My parents took the pledge. After twenty-plus years of stubbornness, Val and Mike finally jumped off the cliff with the rest of us in late December. They got cable.
Over the eighteen years growing up in the Wolly household in suburban D.C., I was tied down to the four main basic networks, public television, UPN, WB and maybe the occasional Baltimore network. Road trips to visit the family in New York were extra special because they came with the added joy of knowing that cable awaited me on Long Island.
I have distinct memories of waking up in the early hours on Saturdays to catch episodes of "Inspector Gadget" and "The Snorks" on my grandfather's large-screen projection television.
There was nothing like watching an underwater version of "The Smurfs" rip-off while eating sugared cereal on vacation. As I outgrew "The Snorks" (you can never outgrow "Inspector Gadget") the teenage me looked forward to catching updates on ESPN or the occasional "Pop-Up Video" while away from home. Cable television was not part of my daily balanced breakfast; it was the occasional box of Lucky Charms, full of colorful treats.
When my brothers graduated from college and moved into apartments of their own, they naturally joined the roughly two-thirds of Americans who subscribe to cable. My parents remained obdurate. Throughout my high school years, I watched tired reruns of "Home Improvement" with my afternoon snack.
Now, in the 5 o'clock hour on TBS, I watch tired reruns of "Home Improvement" with an afternoon snack. Mr. and Mrs. Wolly were on to something; cable wasn't worth the financial investment.
I appreciate the irony of the situation. A kid grows up in a household without cable, becomes addicted to television once in college, and once he's preparing to leave for the real world, his parents add a hundred channels to the listings. Many parents want their kids to venture into the "real world" after graduation; maybe mine want me to come back. Cable television is just their version of a welcome mat?
Not exactly. This is probably the point at which I should enter the qualifier - e.g. the real reason - that my parents bought cable. Until last month, they were mired in the snail-paced world of a dial-up 56K modem, overripe for a high-speed internet connection. Due to Comcast's bizarre economic matrices (something which upperclassmen can probably attest to), it was cheaper to get digital cable along with the cable modem connection.
To heap even more irony into the situation, my Dad now calls me up to relate to me the latest "Curb Your Enthusiasm" tape he watched on On-Demand. He asks me about the screaming matches on ESPN's talking head shows, such as "Pardon the Interruption." He's home, I'm in college, and I can't even watch either of those shows! The agony!
While at home in January I tried to get my parents hooked on two of the better cable programs around right now. Regular readers of this space know that I think that most non-network shows are mindless entertainment and reek to high heaven. It's a general guideline that, with the exceptions of "Family Guy" and "The Daily Show," if the shows were high-quality, it wouldn't be on basic cable.
My brother and I got my Dad hooked on "Family Guy" while on family vacation in Florida. I wisely brought the first volume of the series on DVD and while sitting in the minivan at the airport, waiting for Val to arrive on a later flight, we watched a few classic episodes. It was to my distinct pleasure that a week later, Dad was disappointed that TBS was choosing to air "Sex and the City" episodes instead of Peter Griffin's endless journey in stupidity.
We could have watched the Cartoon Network's nightly showing of "Family Guy" at 11 p.m., but then we'd miss my Golden Boy, Jon Stewart take down cable news single-handedly. Val took to Stewart's sharp-tongued criticisms of the Bush administration's inability to take responsibility for anything, but disliked his equally cruel characterization of the Democrats as hapless buffoons. Perhaps it takes a college-age dose of cynicism to fully appreciate "The Daily Show."
Nonetheless, I'm happy for my parents. For years my Dad was toiling under horrid reception, where every image was doubled. Now, he can watch golf tournaments knowing that John Daly only has two chins, not four. Val, while frantically preparing for her Master's thesis, can now take pleasure in ignoring over a hundred channels instead of just six.
Lastly, in this column, the first of my last semester as a college student, I look forward to bloviating more about the joys and downfalls of cable programming. Thanks to Comcast, I can now add two more readers who may have some inkling of what I'm writing about.
