MONROE - Being a little under the weather a couple of weeks ago allowed me to stay home and rest. It also gave me a chance to catch up on what's on television during the day.
There's always news on CNN or MSNBC if you want to know what's happening around the world ... or hear Hillary Clinton brag heroic tales from the time she was First Lady. But there isn't a lot to choose from - even with a satellite dish.
Some of the shows, such as "The Maury Povich Show," are pure garbage. Every time I tuned in there was a lady trying to find out which of the 13 guys she slept with was the father of her baby. They kept bringing out the next possibility and they kept coming up with a negative response to a DNA test. I started to wonder why this show is even on television. I can't imagine people sitting around watching and trying to guess which of the 13 guys is actually the baby's father.
There are the usual shopping channels that offer everything from bed sheets to expensive jewelry and there are reruns of "Frasier," which I enjoyed, and "Leave it to Beaver," "Gunsmoke," "Bonanza" and "The Andy Griffith Show."
I found myself skipping around to find something to fill in the time I was wasting in front of the television instead of doing something more creative such as reading.
I kept coming back to the Game Show Network.
I remember seeing a lot of those shows when I was a kid.
In the summer, when I was home from school, I would watch them for a couple hours each morning before getting ready to go out and spend the afternoon and most of the evening playing with my friends.
I remember watching "Password," "Password Plus" and "Super Password." I used to try to answer questions of "Tic Tac Dough" and match answers with Brett Sommers and Richard Dawson on "Match Game."
I remember such shows as "High Rollers" and "Scrabble."
Remember when winners on "Wheel of Fortune" had to buy items from either a living room or dining room? When they were running low on money they ended up buying a ceramic dog or something else that was just horrible looking that you knew was going to be in the garbage by the time they got home?
Game shows were a big part of my generation. They were on for three or four hours a day and it was always something to watch.
I used to joke with friends that our generation knew more useless trivia because we learned it through game shows. Those shows were driven by questions and answers to information that no one ever would use, but it still stuck in our heads because we learned it from a game show.
I guess the lesson from being home for a couple of days is that if you're looking for something to watch, check out the old game shows.
They're still a good way to kill a couple of hours.
- Brian Gray is a reporter at
The Monroe Times. He can be reached at bgray@themonroetimes.com
There's always news on CNN or MSNBC if you want to know what's happening around the world ... or hear Hillary Clinton brag heroic tales from the time she was First Lady. But there isn't a lot to choose from - even with a satellite dish.
Some of the shows, such as "The Maury Povich Show," are pure garbage. Every time I tuned in there was a lady trying to find out which of the 13 guys she slept with was the father of her baby. They kept bringing out the next possibility and they kept coming up with a negative response to a DNA test. I started to wonder why this show is even on television. I can't imagine people sitting around watching and trying to guess which of the 13 guys is actually the baby's father.
There are the usual shopping channels that offer everything from bed sheets to expensive jewelry and there are reruns of "Frasier," which I enjoyed, and "Leave it to Beaver," "Gunsmoke," "Bonanza" and "The Andy Griffith Show."
I found myself skipping around to find something to fill in the time I was wasting in front of the television instead of doing something more creative such as reading.
I kept coming back to the Game Show Network.
I remember seeing a lot of those shows when I was a kid.
In the summer, when I was home from school, I would watch them for a couple hours each morning before getting ready to go out and spend the afternoon and most of the evening playing with my friends.
I remember watching "Password," "Password Plus" and "Super Password." I used to try to answer questions of "Tic Tac Dough" and match answers with Brett Sommers and Richard Dawson on "Match Game."
I remember such shows as "High Rollers" and "Scrabble."
Remember when winners on "Wheel of Fortune" had to buy items from either a living room or dining room? When they were running low on money they ended up buying a ceramic dog or something else that was just horrible looking that you knew was going to be in the garbage by the time they got home?
Game shows were a big part of my generation. They were on for three or four hours a day and it was always something to watch.
I used to joke with friends that our generation knew more useless trivia because we learned it through game shows. Those shows were driven by questions and answers to information that no one ever would use, but it still stuck in our heads because we learned it from a game show.
I guess the lesson from being home for a couple of days is that if you're looking for something to watch, check out the old game shows.
They're still a good way to kill a couple of hours.
- Brian Gray is a reporter at
The Monroe Times. He can be reached at bgray@themonroetimes.com
