Looking Back in Television
By Uncle Bob
(August 2, 1998)
The world crashes in into my living room
Television made me what I am
People like to put the television down
But we are just good friends
I'm a television man
Talking Heads: Television Man
If you are reading this, there is a good chance you are reading it on your television and you are using a WebTV to do it. As revolutionary as television was, it borrowed concepts from two other technological marvels of the 20th century, radio and motion pictures. WebTV is another hybrid invention, using computers, telephone and of course, television to create something unique. Among many of its users it has created a sort of mini-revolution as well.
This adventure will take us to pages that chronicle various aspects of this medium with a few tangents into related avenues. The intuitive nature of hyperlinks demands it and the subject chosen invites a few necessary detours as well.
 The introduction of television profoundly changed the social and cultural landscape of human society. We lack the historical perspective to determine if WebTV will earn a similar place in future historical accounts, but it seems safe to say that it will at least be a significant footnote.
Television first gained the public's attention at the 1939 World's Fair in New York, but the roots of the technology which made it possible can be traced to the late 19th century.
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All media are extensions of some human faculty -- psychic or physical. The wheel ... is an extension of the foot ... the book is an extension of the eye ... clothing, an extension of the skin ... electric circuitry, an extension of the central nervous system. Media, by altering the environment, evoke in us unique ratios of sense perceptions. The extension of any one sense alters the way we think and act -- the way we perceive the world. When these ratios change, men change.
[Marshall McLuhan & Quentin Fiore,
The Medium is the Massage,
(NY: Bantam) 1967,
ps. 26-41.]
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A good place to start our journey into the
history of television is quite fittingly in Toronto, Canada.
the MZTV museum of television has an exhibit of TV sets from the past and present. I say 'fittingly' because the Canadian Marshall McLuhan is generally considered one of the first to seriously examine the influence of the medium on society.
Those old TV's have a certain style that the current ones lack and another site with a less academic approach to exhibiting them has been created by a WebTV user. The
Auman Museum of Television is a wonderful exhibition of photographs of early televisions, and radios as well. The Media History Project has a good list of TV history links and is an excellent place to widen our exploration of television history. Or how about a peek at the
world's earliest TV recording?
Although television can be a rich source of serious information, it is generally considered an entertainment medium. The Museum of TV and Radio encompasses both elements. They have sites in New York and Los Angeles and are currently featuring two exhibits of historical significance. One is devoted to the TV viewer's "bible" TV Guide; the other is devoted to the classic British television program, Monty Python's Flying Circus.
 Leaving the academic and informational approach more or less behind us, let's consider some pages that explore aspects of TV programming from the past to the present. The Shokus Video list of TV links is a good starting point. This is a commercial site as well, offering an extensive catalogue of TV programs past and present. Special Web covers all things related to the tube offering up entire sections linking to general sites, magazines, networks, shows and Tv trivia. They also cover an inescapable but necessary aspect of broadcast television, the TV commercial.
Television advertising is as much a part of its memorable history as its programs. It's an old joke that the commercials are better than the programs they interrupt, but there's a ring of truth to this jesting remark. The level of creativity and imagination required to create a memorable ad can often eclipse the artistic effort put into the programs. The Ad Age site covers the history of TV advertising and has a generous archive of TV ads from the 1940's to the present.
Now for one of those detours I mentioned we might encounter on this journey. Backtrack a bit and check out the list at Special Web of Usenet groups discussing television. Most newsgroups related to television are concerned with present-day programs and celebrities but there are some groups devoted to remembering the earlier shows and their stars. Rumor has it that the stars themselves occasionally lurk or even participate in these discussion groups.
Another side road worth a look is
world TV schedules. American television past and present is translated into many countries, but there is much more out there than just reruns of "I Love Lucy" in Swahili.
 It's hard to say the precise time and place that the term "interactive television" appeared. The first public trials appeared sometime in the 70's but the idea probably predates that. These initial attempts to create interaction between the viewer and their TVs were not particularly successful with the public and despite considerable investment by major media corporations they were dismal failures.
But, interactive television may be an idea whose time has finally come.
For example, children of the 1950's were enthralled by the program, "The Adventures of Superman." But their creative interaction with this story was mostly limited to devising elaborate and covert methods to liberate the family towels and linen without arousing parental suspicion. It's unlikely they imagined a future that enabled them to research the various aspects of this tale on their television as they watched reruns of it with their own children. Whether you are interested in its comic book and radio origins, or a detailed filmography/biography of
George Reeves, an Internet search engine can probably turn it up before the end of the next commercial.
The introduction of so-called "convergence technologies" like WebTV and other similar products is radically changing the way we "look" at television. In the beginning, we had access to a handful of channels with poor reception and tiny screens, but these considerable limitations were mostly disregarded as people purchased televisions in record numbers.
 Television was seen as nothing less than a miracle when it appeared but the audiences of today have a very different attitude than the audiences of the 1950's. Technological miracles appear with increasing frequency today and paradoxically we are less awed by rapidly changing technology even though it has the power to change the socio-cultural landscape in ways those early viewers could never have imagined.
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I was born in a house
with the television always on
...leave the driving to us
it's the real thing.
-Talking Heads: Love For Sale-
Whether you look at television as a guilty pleasure or an integral part of your life style, you can hardly escape its influence on society. Television exploded onto the cultural landscape with great impact for a variety of reasons. Post-war affluence and a booming consumer economy made television not just a welcome addition to American homes but a virtual necessity in the keep-up-with-the-Jones's attitude that prevailed in the late 40's and early 50's. For the first time, in the comfort of their living rooms, people could see what was happening as it was happening. They fell under the hypnotic spell of this miraculous new invention and it could be argued that we are still entranced by its power.
Today our TVs are offering us more options than ever. They can bring us not just hundreds of channels via cable and satellites but millions of pages of information and entertainment over the World Wide Web. Our language has expanded to include terms like convergence, interactive multi-media, and Internet appliances. Our televisions have become much smarter and, hopefully, so will we. An entirely new chapter in television history is being written and we are becoming active participants instead of passive spectators.
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