I watch television a lot. I use it as white noise for reading the paper, working puzzles, cleaning house, folding laundry. When I see something interesting or unusual, something I want to remember, I jot it down in a little notebook on the end table.  Here are some tidbits:

In the movie The Man Who Knew Too Much, the eight-year-old boy playing Doris Day’s son sticks two fingers in his mouth and whistles “Que Sera, Sera.”  Most of us can hardly produce a noise that way, but he whistles a song … on pitch, yet.

On the game show, 1 vs. 100, the question was: how many six packs would it take to have ’99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall?’  The contestant pondered and said, “Well, I don’t drink beer…”  Yes, she was blond.

Some words of wisdom from As Time Goes By, a Britcom on PBS, Lionel tells the women in his life, “Say what you want to say to the person you want to say it to.”  What sage advice!

And on Judging Amy, someone observed, “Everybody loves a strong person because they never ask for anything.” (I didn’t note if it was Amy or her very wise mother.)

In a short Film The Support Group on PBS, came a twist on a growing cliche about denial: “The Euphrates is not just a river in Mesopotamia.” 

And of course commercials appear in my note-taking. A disclaimer for a perscription drug, “If you’re allergic to Astepro, don’t take it.”  Well, duh.

A man dressed in a white coat tells us, “I recommend Breath Rx not only to my patients but to everyone I know.”  That’s how to win friends, all right.

A commercial for a behavior management technique is rather long but never really tells us much about how it works. The salesperson boasts, “Turn your child’s attitude around in one minute or less.”  Now, as someone who has parented for many years, I want to know: What IS it?  A baseball bat? Thumb screws? 

Yes, I watch television a lot, mostly old movies. And the new season of Monk starts Friday, August 7.

The saying above is an old Texas expression about loyalty. It means stick to the strategies that brought success in the first place.  Something I wish the cable networks would do.

As cable and dish have made more and more channels available to us, we’ve watched new networks debut with a promise to bring programming of interest to a specific population, only to change a few years later to chase another demographic.  It’s one thing when USA, TNT, TBS or WGN decides to do this, but when the name of the network implies one thing and the programs reflect something different … well … that borders on fraud. 

If we watch the Biography Channel, which spun off from a popular show on A&E, we might see “Murder She Wrote.” Whose biography is that? It’s a story about Jessica Fletcher and her unfortunate friends. Being an acquaintance of the famous mystery writer means two things. First, someone you know will be murdered, and second, someone you know is the murderer.

And A&E, which stands for Arts and Entertainment and promised high quality programing from the entertainment and art world, is another good example. A better name now would be the crime/drug rehab channel.  Bravo is also a network that changed its focus. It tends to repeat the same movie or syndicated drama several times throughout the evening. This may be a staffing issue. Set the feed on automatic pilot and clock out.

MTV (Music Television) was to bring pop videos to its young audience. Now they are featuring a reality show – “Sixteen and Pregnant.”  The Learning Channel (aka the Jon and Kate Channel) has decided to teach us all about people who are differently challenged, i.e. “The 650 Pound Virgin,” “Conjoined Twins,” “The World’s Tallest Children,” and “Little People.”

AMC – American Movie Classics, seems to have redefined what constitutes a classic, and their pledge to show movies commercial-free went down the tubes a few years ago.  Oxygen, touted as a channel about issues important to women, now features overweight females trying to dance and “America’s Next Top Model,” programs that appear to me to be exploitive.  WE – Womens’ Entertainment, broadcasts hours and hours of “Bridezilla”, showing women in their worst light.

I feel I’ve just scratched the surface here. You could add more, and I invite you to vent your dissatisfaction/disillusionment with the fare offered on cable/dish.

Oh, one more thing. Be sure to screen the commercials when your children are in the room. The show may be rated G but you could still find yourself explaining to your child what Bob is so danged happy about.