Thursday, April 23, 1998 | 10:18 a.m.
TURN OFF. Tune out. Take charge. Trash the tube.
Just say no. Here's your brain/Here's your brain on TV. Get a life!
Such are the sentiments of TV-Free America's fourth annual TV Turn-Off Week, which began Wednesday and extends through Tuesday. This group urges us to go "cold peacock" -- think of it as Must-Flee TV -- with the Here here's! of 35 state governors, 35,000 schools and august organizations such as the American Medical Association, along with international Right On's! in Canada, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Argentina.
Impressive. And idiotic.
Don't get me wrong: Cutting down tube time -- the average American watches an appalling three hours and 44 minutes of TV per day, or nine years of nonstop viewing by age 65 -- is crucial to this country's sanity. At this pace, we'll have to rope off Idaho or Nebraska and outfit its borders with padded walls to house all the emotionally crippled/intellectually impaired casualties of this insanity.
But TV, addictive though it is to some, is still a valuable national resource -- not a hit of crack cocaine, surreptitiously snorted up America's nostrils, that has to be kicked cold turkey.
And that extremist attitude -- imagine: cold sweats, fever, nausea, anguished cries of "Please! Please! Just let me do one line of 'Seinfeld' or I'll die!" -- is not the answer for over-indulgers, any more than extended fasting will cure (or more likely, kill) over-eaters.
Add in the factor of this year's "Turn-Off" dovetailing with the launch of the May sweeps -- NBC's blockbuster "Merlin" miniseries, ABC's showing of "Apollo 13," among others, the video equivalent of waving a box of Ho-Ho's in front of a Jenny Craig disciple -- and you'll have teetering TV-holics back to bingeing in no time.
To paraphrase the lose-weight/feel great gurus: Crash diets will, most likely, fuel a short-term rush (I did it!), then trigger the return of your tele-cravings tenfold. Instead, why not learn healthy viewing patterns for life?
For all its vacuous vices, TV, enlarged and enriched by cable over the years, also brims with virtues -- but you have to find them. And that calls for something more than just being in a couch coma, a remote precariously perched on your belly, a vat of Cheese Doodles at your fingertips, brain in neutral. It calls for: critical viewing. Selectivity. Or that most dreaded M word -- "moderation," a concept we love in theory and loathe in practice.
Among its practitioners, however, are the National PTA and The National Cable Television Association, which jointly cooked up the admirable "Family and Community Critical Viewing Project" to promote TV moderation and selectivity. They've produced a brief accompanying video, "Taking Charge of Your TV," hosted by Rosie O'Donnell.
For all of television's self-inflicted woes, this problem is only marginally about TV, folks -- it's mostly about us. It's about how we view TV -- not just watch it, but perceive it.
TV commands an inordinate chunk of our time and attention -- but not our respect. Before we decide which movies, theatrical productions, stage shows or concerts will drain us of our precious -- and limited -- disposable dollars, we carefully consider our choices, pick the best bets to satisfy our entertainment needs, leave the rest.
TV? Toss me the remote: Click ... How 'bout that? Nah. Click ... Or that? Garbage. Click ... OK, what about that? Saw it already, it's a rerun. Anything else good on? No? Oh, hell, leave it on.
And it's not as if TV's a freebie anymore. Most of us pay, on average, $20 to $30 per month for the privilege of wasting our time -- and that's our choice. Over a year, how does that compare to what you'll spend on other entertainment? Maybe not the most, but likely not the least, either.
Think you're getting your money's worth by allowing endless hours of tube twaddle to twist your brain cells? Quantity doesn't equal quality. Never has. Never will. Are five hours of bland, stimulation-free TV -- a lame substitute for interacting with the world -- as worthwhile as one hour of great TV?
TV should be scheduled -- just like movies, plays and concerts -- into our lives, not relegated to a mind-numbing soundtrack for them.
You see those TV listings -- in this newspaper, in TV magazines, on the scrolling schedules that float past you on the set itself? Use 'em. If there's only one show you really want to see tonight, and it's on from 8:30 to 9, then watch from 8:30 to 9 -- not 6 to bedtime.
Don't blindly turn off your TV. Use it to your advantage.
THIS & THAT: On Friday, new Channel 5 news director Gwen Castaldi and Angelica Urquijo, who has been named solo anchor for the station's new 10 p.m. newscast, will discuss the newscast at the monthly luncheon meeting of the Las Vegas Valley chapter of the Public Relations Society of America. Admission is $20 at the door at Chin's restaurant at the Fashion show mall. "Fox 5 News at 10" will debut June 1. ...
Channel 10 has received a $15,000 grant from the Paul E and Helen S. Meyer Foundation to support the station's Ready to Learn -- or RTL -- program. RTL uses PBS children's programs and local outreach activities to help kids enter school with the necessary skills. RTL programs include "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," "Sesame Street" and "Barney."
CROON A TUNE: "It's not unusual to be loved by anyone," especially since "everybody loves somebody sometime," although if the Saturday night lovin' gets out of control, you'll find that "on the sidewalk, Sunday morning, uh-huh, lies a body, just a-oozin' life."
That swingin' cat, reader Dan Ryan, knew that "It's Not Unusual," "Everybody Loves Somebody" and "Mack the Knife" were the hits that doubled as themes for the variety shows of, respectively, Tom Jones, Dean Martin and Bobby Darin. When Dan, that 'ol trivia shark, sinks those pearly whites into Croon-a-Tune, scarlet billows start to spread."
LOOK -- OUT -- OL' -- DANNY'S -- BACK!
Next? Whose silly sitcom theme declared that "we're just trying to be friendly, come and watch us sing and play; we're the young generation, and we've got something to say"? Have your own say by calling or e-mailing your local Dial File operators, who are standing by, desperate to hear from you. (If you call and hear "Hi, sexy, I'm Bambi -- what are you wearing?" in a prurient purr, you'll know you've got the wrong number).
Be the first reader with the right answer and your name automatically catapults to the top of the Dial File pile. Either that, or win a phone call with Bambi, or her male counterpart, Bluto. (Here at Dial File, we are Equal Opportunity Panderers.)
MAG NAG: How much "Dateline NBC" is enough? More than enough? More than enough to convince Garry Trudeau that wife Jane Pauley is shacked up with Stone Phillips and the NBC peacock for a little menage a trois at Rockefeller Center?
You could forgive Trudeau if he jumped to the latter conclusion now that NBC is considering adding a fifth night -- it already airs Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Friday nights -- of the newsmagazine that clearly never heard of birth control.
Let's see: "Dateline" may air five times a week. ... Tom Brokaw's "Nightly News" airs five times a week, doesn't it? ... Brokaw files reports for "Dateline." ... Phillips and Pauley preview "Dateline" on "Nightly News." ... Brokaw previews "Nightly News" on "Dateline." ... "Nightly News" airs features based on current trends, making it more like a newsmagazine than a newscast. ... "Dateline" airs features that play off breaking news, making it more like a newscast than a newsmagazine. ...
Clark Kent ... Superman ... Hmmmm ... Weird, isn't it, how no one has ever seen "Nightly News" and"Dateline" together in the same studio -- at the same time?
Coincidence or conspiracy?
I wish Brokaw, Pauley and Phillips would start wearing geeky glasses -- or a cape -- so I could tell these programs apart.
archive
