SO WHAT, exactly, did parents do with their children before television? People have been having kids for a long time, so I know it must have been something. I just don’t know what. By the way, when it comes to permissive over-telefication–That’s probably not a word, but it sounds like one, doesn’t it?–I think my wife and I are in one of the stricter factions.
We never allow it on in the background, like Muzak. That’s firm. You do one thing at a time in this house, I say to our kids, which suits their natures anyway, because we have boys, and boys grow into men, and men, as everyone knows, are perfectly incapable of doing two or more things at once, unless you count sexual fantasies as one of the two.
Women, of course, are capable of doing many vital tasks at the same time, which all earthlings took as a given until modern, western civilization began merrily insisting all of us are the same. Many times, growing up, I remember my mother saying, “Your father takes care of the big things in life, like, are the planets still circling the sun. I take care of the little things, like, is the house on fire, or is anyone bleeding.”
Anyway, we never, ever leave the TV on as Muzak (which, by the way, is another thing I hate). Who ever decided we all need constant music to fill the background of our lives? Is it supposed to calm us down? If that’s the case, I don’t think it’s working. It’s getting worse, too. What in the world is the point of having CNN in a hotel elevator? We all have bumper-sticker attention-spans, but this is ridiculous. Somehow America has gone from, “You give us 22 minutes, and we’ll give you the world” (which is bad enough), to “You give us the ride from the health club back to your room floor, and we’ll give you a pointless intrusion.”
We don’t allow video games in our house, either. I know that’s like telling the alcoholic, “Okay, anything in the bar, just no gin.” But we don’t do video games. Also, we don’t allow those kid “Survivor” shows, or the kid “Real World” shows, or anything where the bald junior high principal allows himself to be slimed in a fruitless effort to look like a good sport. As Patton said, “I don’t want these boys to like me, I want them to listen to me.” Of course, the next thing he probably said was, “Okay, one more ‘Sponge Bob’.” (Now that I think of it, I’ve been in several movies as the bald junior high principal who gets slimed. Hmm. I’ll have to revisit the thinking on that some day.)
By the way, in my opinion, “Sponge Bob SquarePants” is one of the best and funniest cartoons ever, and good cartoons are great for my kids and great for me. I think “Sponge Bob” is as good as the old Warner Brothers and “Popeye”–the best stuff ever.
Sports are okay, but I must admit I’m not crazy about some of those racy beer commercials. They show too much for the boys, and not enough for me.
And I’m dying to get them into watching old movies, anything in black and white, but that whole effort whipped around and hit me in the head about a year ago.
My wife was out shopping, and I brought dinner downstairs so the kids could eat in front of the TV, which I only allow sparingly; never more than, say, every single day. Between cartoons, I flipped onto one of the old movie channels and instantly recognized the last five minutes of “Dr. Strangelove,” the part where Slim Pickens is about to leave the cockpit of his B-52 and rodeo-ride that bomb down to oblivion. I immediately went to change the channel and the older one screamed, “No, Daddy, leave it, it’s an airplane.” I started to try to explain, but the little one yelled, “Airplane!” and they both picked up the chant, “Airplane, airplane, airplane . . .” So I thought, ah, the heck with it, just as the garage door opened and my wife entered with six bags in each hand and one in her teeth, sweating like Papillon. She saw what was on and gave me that look even Martians would recognize as, “What are you, an idiot?” I shrugged helplessly, which is my favorite response to friction in marriage, and the kids cheered as the world blew up, bomb after bomb. They have since asked to see “the bomb-bay-door movie” at least a hundred times. There’s probably a lesson in that, but I’m pretty sure I don’t know what it is.
What else can they watch? No news, no talk shows, no “reality.” I’m a big believer in maintaining the innocence of children until puberty, or the next time the family drives past a Calvin Klein billboard. No nudity, no cursing, nothing unduly Satanic–And if you think that goes without saying, you haven’t seen the number of parents who blithely take their 3-year-olds to see “The Cell.”
In the end I guess I’m not too worried about them and TV. First of all, that’s the world they live in. Some parents may not mind the kids coming home from school and saying, “Dad, who’s Superman?” But I think that’s going too far the other way. Most every morning, weekdays and weekends, mine pick playing with each other–on their own–instead. Sure, I plop them down in front of the thing sometimes when my wife is out, and I need the time to work–like now, for instance. But this morning, when I started this article, (and magnanimously allowed The Divine Mrs. M. to sleep in and gather her strength for cocktails), they were ten feet away, playing with Lincoln Logs.
But then something happened that brought all this consideration of TV together in one moment, at least for me.
They had just built something and knocked it down for the umpteenth time–which was the main game, after all–when they started bopping each other on the head with the logs–which was the other main game, after all.
I looked up and started yelling Standard Dad Stuff. “No. Put it down. No. Pick up your hand first, then let it go. No. Can you hear me?” You know.
And the older one started laughing and said, “Dad, you sound like the man on ‘The Three Stooges’.” I instantly knew what he meant and started laughing, too.
There was a tape set of the Stooges we got at Costco a while back. Not a great set, but some great things on it. An old sketch with Curly in a courtroom, for one. (Lord, they were all so young.) It was a murder trial that, no surprise here, does not go smoothly. The bailiff’s toupee comes off, they play tick-tack-toe on the lawyer’s back with chalk, Moe swallows a harmonica–good stuff.
And through it all, the judge–the man on “The Three Stooges”–constantly tries to maintain order. “Take off your hat. Raise your right hand. No. First take off your hat. Now raise your right hand. No. WOULD YOU PLEASE TAKE OFF THAT HAT.”
I didn’t have a TV for most of my adult life until I got married, which is at least a little odd since I spend so much time trying to be on it. The reason I didn’t like having one, though, is not that I thought I was too good for it, but that I watched too much of it. I still watch too much TV. My kids probably watch too much TV. You probably watch too much TV.
But there’s too much . . . and then there’s too much. I don’t think they watch too much. After all, I like “The Three Stooges,” and I grew up watching them on a show out of New York with Officer Joe Bolton. On TV. In addition to “Casablanca” and “Red River” and every other great movie ever made–which I’ve only seen on TV–I like that my kids have now seen “The Three Stooges.” On TV.
And here, this morning, when I’m writing about how we all watch too much TV, I reminded them of the man on “The Three Stooges.” From TV. All of which is fine with me. There are bigger problems in the world, as you well know, and it’s good to laugh.
Besides, at least I reminded them of the judge. It could’ve been the defendant.
As a matter of fact, if I remember correctly, I think that judge was bald.
Larry Miller is a contributing humorist to The Daily Standard and a writer, actor, and comedian living in Los Angeles.
