mountain Dew;

* he comes up with the Top 10 reasons why he shouldn't have to take out the garbage;

* he suggests you settle your dispute over whether he needs to clean his room by calling "Judge Judy."

I admit it. I watch too much television. I watch PBS, I watch Discovery and I watch the History Channel. But I also watch American Idol, an occasional stupid sitcom, some made-for-TV movies and as many baseball games as my wife will allow.

Some nights around dinner time we'll watch Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune back-to-back and compete against each other to get the answers (and, yes, we can solve more of the Wheel puzzles than we can answer the Jeopardy questions ... maybe that's proof that we do watch too much TV, huh?).

We're not buying into this National TV-Turnoff Week business. We don't need some organized effort to get us to turn off our television. We do turn it off ... every night after Letterman.