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PatchWork
by Joyce Whitis |
Sick Television
I read the other day that whole bunches of Japanese kids went into convulsions, stopped breathing, and threw up after watching some television show.
Well what's so new about that? I can name half a dozen shows on TV that are guaranteed to make an adult audience throw up.
Name one?
Sure. Sally Jessy Raphael for one and although you didn't ask for more than one, I can give you an alphabetized list! Geraldo Rivera (gag, gag, gag), Jenny Jones (excuse me please), Jerry Springer (well, for heaven's sake), Judge Judy ( arrogant, smart alec, pompous, altogether a cause for major rush to the bathroom),
Maury Povich (sometimes comes close to complete convulsions himself) and the, for Pete's Sake, Peoples Court (guaranteed to make you dig through the sofa cushions for the remote.
So come on you tough Japanese babies, are you going to let a little cartoon character make you sick when there is so much out there in the adult world to swallow? We are fast approaching the season when politicians bring us their speeches, and most are absolutely guaranteed to make you sick.
Come to think about it, there are lots of things that make me sick not on television. Movies are one . Every now and then I take a notion to see a good old movie (as in the Good Old Days). It ain't gonna happen! Remember back when the theaters looked like theaters with plush lobbies, Ladies Rooms with an attendant, popcorn for a nickle or dime (for the extra large) and candy bars that cost a nickle? Well those days are sure Gone With the Wind. And that's all right but still I would really like to be able to go in one of those little cubby holes they call a theater, sit down with a $3 bag of popcorn and see a movie that didn't send me reeling toward the restroom.
Talk about something to throw you into convulsions and make you throw up, try watching just about anything that crops up on the big screen and see if you can stay in your seat long enough to walk out with everybody else.
Well since we couldn't stand the movies anymore, we began checking out videos to take home. After all you can always watch and then turn off what you don't like.
The other night I rented the much acclaimed "Contact" with Jody Foster. Early on Foster and her fellow believers hear a strange sound coming from outer space. The sound wasn't strange to me at all. I've listened to that for mile after dreary mile. That's the exact sound electric wipers make on a windshield that's facing into a slow rain.
Remember Max Headroom? This was a "made for TV movie", as I remember it, of a few years ago. The original had a " blip vert" which in reality compresses a 30 second commercial into only 5 seconds. Whereas this method of sending a thought to a mind in the audience is pretty sneaky, it might keep the intended customer out of the refrigerator during sponmsored breaks. However the result is simply too intense with its flashing lights and images, so that there is a sort of spontaneous combustion in the minds of the watching audience, resulting in wide spread sickness including convulsions and vomiting! That's apparantly what happened in Japan.
And so back to the beginning, what makes you sick?