Oh, how we used to mimic the television greats of Children's TV, we had a laugh. Me and the kids. We burped with the best of them.
Teletubbies were non-human, they spoke in an adult-free way of squeaks and burping. As Children's TV goes as a concept, it was psychedelically scary, I suspected grown men were wearing fat suits, that were primary colour blinding in bright light, and I kid-you-not aerial headed monster things, and Lordy Lordy they did not speak the queen's english. A Teletubby was not really up there with Muffin the Mule. In Children's TV stakes there was a slim possibility Teletubbies should have been filed under a "Warning - taking drugs is dangerous" label.
But it brought us together as a family. A family as one that bought into the full cuddly toy, mattress, plastic plate and video "We-love-Teletubby" family. I made the BBC rich way past a licence fee. But its OK, fun was never this good, this mutual laughter at nothing at all takes a lot to beaten. The kids and me. They laughed with them, I laughed at them and fun was had all around. And may they long live in our video collection, even if the video recorder has seen a better view from under a TV in the 'once upon a time' happy days, as opposed to a video recoder located somewhere in a basement under several other things lost in a finite cellar space of nowadays.
A video recorder as a metaphor for me, it has seen better days; but it probably could still kick it as a clock. I still could be of use as a chauffeur, a charitable banker, a telephone answering machine.
Time moved on as toddler cartoons and characters passed onto non-toddler cartoons and cahracters. They came and went into my kids' head and over mine. I am an intelligent adult and there is only so many times Power Rangers can win, despite the threat to the Universe, near certain death and all things evil. I do wish to boast, I think I may have guessed the plot.
I was happy that they were happy. They were happy that the world was a safer place regularly at the end of half an hour.
Although this happiness came at a price that such heroes obviously deserved praise and monetary tributes, by jolly the kids demanded so. Again as part of the process, the hook, line and sinker process; I decided, or was manipulated, that my hand should make several stopovers in my pocket that kept a once fat wallet. Various bed clothes, toys, books, littered the house as a form of worship to Power Rangers, Transformers, Ben Ten, powderpuff girls or whatever.
That was then, this is now. All is now past tense. TV has different heroes, heroes that come out to play when the news is on, when that adult drama is on, when what they call old fashioned entertainment is on.
They used to watch TV when I did important things like going to the gym, going to the office; they did not watch TV when I returned and I watched important things like "Antiques Roadshow". Things have changed, I want to watch, they want to watch.
My programmes win BAFTAs, EMMYs for best supporting actress in a period drama; their programmes win MTV awards for best kiss, most huggable alien, nicest cute person in a non-boyfriend category.
TV is a Battle ground and the key to this battle is the Remote Control - the channel hopper Kingmaker -or as I prefer to call it ~My Remote Control ~ in fact, it should be abbreviated by common use, custom and tradition as MRC.
My logic failed me, my adult spider sense has gone off radar, I have fallen foul of their education, I should have called it DRC ~ Dad's Remote Control ~ "My" cuts both ways.
I feel the need to say "Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, my son".
And I enter a parallel universe, role-reversal, deja vous, time-warp-space-continuum moment.... my father once said the same thing to what was once I think a rather handsome boy. Although he may added a number of Anglo-Saxon descriptive words. Indeed "clever dick" may also have featured.
Returning to the real world, which does not involve six post pubescents in a house in a global capital somewhere in MTV land, answering the questions of the universe with the aid of alcohol and a libido. The answer to my TV battle of wills between the forces of adult good (me) and teenage evil (my boy, my daughter), lies in two...perhaps three TVs, satellite systems, monthly bills that may now come in a distinct nice red font, and a family apart in bedroom seclusion.
A family being drawn apart, as the Battle of the TV is drawn.
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