Steven John Kosareff
It’s TV Time!Put on your time travel beanie, spin its propeller, and journey back to Midcentury America. You’ve heard of television, may have even seen a demonstration at a county fair or exposition, but you’ve never owned a television set-and you want to-except for one problem: there isn’t a television station in your town. Fortunately, the Federal Communications Commission has finally lifted its freeze on new television stations and your city wants to be the first with television. Unfortunately, so does every other city in the United States. The television set gold rush is on. Station transmitter towers are furiously constructed using power utility poles. New sets never make it to legitimate dealers’ stores. They’re unloaded at freight stations and each one has already been sold multiple times over. Every gas station, pharmacy and mortuary in town which have no business being electronics retailers are now also television set dealers. Unscrupulous dealers arrive overnight in town selling second-hand and damaged sets as new. You know they aren’t but buy one anyway to be the first on your block. Even though you knowingly purchased your set when it stops working you call the Better Business Bureau to file a complaint-you and thousands of other people. Unlike anything before it, including the radio, telephone and telegraph, the television set transformed the American home forever in ways both good and bad. It altered family relationships, both within and without the family. Lives were now scheduled around favorite television programs which, unlike today, could only be seen during their original broadcasts. Visiting with friends and relatives took a backseat to viewing television either, in avoiding other people, or inviting them in to commune in front of the television set. Early owners hosted planned, and sometimes spontaneous, television parties. Many people believed television would be the end of polite conversation and, worse yet, civilization. Television sets were a national conduit for conversations on child rearing and education; provided respite for people who were physically challenged; and even tested one’s vision before sending them to the optometrist for glasses. Television sets acted as channels for conspiracists who thought their sets were watching them or receiving signals from intelligent beings from outer space. Broken television sets tested husbands’ and fathers’ electronic repair ability and provided more than one lonely housewife a means to get a repairman to pay her attention. The one thing all early television set owners had in common was that, no matter how hard they tried, they could not live without their television set. The Glass Eye Invasion had conquered America.
