Taking My Early TV Retirement

Remember when you would get yelled at for sitting too close to the t.v.? We sat close because it was easier to reach the dial to change between the 4 or 5 channels. Remember? Tak, tak, tak, that dial was hard to turn. Maybe I had weak kid fingers. Remember black & white shows, adjusting the antenna, beta tape players, and then vhs and video games? Do you remember the first time you got to use a remote?  As kids we were so eager to watch cartoons on Saturday mornings that sometimes we would see the image of the Indian Chief because it was too early for broadcasting. Do you remember that?

I grew up in Montreal in the '70's, and my mom would never let us watch more than one hour a day, and maybe two on Saturday mornings. There was a lot of wholesome "Passe-Partout" on French CBC and dubbed cartoons from Japan like Goldorak.  As we grew up my parents restricted what we could watch. My dad was super strict about shows like "Three's Company" and "The Love Boat". "Why can't we watch that?" we whined. "Cause I said so." he replied. Over the years, family t.v. nights included Star Trek, The Muppet Show, Murder She Wrote and MacGyver.

I am nostalgic about the old days of television. I miss the old shows: the real sitcoms like Seinfeld, Roseanne, The Golden Girls and The Cosby Show. I can't find anything worth watching. Now, I've turned to the internet so I can watch CBC documentaries when baby is napping. Our channel bundle is the smallest which apparently offers 100 of my favorite shows. I tried to find these "favorite shows" and could only find 16. When I called my customer service guy, he said: "Oh the rest are radio channels." Radio channels, what?

I just can't watch a 40 minute "reality" show peppered with 20 minutes of ads anymore. I cannot watch another on of my "favorite" reruns of Property Virgins, The Iron Chef and Survivor. Survivor? Again? They've survived. It's getting old.  I'm taking an early retirement from television. Every once in a while I watch old clips of childhood classics on Youtube and I smile.  Ah, Passe Partout!