TV Turn-Off Week: While it’s not my official excuse for being away from you, this is my story and I’m sticking to it: Last week was “TV Turnoff Week”—an opportunity for the boobtube addicted (like me) to take a break and concentrate on the lost art of what us late ’70s/early ’80s kids used to experience as “family time” and “outside time.” Back then, family and outside time was more than just important… it was a way of life.
I grew up in an era when television was really hitting its stride and swelling with popular culture. We also had the hottest video gaming system in the universe (the Atari 2600) back then as well—the retro equivalent of the Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation and Xbox 360 all rolled into one. But we knew when to turn it all off.
Never mind that some of us remember what black and white television was like; we also knew the guerilla George Lucas Marketing™ on commercial television when we saw it. Everything was ultra-marketed. But none of those things seemed to be our undoing, because we knew how to park it in front of the small screen AND how to use our imaginations when our TV time was up. Our parents had a hand in that action. And we burned up whatever junk food we scarfed up by running around like banshees outside.
Our parents kept and eye on the clock and sent us out into the yard, where you’d re-enact your Starsky & Hutch, Knight Rider, The Dukes of Hazzard, Battlestar Galactica or Buck Rogers in the 25th Century episode(s) you just watched, or talked about how well you played Space Invaders and Pac-Man that week. The neighborhood kids were all into TV and video games, but they often spent four to five times the number of outside hours as inside. Especially during the prime outdoor seasons.
Back then, you didn’t see the level of obesity in kids (or adults, for that matter) that you do now. Or the level of mental “checking out” that you see in a lot of kids today. Everyone seemed to know when to turn it off and focus on physical activity. The boobtube wasn’t babysitting. (more…)
Can I get a head count of all the bloggers out there reading this? Ten? Thirty-two? Forty-eight? … All of you? Well then, I suppose all of you will understand where this particular post is coming from. I’m always trying to dig up interesting things for the column, and now that I have a monthly Internet radio program 
Like I said, I was digging around in the hard drive when what to my wandering ears should appear but this, a track entitled 
Remember just a few short weeks ago when America’s favorite pubescent Mensa pledge, Miley Cyrus, was caught doing yet another stupid thing in front of a camera, specifically her impression of Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Poor little Miley. A victim of the politically correct times. Had she been born a couple decades previous, she 
Animation fans rejoice, for Duckman, the irreverent animated show that aired on USA in the ’90s has finally arrived on DVD.
As the DVDs reveal, Duckman was a fast-paced, biting comedy that took on the sacred cows of the establishment and made pointed social commentary about society, the media in particular.
Okay, who hasn’t thought America’s favorite family has jumped the shark by now? Even with the success of last year’s movie (which I found quite funny) still fresh in the audience’s mind, the actual show has become something not so much unfunny as it is unfriendly.