Who Mourns for Galileo?

I created this video after researching online what happened to the very cool full scale mock-up of the Galileo Shuttlecraft built for the original TV series STAR TREK . Enjoy !

TV Programmers just don't care!

I'm writing this brief commentary of Sunday August 7, 2011. Back in 1996 a new TV channel was launched, known as TV LAND. The new station featured a variety of television programming from the 1950s through the 1990s. Its inaugural season featured the Emmy-Award-winning I Love Lucy, Gunsmoke, The Honeymooners and The Ed Sullivan Show. Great detectives were featured every Saturday, with programs including Honey West, Dog and Cat, Burke's Law, Nero Wolfe and Ace Crawford, Private Eye. "TV Land Goes West" presented Shane, Barbary Coast, Have Gun, Will Travel and Best of the West. "Hooterville Saturday" featured Petticoat Junction and Green Acres; and "Sunday in the Barracks" laughed with the military in The Phil Silvers Show and Hogan's Heroes. Many other classics were added giving adults and children a great place to enjoy the clean, family friendly programming that is lacking on television today. However, over time, the station began to abandon most of the classics and cater to the younger generations with shows like Third Rock from the Sun, Scrubs, Boston Legal, The Cougar, High School Reunion and disfunctional family shows like Everybody Loves Raymond and Roseanne. Today, a Sunday, when many kids are spending much of their time watching TV, the TV LAND lineup starting at 8AM has The Nanny for an hour then Happily Divorced until 11am then Hot in Cleveland ALL DAY until 8pm. All three shows rely mostly on sexual humor and innuendo. Sadly, this new generation will probably never experience the plethora of wonderful shows from the distant past.
If there is anyone out there that still doesn't realize why our culture continues to deteriorate, it's because our children are being fed only specific types of programming with total disregard to the long term effects on the future of society. By the way, TV LAND is owned by MTV Networks Entertainment Group. What does that tell you? We will all pay dearly because TV programmers just don't care.

The Nelsons fade into history

In case you missed it, David Nelson died on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2011.
Huh? Who?
Well, David Nelson was the eldest son to Ozzie and Harriet Nelson who from1952 to 1966 had a wonderful television sitcom about their family along with younger brother Ricky. David Nelson portrayed a fictionalized version of himself alongside the other family members. The show was about the ideal American family of the 1950s (and in my opinion, of any time). The situations that David and his brother Rick got into were a far cry from today's dysfunctional and over-sexed television sitcoms. Their problems seem minor today, but spoke volumes to the viewers of the time. As the family fumbled through one misunderstanding after another, the audience would learn humorous lessons about life in a cleaner, more gentle way.
Today, when America's youth spend an ever-increasing amount of time watching television, the shows have lost the innocence; the family values; and the simple, clean humor. The images of a loving family are replaced by a constant bombardment of bad role models and ever-decreasing morals. Young viewers today are more likely to walk away from a television show with lessons of deceit and exploitation, rather than lessons about friendship, family and doing the right thing no matter what.
There have certainly been exceptions over the years, even in the past few decades with shows like Happy Days, The Cosby Show, Full House, Home Improvement and Family Matters but I still wish classic shows like The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best, The Donna Reed Show and many others would be shown regularly instead of back to back nightly episodes of the "pathetic character" sitcoms of the past twenty years. If I had my own television station, those mostly forgotten shows would be regular viewing and the passing of David Nelson might be more than just a quick news blurb. That's just my middle aged opinion. David has now joined his mother, father and brother to continue their adventures in heaven.

Pesky channel logos

Young people will probably never know a time when station logos were not on almost every TV channel. But for us older folks, it wasn't that long ago when you could watch any program without having this annoying little watermark permanently affixed to the corner of your screen. I believe the original intention of these was to discourage people from taping the programs and perhaps selling them. I find them distracting and some stations are starting to flash little animations along the bottom of the screen, promoting some upcoming show. This isn't during a commercial, either. I wish every television had a feature which could eliminate them, but I think they are here to stay.

This thing is for the TV?

How many of you out there think the amount of buttons on today's' remote controls is a bit ridiculous? Yes, maybe it looks cool, like you're holding some futuristic gadget that could allow you to pilot the space shuttle or travel thru time, but are all those buttons really necessary? I've imagined a group of "techno-geeks" sitting around a table trying to figure out how to cram 100 different functions onto a single remote control. All I need to control is the channels and volume. If the remote is for a recording device, it still doesn't need so many buttons. That's just my middle aged opinion. This is all I need.