Roald Dahl
The most important thing we’ve learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set —
Or better still, just don’t install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we’ve been,
We’ve watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone’s place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they’re hypnotised by it,
Until they’re absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don’t climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink —
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK — HE ONLY SEES!
‘All right!’ you’ll cry. ‘All right!’ you’ll say,
‘But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!’
We’ll answer this by asking you,
‘What used the darling ones to do?
‘How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?’
Have you forgotten? Don’t you know?
We’ll say it very loud and slow:
THEY . . . USED . . . TO . . . READ! They’d READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching ’round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it’s Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and —
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There’s Mr. Rate and Mr. Mole —
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks —
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They’ll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start — oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They’ll grow so keen
They’ll wonder what they’d ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.
[Note that this is from the original book, not the movie. If you know about any good poems on the subject of television, pro, con, or neutral, please send them in. E]
1. Pinocchio
2. The Twilight Zone episode in which ventriloquist Cliff Robertson switches places with his evil dummy
3. Richard Matheson short story filmed as Trilogy of Terror — saw this at age 7 or so and it made me scared for YEARS
4. Chucky
5. Fantasy Island episode in which this ventriloquist has the lamest fantasy ever, and has her dummy come to life, and the dummy then steals her man
“I before E except after C. I learned an addendum to that as a child, which goes ‘Or when sounding like “a” as in “neighbor’ and ‘weigh.’ But those don’t have c’s in them, so technically I’ve just changed the topic!
“Society?”
Another:
“Atheist.”
will term
dice ceil
Bonus lyrics:
57 Channels (And Nothin’ On)
Bruce Springsteen
With a trunkload of hundred thousand dollar bills
Man came by to hook up my cable TV
We settled in for the night my baby and me
We switched ’round and ’round ’til half-past dawn
There was fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on
So I hopped into town for a satellite dish
I tied it to the top of my Japanese car
I came home and pointed it out into the stars
A message came back from the great beyond
There’s fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on
We might’a got all nice and friendly
If we’d made it upstairs
All I got was a note that said, “Bye-bye John
Our love is fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on.”
So I bought a .44 magnum, it was solid steel cast
And in the blessed name of Elvis, well, I just let it blast
‘Til my TV lay in pieces there at my feet
And they busted me for disturbin’ the almighty peace
Judge said, “What you got in your defense son?”
“Fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on”
Fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on
Fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on
Unbelievable But Real Television Film Titles of the Week:
2. Latin names: Romulans; Centauri; Vulcans
3. Only one name: Worf; Gort; Xenu; Spock (and I don’t care that he is said to have another, unpronounceable name . . . he only has one name ever used, so there)
4. Names that mean stuff in English that define the character, so they’re kind of Dickensian: Skywalker; Greedo
5. Words that are English words but mean weird, science fiction-y things: Quark; Krypton
1. Farscape: because they did it best and with best chemistry
2. Cheers: because they were the ones who started this whole trend anew
3. Moonlighting: best banter
4. X-Files: because it was so THEM even when it wasn’t about them
5. Alias: great chemistry (until the actors broke up in real life)
Bonus quotes about television:
2. Making Mr. Right (Mr. Right = John Malkovich robot)
3. Star Trek: The Next Generation
4. A.I. (Jude Law-bot)
5. Blade Runner
1. “Soylent Green is people!” (Soylent Green)
2. “It’s a cookbook!” (episode of The Twilight Zone entitled “To Serve Man”)
3. “Live long and prosper.”
4. “May the force be with you!”
5. “Klaatu barada nikto!” (The Day the Earth Stood Still)
Runners up:
6. “E.T. phone home” (ET)
7. “Open the pod bay doors, HAL. / I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” (2001)
8. “We have to nuke it from space. It’s the only way to be sure.” (Aliens)
9. “I’ll be back.” (Terminator movies)
10. “There is no spoon.” (The Matrix)
“That movie was one of the final nails in the coffin of one of my better love relationships. The lass was an avowed feminist (as was I) but unfortunately she could not accept the ending as being ‘cute’ in any way. With age comes wisdom in dating choices. Ahhh well.”
E-Versers Matthew Rohrer and Joshua Beckman visit Frank O’Hara’s grave:
2. Tiki Bar TV www.tikibartv.com
3. AskANinja www.askaninja.com
4. Alive in Baghdad http://aliveinbaghdad.org/
5. Ze Frank – The Show www.zefrank.com/theshow
Steve Garfield: www.stevegarfield.com (mainly because he was the first)
Percentage of US households with at least one VCR: 84
Percentage of US households with two TV sets: 34; three or more TV sets: 40
Hours per day that TV is on in an average US home: 7 hours, 12 minutes
Percentage of Americans that regularly watch television while eating dinner: 66
Number of videos rented daily in the US: 6 million
Number of public library items checked out daily: 3 million
Chance that an American falls asleep with the TV on at least three nights a week: 1 in 4
Percentage of Americans who say they watch too much TV: 49
Number of minutes per week that the average American child ages 2-11 watches television: 1,197
Number of minutes per week that parents spend in meaningful conversation with their children: 38.5
Percentage of children ages 5-17 who have a TV in their bedroom: 52
Percentage of children ages 2-5 who have a TV in their bedroom: 25
Percentage of day care centers that use TV during a typical day: 70
Percentage of parents who would like to limit their children’s TV watching: 73
Percentage of 4-6 year-olds who, when asked to choose between watching TV and spending time with their fathers, preferred television: 54.
Hours per week of TV watching shown to negatively affect academic achievement: 10 or more
Percentage of 4th graders that watch more than 14 hours of television per week: 81
Hours per year the average American youth watches television: 1,500
Hours per year the average American youth spends in school: 900
Chance that an American parent requires that children do their homework before watching TV: 1 in 12
Percentage of teenagers 13-17 who can name the city where the US Constitution was written (Philadelphia): 25
Percentage of teenagers 13-17 who know where you find the zip code 90210 (Beverly Hills): 75
Number of violent acts the average American child sees on TV by age 18: 200,000
Number of murders witnessed by children on television by the age 18: 16,000
Percentage of Hollywood executives who believe there is a link between TV violence and real-life violence: 80
Percentage of children polled who said they felt “upset” or “scared” by violence on television: 91
Percent increase in network news coverage of homicide between 1990 and 1995: 336
Percent reduction in the American homicide rate between 1990 and 1995: 13
Number of medical studies since 1985 linking excessive television watching to increasing rates of obesity: 12
Percentage of American children ages 6 to 11 who were seriously overweight in 1963: 4.5; In 1993: 14
Number of ads aired for “junk-food” during four hours of Saturday morning cartoons: 202
Number of TV commercials seen in a year by an average child: 30,000
Number of TV commercials seen by the average American by age 65: 2 million
Percentage of toy advertising dollars spent on television commercials in 1997: 92
Percentage of Americans who believe that “most of us buy and consume far more than we need”: 82
Percentage of local TV news broadcast time devoted to advertising: 30
Percentage devoted to stories about crime, disaster and war: 53.8
Percentage devoted to public service announcements: 0.7
Total amount candidates spent on television ads during the 1996 political campaigns: $2.5 billion
Percentage of Americans who can name The Three Stooges: 59
Percentage of Americans who can name three Supreme Court Justices: 17
A reader writes in on last week’s fact about the iceberg as big as London:
Watch it here:
This week’s town you really have to visit:
A tube of televisions.
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