When the cable system crashed the other night it reminded me of a time when TV watching was more interactive and personally challenging. Now, when the screen goes black, I spend an hour listening to the cable company’s busy signal or its recorded reassurances that an associate will soon respond.
In the old days if something disrupted our viewing of Jack Benny, the entire family would spring into action. That’s when we had real parental controls.
“See if the cat’s on the antenna again!” I’d shout, reaching for the check list. My son Steven would start pounding the set just above the RCA emblem. That sometimes revived it. My wife Barbara would operate the channel selector to make sure it wasn’t just CBS that had a transmission failure. My three daughters would fetch our TV Repair manual and start reciting the resuscitation procedure. They would also find the spare TV tubes box and the first aid kit.
Finally, if Jack Benny was still unreachable, I would begin to manipulate the controls. This rarely worked and you could get into serious trouble with the look-alike knobs. There was the time I’d managed to get the TV back on, but I must have twisted the wrong knob and rotated the picture from vertical to horizontal. We all had to lie on the couch or floor to watch our favorite programs until I figured out the solution. Poor Lassie had to run uphill until I fixed that one . Our last hope was “the tubes-testing stage” when all the small tubes had to be removed and tested on the local drugstore’s contraption. A lower compartment contained replacement tubes.
It was always a moment of glory when I’d managed to get Jack Benny or Lassie back into into our living room and I was congratulated for my electronic know-how.
On the other hand it was quite depressing to admit defeat and call Joe’s TV Repair. Joe was a competent technician and diplomatic enough to imply my procedures were correct, but this was a very special case. “Dave” he said.
“What’s a Dave?” I asked.
“Isn’t that your cat’s name?””
“He wasn’t on the antenna. We always check there first,” I protested.
“No, he was behind the set and pulled the plug out of the wall socket and it’s going to cost you twenty-five bucks.”
“Twenty five bucks to plug in the set? That’s kind of high!”
“No, I’m only charging two bits for that but there were three tubes in the wrong sockets and I had to work an hour to figure that out. That’ll cost you $24.75”
Dave could be spiteful and he never liked Jack Benny, but whenever he sprawled on the antenna in just the right spot with his tail pointing south, the reception from Philadelphia stations was greatly improved.
Imagine That 