TV

It was early in the morning. The sun wasn't up yet, but the house was stuffy and hot so I couldn't fall back asleep. I was groggy, but I also counted my being up as a good thing; nobody was awake in the house, so I could watch whatever I wanted to on the TV in the living room. Five-year-old me (I can't remember how old I was, to be totally honest) snuck out of the bedroom and to the television; an old CRT with a laminated wood base that was in my family well until I was in high school. I turned it on and turned the volume down so it was barely audible. Channel surfing didn't come up with anything interesting until I found a show that caught my attention; it was the pinnacle of 1990s aesthetic; geometric shapes and gaudy pop art in the background of the stage, one of the guys from Full House and a pretty lady hosting, and home videos of people doing goofy stuff. It was called America's Funniest People, and it was like an alternate reality America's Funniest Home Videos except not quite as funny and hosted by Dave Coulier instead of Bob Saget. I watched a bunch of it for a few hours and then decided to go back to bed once the sun started coming up.

The early 1990s, pictured in one image

That's the story of one of my more vivid childhood memories. It wasn't playing t-ball, my first day of kindergarten, or 7th birthday party; it's 1992-era Dave Coulier.

I liked television as a kid, so much so in fact that my parents had limited my time watching it to an hour a day at one point. It may explain why I was sneaking around the house in the early hours of the morning watching knockoff home video shows, but TV managed to be a staple in my upbringing, for better or worse. Yes, my family went camping in the summer, my dad would take me fishing, and I'd explore the neighborhood with my older brother and his friends and this big Great Dane named "Boogie", but I also remember a lot of late 1980s reruns and 1990s programming.

One show most people can agree was a cornerstone of the '90s and still watchable today is The X-Files. It's still on Netflix (thank goodness) and I've critiqued it before, but I vividly remember my parents loving the show. I was too young to watch it I guess, but looking back I kind of get it. Every night it was on, my parents would sit and watch the new episode in the living room. The theme music would kick up, and my blood would run cold. It wasn't because I was afraid of the aliens and monsters in the show; after all, I didn't get to watch it because my parents were pretty sure it'd give me nightmares. No, the thing that set me off was... the music. It was spooky, implying that something scary was coming, something so bone-chilling and horrifying that I wasn't allowed to see it. I'd run to my bedroom with my imagination running amok, dreaming up nightmarish terrors only a Halloween obsessed 8 year old can conjure, and I'd end up having bad dreams just from the opening credits.

It just hit me that The Orb that
gaveeveryone powers is a giant
 massage ball.

One show I could watch, and actually really liked to watch, was The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. It was only one season long, but my brother and I really enjoyed it. Honestly, I can see why; it was in the Old West, it had weird steampunk and sci-fi elements, and it had Bruce Campbell playing a rough-and-tumble marshal in search of revenge. It centered around this thing called The Orb, which had the ability to give superpowers to whoever had it, and it was up to Brisco and his friends to thwart the bad guys that had it. I don't remember it making much sense, but I also remember not caring because it was action packed and corny in ways only a one-off Fox show from 1993 could be, and I loved it because of that.

I could go on with a laundry list of 80s and 90s shows and cartoons that helped mold and shape me into the Hapless Millennial I am today, but I'll spare you. It's funny to think how there was so much TV in my upbringing, so many hours hooked on it, and nowadays I don't even have cable and sometimes forget I have a Netflix account. I spend a lot more time outside, being active, doing the things my parents probably wanted me to do instead of watching reruns on The Disney Channel. Binge-watching wasn't a thing when I was a kid, but apparently I did it anyway, and that helped cement sitting in front of the TV as one of the pivotal things in my development.

In a rose-colored-glasses perspective, the programs I watched helped foster my imagination. They acted as a springboard for creativity, seeing situations and looking for solutions. They showed me people becoming friends and overcoming adversity in the face of daunting odds. I even learned things about history, science, literature, and math. Sure, oftentimes problems would be resolved in a half-hour to hour or so, sometimes even less than that, but it at least showed me that creativity and ingenuity, patience and understanding, and a healthy dose of dumb luck (or deus ex machina, whatever) can get you through to the next adventure.

Then again, I have a fairly short attention span sometimes and unrealistic expectations for myself probably thanks to too much television, but who can say for sure? All I know is that TV played a big part in my childhood.

And knowing is half the battle.