Remembering TV

I collect stuff. Amongst that stuff, I collect magazines. Amongst those magazines, I collect TV Guide. And like all the things I collect, I'm rarely a completist - especially when it comes to "The Guide."

A cool cover is worth noting, but my real criteria has to do with the content of an issue. Like any periodical, the articles are written with an excited urgency as they had an immediate - though fleeting - relevance. And that's fun.
Also, it has to be from a period when I actually watched TV, which, the older my old ass gets, the more narrow that spike gets on my timeline. But more than anything, I'm only interested in issues that are published for my specific geographical region, because the real meat of this mag are the listings.

This is a magical journey of the mind I wasn't even aware existed until I casually flipped through the coarse gray pages of some issue I picked up at some point at some flea market - probably for the cover. And what I discovered was a bizarre sensation I've yet to extract from, well... anything else on the planet, really.
Finding out what time a specific program aired on a certain date is easy research to do, but tangible, detailed documentation published the very week of the history it records turns it into a "Rosebud"-esque relic of your own past. As a TV kid, I can pick certain days, times, and stations and determine with a high level of certainty that I watched whatever it was. To put it plainly: it's like a third-party journal compiled by an unseen enterprise that observed and dictated exactly what I was doing on a random Tuesday at 5pm - all without my knowledge or consent. And now, decades later, here it is: memories I thought I had of activities I thought I experienced - validated in a 200-page itinerary.

"...For as memories are older, they're like wine rarer, till you find a real old memory, one of infancy, not an established often tasted one but a BRAND NEW ONE!, it would taste better than Napoleon brandy..." 

- Jack Kerouac, Visions of Cody

What this does is transcends something as simple as "what aired on TV a long time ago" and instead adds detail to the otherwise broad color of my own memory. Probably added to that is also a profound lust for history - especially subjective history; events that relate to me. And to a 6-year-old, there isn't much more history to speak of than the TV schedule.

And while there may be a combination of me not articulating this very well, mixed with the simple fact that many may not share my feelings on this cerebral mindfuck I've stumbled upon, there's at least some pedestrian nostalgia we can all reflect on.

All mindfuckery aside, any given issue is packed with antiquated nonsense and splashy promises of high-quality entertainment that are neat - and sometimes absurd - to read.
So, because this is our Year of Anniversaries, let's flip through one from (almost) 30 years ago:
June 10, 1989 - Volume 37, Number 23

Right off the bat, Fred & Danica front & center let's us know it's unmistakably '89. I once asserted that 1989 belongs to Fred Savage (and I'm sure I will again throughout this year) and this cover story provides some interesting backstory to the kid we knew as Kevin Arnold (...or Corey Woods, or Brain Stevenson). But that's a gimme.
What are some other notable notes from this numerical end to the 1980s?

• An interview with Jay Leno about collecting cars (and being Jay Leno).
• How Charlene Tilton keeps her trim figure.
• An analysis of the impact Marshall McLuhan had on the culture.
• Letters from irate viewers complaining about the crudeness of Roseanne Barr's new sitcom.

Not a lot here worth building a shrine to.
The advertisements also aren't very awe-inspiring: 80% of them are cigarette ads (and they're not even cool ones). The rest are Ford, Tang, some kinda fruit/gelatin Del Monte concoction, and the mandatory book club enticement. The only fun one is the full-page mini-poster for Ghostbusters II, which opened at the end of the week.

Dig a bit deeper and you start to find the gold nuggets that make this & most other issues worth scrutinizing.
There'll always be fun stuff like the Top Ten Video Rentals - courtesy of the very official-sounding 'Video Cassette Report'...

Or, how about this incredibly prophetic 'Cheers 'n' Jeers' column...

To save you the hassle of zooming, it reads:

"CHEERS... To The Simpsons, the cartoon clan on Fox's The Tracey Ullman Show. Oddball syndicated cartoonist Matt ("Life in Hell") Groening has created a very striking, turbulent sitcom family in his animated vignettes that air between Ullman's skits. The war amongst the Simpsons will be expanding, as Fox is planning on spinning off Groening's cartoon into a series of its own. That's a top-drawer idea."

Indeed.

But while they seemed ominously aware of the looming pop culture mainstay that was months away from devouring us all, little fanfare was given to the fact that this was the week Tales From the Crypt premiered on HBO - day of publication, actually - and its only mentions are in a couple b&w blurbs.
Guessin' their foresight was selective at best.

And while I'd love to go over & disect the entire schedule for the week & talk about which episodes of what shows were on which channel on what day at which time, you may not love it as much.

Still, though, do you realize you could've watched License to Drive a total of 7 times between Saturday and Thursday on Cinemax and Showtime?! What a time to be alive.

For the past 10 or 15 years, I've marveled with cold blood at what's become of Saturday morning programming - all of it, not just kids' stuff. It was once a jungle gym of game shows, franchise cartoons, young adult sitcoms, puppet shows, edited-for-TV action and horror movies, and The Three Stooges.
Versus today: Infomercials for non-stick pans and bodybuilding, credit score seminars, golf, college basketball, NCIS reruns, and station after station of severely local news. So, at the very least, I've complied a list of interesting programming that aired on the morning of Saturday, June 10, 1989, from 7am to 11am:

7:00AM
Sesame Street
Mighty Mouse
Wonder Woman
Marvel Action Universe
Gumby
Adventures of the Little Koala 

7:30AM
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids
Smurfs' Adventures
Noozles

8:00AM
Flintstone Kids
Reading Rainbow
Popeye
Kids' Court

8:30AM
Superman
Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears
Archies
Wuzzles
Heathcliff

9:00AM
Jim Henson's Muppet Babies
Smurfs
Munsters Today
Chip 'n' Dale's Rescue Rangers
Mr. Wizard's World

9:30AM
Slimer! and The Real Ghostbusters
Degrassi Junior High
Sneak Previews
Donald Duck Presents

10:00AM
Pee-Wee's Playhouse
Chipmunks
Flipper
Finders Keepers

10:30AM
Garfield and Friends
ALF
Small Wonder
Pup Named Scooby Doo
Abbott and Costello
Gentle Ben
You Can't Do That On Television

Do not mistake this observation (though I can't imagine who would) as a comparison between the quality of shows from my youth and the quality of shows of today's youth; this is strictly an indictment of quantity. I'm sure places like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network still offer a lineup of noisy brouhaha on any given morning, and regardless if it's a matter of monopolization or segregation, they don't reflect the sensation or the expanse of the event that it was.

The best (and obvious) explanation for this is streaming services - which weren't around much ten years ago, so it's hard to determine exactly when the disease was contracted.

This isn't a cynical analysis of the downward spiral of Television - this, please, cannot be that. But I will say that whatever children's cable programming is popular today will be best remembered as the 'finish line' for TV. It seems as though my generation was on the tail-end of a childhood institution that lasted over half a century. (Longer if you include radio.)

And when there are no more Saturday mornings, no more cartoons, no more toy stores, no more McDonald's, no more high fructose corn syrup, Mattel and Hasbro will become religions, Fred Flintstone and Tony the Tiger will become saints, Coca-Cola will be the blood of Ronald, and TV Guide will be holy scripture.

Lord, hear our prayer.

- Paul