Blast from the Past: I Want My Cable TV!

Last weekend, because of the Thanksgiving holiday, I really wasn't on my blogging game, and skipped my weekly Blast from the Past feature. This weekend, I almost skipped it again, because I was at a loss for what to post. But while watching the season finale of The Walking Dead (Only six episodes? Really?) on AMC, I started thinking about how much television has changed. The whole television experience is quite different from the days when I grew up.

My mom to this day--even though she has fully-loaded satellite tv--still mostly watches network television. In fact, she still refers to them as 4, 6 and 10, the channels available over the air . If I say "ABC" or "CBS," she won't know which one I mean unless I say "6" or "10."  You basically had three choices when I was a kid, unless you were watching PBS, or one of the handful of "basic" cable channels. Until I was a teenager, I don't think we ever had more channels than 2 through 13, though we did get a box from Radio Shack that let us "borrow" a couple more!  We were able to glean from that little box a nifty movie service called "TeleCinema." Some people across town were able to get the experimental "Qube" from Warner that let them talk back to their TVs with a wired jumbo remote.  But we never dreamed of the HDTV/DVR/OnDemand selections we have today. Somehow though, doesn't it seem like there is still nothing good on when you're bored?

1. HBO - HBO was probably the first sign of things to come, and this clip used to open every "big movie" presentation. It seemed quite high-tech at the time.

2. CNN - A weird idea at a time when everyone got their news from the three networks in half-hour doses, the 24-hour news station is still with us, even if it has been eclipsed by the not news FOX "News". This is a clip from the show Crossfire, which may be responsible for creating an environment to make FOX possible. Plus Frank Zappa was cool.

3. Warner-Amex Qube - This is that experimental project that I was always so jealous that we couldn't get. 

4. MTV - Arriving at precisely the right time for me (I was 15 when it debuted in 1981), MTV was a cultural juggernaut. It also enshrined horrible 80s fashion forever.  Now, they are a reality show channel, but back in the day, they changed the face of music. 

And as they say on CNN, we're going to have to leave it there. My Blast from the Pasts are usually 8 clips long, but I think my post-Thanksgiving, pre-trip home for an early Christmas vacation brains are squelching my blogging bug.