My ADD makes me a “channel hopper” when I watch TV. I can sit there and go through the channels all night long. But my doing this I have learned one thing, commercials make up the major part of TV. It is almost possible to go through all the channels and have a commercial on each channel.
I think eventually they will only have to film about ten minutes of the show, and there will be twenty minutes of commercials. An hour show will only actually be about twenty to thirty minutes.
Commercials and advertising rule our country. Just think, we used to listen to the radio, it had one speaker, yet we all listened to the radio and had pictures in our minds. We had old 78 rpm records that we listened to. Some didn’t even have changers and we had to put a new record on each time.
Then along came “hi fi” and everyone rushed out and got one. Then some engineer decided that we needed “stereo” which is nothing more than splitting one sound into two, and you listened with both ears.
Each time we had to buy something new. New technology always seems to lead to purchasing something new. We live in a “throw-away society.” I always admire “forward thinkers” who think ahead on what is going to be needed next, and are ready when it comes along.
I still take Bufferin and drink Lipton tea because of Arthur Godfrey. I will only use Hellman's mayonnaise because of Ruth Lyons, (pictured above) and those goes back over 60 years. When they told you to try something, you did. If Ruthie introduced a new product, it sold out at stores before the day was over. You don’t find that anymore where the “star” of the show endorses the products they are advertising. Bob Hope for Pepsodent, a lot of products were associated with the people who promoted them.
To me it is still a monument to advertising that they have the public convinced that watching poker, is entertaining. That still amazes me. I think the size of the pots make it watchable, mention MILLIONS and you get someone's attention. Why else would anyone watch poker? To me that is at the bottom of the “interest” chain.
But then, you have to remember, I go back a long way, I loved Burma-Shave signs and listened to the old Philco Radio while Mom did the washing using the old ringer washer, and cleaned the walls with wallpaper cleaner and scrubbed the sink with Skiddo.
I have witnessed a lot since 1932, just think of all that has happened since then. I delivered newspapers to Orville Wright’s home in Oakwood, often saw Charles Kettering who invented the starter for the automobile as well as many other inventions, saw Franklin Roosevelt in a motorcade with Kettering and Wright.
Much has happened since 1932.
