This is a shameless ganking from Neil Gaiman's site, for which he'll probably forgive me. Back when they were childless and full of good intentions, the parentals decided that they weren't going to have a TV until their children were set in the readin' way. Their plan succeeded to an almost alarming extent, considering that I can and sometimes do spend five minutes wandering around to find something that I can read while I brush my teeth. That's not a healthy fondness for the written word, there, that's a sickness.
But anyway, the lack of TV meant that we ended up listening to radio plays instead, which sounds so wholesome that I'm not sure how to disabuse anyone of the notion, except that some of the Halloween stuff on "The Big Broadcast" freaked my little wits out ("The Thing on the Fourble Board" petrified me, and I don't even know what a fourble board is). For a while I wanted to be an insurance investigator, because "Johnny Dollar" made it sound so glamorously noir. Oh, and the radio version of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"? That warps the young mind a treat. The only program I remember not liking was the "Star Wars" series, which did terrible things to movies Seesterperson and I had seen and enjoyed.
It is equally disconcerting to find that some of our very most favorite shows, "Beyond the Fringe" and "The Goon Show," are available in video. Anathema! Anathema! Well, not really. But a little.
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8 comments:
Oh, I LOVE Johnny Dollar (The Man With the Action Packed Expense Account). And Gunsmoke and Lum & Abner. And Dragnet is pretty cool and Life of Riley sometimes.
But mostly Johnny Dollar.
Oh my God, you know the Johnny Dollar tagline. I would laugh, but obviously I know it too. I remember being startled at learning that "the life of Riley" was an expression; wasn't it just the name of a show about a guy named Riley? Kids work around odd facts like coral growing around a reef.
Don't forget radio-ized Hitchhiker's Guide, which had the very best theme song ever (the which I'm pretty sure the Dr. Who theme song has ripped off at least a tad.)
I had a moment of deep existential uncertainty when I found out that that awesome bit of music was by the Eagles. Boggle boggle boggle.
j'adore $Johnny. It's still one of my favorites. I listen to it, to this day. Have a lot of driveway moments to it, just sitting in my car listening to it while parked outside my home, because i can't get out and miss any. -ie
These comments are making me feel that I owe WAMU a donation.
GASP! do you mean to tell me you're not a membah? did you not see my feverish phone-working post on FB? do join. I-to-the-E
Here's the thing: the only radio I listen to regularly these days is WTOP, which comes on with the morning alarm and tells me what weather to expect, then gradually annoys me into the vertical plane. Otherwise, very limited driving time = very limited radio time = very limited engagement with public radio = bad citizen, bad!
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