T-V GO E S ..
h e s h o c k wasn’t as great as I thought it would be. I supposed the two boys would consider it losing a member of the family. But after the simple announce ment: “ The TV goes downstairs,” there were a few shoulder shrugs, nothing more. Maybe they were fed up. Or possibly they consoled themselves by remembering the staircase. At least TV was DOWN, but not OUT! As far as the rest of us were concerned, however, it would take a miracle to bring it back up. It wasn’t the quiz fixes that did it. It was far more. Last week the oldest boy was ill. He sat on the couch watching TV and I sat with him. I saw television for the first time. Oh, I had watched it, but it is as if something slowly creeps upon you until you are accustomed to it, and ou don’t actually come to grips with it until you turn round and stare right into it. I stared. I stared first at the appalling violence. Three out of bur shows on this particular station demonstrated every stupid kind of poisoning, brutality, and skullcracking imaginable. The fights were all from the same script. bloSp vto the midsection, and blow with the open hand on the jack of the neck. The guns cracked until we were ositiviE f i e glass would shatter. Blood was everywhere. The jli/JMren were soon in their rooms playing. Then a u MmBleft me dumbfounded. The program “Wagon ain’ pis pne of TV’s most popular. The program of vent i|II ip depicted a cruelly tyranical ranch owner ogdEpriempd to be an elderly woman. After one scene ier^qi MJaer of her sordid deceit, she is shown on her paying fervently for forgiveness and blessing, er she resumes her foul life, after that a program “Wichita Town” came on . - - „ a famous movie actor. This program featured an attractive member of the “ Rhode Island Missionary Society” ; who succeeded in making a fool of herself and of missions by making collections through saloons, im peding law and order and demonstrating petulant and childish behavior. With the programs eliminated, one is left, in the main, to the quiz show, the variety show and the drama. The less said about the quiz show the better. The variety show has now brought the night club into the American home. The prurient dances are now stock material on almost all programs, especially the “ spectaculars.” Believe (continued on next page)
DOWNSTAIRS
by Robert James St. Clair
AUGUST, 1960
9
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