Let's PAWS For A Commercial

21" of pure evil

We were the last family in the neighborhood to get a TV.  My dad thought, it turns out quite correctly,  that television was the end of family life as we knew it.  Conversation, household chores, homework, and kids playing outdoors would become second fiddle to hours spent in the warm glow of a 21 inch black and white "idiot box".

 I was six or seven when the Philco showed up in our living room.  No longer would I be spending most of my time nextdoor at the Chamberlain's.  They had six kids AND TV and for at least a couple of years I had been the honorary "seventh" Chamberlain  as I showed up each afternoon to watch Howdy Doody.  

This, kiddies, is a test pattern.

Buffalo Bob and termite bait


In the early 1950's television stations weren't broadcasting 24/7.  Most local stations ran a test pattern on their frequency until late in the afternoon when they fired up their kiddie programing.  There were lots of local "stars" who dressed-up as clowns, cowboys or captain video who "turned on the cartoon machine" for the boys and girls "out there in TV-land", but the biggest kahuna of them all was a national show that featured a painted piece of pine named Howdy Doody.  He and his human co-star, Buffalo Bob Smith, were about as big as any of the stars in the so called "Golden Age" of television.

In those days we had three, later four, TV stations in our area of southern Michigan.  NBC and CBS had affiliates broadcasting from Detroit, Lansing and Kalamazoo.  We were thrilled when an ABC station was launched in Flint as this meant we could get American Bandstand and some other dopey shows heretofore unknown in the Michigan sticks.  Dick Clark was snowy and the picture tended to roll--come to think of it, not unlike his New Year's Eve appearances lately, but Little Richard, Dion, and Fabian were loud and clear.

Fifty years later much has changed.  Most of us consume television not from an over the air source but via cable, Internet or satellite delivery.  Our picture is now in color high definition; some even 3-D, and we have access to more channels than ever.  Oprah has her own, as do most sports franchises, churches, hobbies, old movie buffs, the military and now---DOGS.

Yes, just yesterday I opened the local paper to read that Cox Cable in San Diego is about to give local canines their own TV channel.  Dog TV is a television station created for dogs to watch with or without their humans,  "San Diego is an amazing dog city,"CEO Gilad Neumann said during Monday's kickoff party at the Fido & Co. "canine country club" in Hillcrest.  The commercial free (how will they make this thing pay?) channel was created to soothe and distract dogs when their owners aren't home.  The programs feature mellow nature scenes for relaxation , scenes with dogs playing for stimulation and scenes of dogs dealing with those pesky doorbells, delivery men and other distractions.  Dog TV will be available on Cox Cable and on Time Warner Cable free for a limited time.  After the initial teaser freebie a subscription will cost about $5 per month.  Good luck with that.  (Perhaps old Tippy can pick up a part time job?)

"I want my PAWS TV!"

Wow!  We have certainly traveled far in half a century.  From a handful of black & white local signals to hundreds, maybe thousands, of color digital video outposts that offer mostly crap, crap, crap, for which you pay extra, we are now livin' large with a TV channel just for our dogs.
What's next?  Gerbil TV?
Wait a minute.  I'll bet there is real market for gerbil porn.

Dog TV...  We have a country with an economy deader than Elvis and more debt than our great great grandchildren will ever be able to repay, yet our dogs have their own TV channel.  Obviously the circus is still in town.

Pass the kibble.