Point #4: TGIF

Throughout the history of television, Friday night was a sore spot for TV programmers (with the exception of sports).



Except for one time in the late '80's and early '90's: the TGIF prime-time block of family programming on ABC. "Full House," "Family Matters," "Step By Step,": all those classics were broadcast every Friday night.

The shows were introduced by a character from the line-up (Urkel, DJ). More often than not, the characters would point out a moral theme that ran throughout the episodes (honesty, resisting peer pressure, taking nerds to the dance). Though all the shows were popular, the whole nation waited to see Urkel unveil his latest contraption, only to accidentaly wreak havoc. This was all a lengthy prelude for his catchphrase: "Did I do that?"



Urkel was meant to be a minor character, but became a regular in the second season. The second season began in September, 1990: freshman year of high school for me.
Of all the times to show quality family programming on a Friday night, when teenagers are usually getting high or laid, ABC decides to put its power block during my freshman semester. Boy, did it work. I never went out on Friday night, never smoked pot or got drunk. Hell, I was a virgin throughout high school.


Why did ABC want me to be so pure? Two reasons: 1) So I would set a fine example for younger viewers; 2) It wanted a monopoly on Brown Nerds. (I was a clumsy, brown nerd like Urkel with coke bottle glasses - I was meant to represent the fat nerds, Urkel the skinny ones). Indeed, I wonder if my show was part of the TGIF lineup back then. Makes sense: I only watched TV on Friday nights. No one wants to watch you watch TV (unless you're Homer Simpson).

In the fall of '95, when I was a college sophomore, I got stoned and drunk on Friday nights. A year later, seeing that their TGIF spell wouldn't work - that their blatant attempt at conformist mind control and missionary work (what do you think the "G" in TGIF stands for) was futile - ABC cancelled "Step By Step." In the fall of '97 - the year I lost my virginity and the year I became 21 (the legal drinking age, which meant ABC could take off the leash and let me drink on Friday nights without worrying that I would set a bad example for the young viewers) - Family Matters moves to CBS. Maybe if I shoot heroin on Fridays, "Hope and Faith" will be dropped like a hot potato.

I don't plan on watching any TV tonight. I won't even surf the web or blog tonight. But don't worry your pretty little head: on Monday, I will post up point five and, by that point, I suggest that somebody out there tells me the name of my show, the time and the sponsors.
And three words for ABC: Cut - it - out!

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Point #3: Diff'rent Folks

Diff'rent Strokes was NBC's flagship sitcom for seven seasons. For my Asian third-grade classmates and I, it was our first "water cooler" show. As summer drew near, I had to say goodbye to Yung-Suk, Mitsuhiro and a young Chinese girl with porcelain skin named Angela that my peers accused me of liking. My mom, my grandma and I were moving from Flushing to New Hyde Park.




Guess who moved with me? Arnold, Mr.Drummond, Willis and the gang. Not Todd Bridges's street gang, mind you, but the rest of the Diff'rent Strokes crew. In 1985, Diff'rent Strokes moved to ABC. It tanked and was cancelled after its first season.


Now I admit this seems coincidental. Truthfully,I thought nothing of it at the time. But look at two factors: The Emmanuel Lewis Factor and The Curse of Diff'rent Strokes. Emmanuel Lewis Factor: In 1985, ABC had the monopoly on shows with rich, white, non-biological fathers that took ethnic children into their homes by having both Diff'rent Strokes and Webster in its line-up. I always wanted a rich white dad like Mr. Drummond or George Papadapolous to adopt me. Lo and behold, my Mom meets Andy on the beach. Andy - a white doctor. Who proposes to my mom and later acquires an ethnic stepson in September of 1986 - the same month that Diff'rent Strokes doesn't return? Dr. Whiteboy. Why? Because ABC was holding on too tight to the empire of Rich White Dads and George Papaluffagus wouldn't cut the mustard, even if he was adept at cutting cheese.


The Curse never existed before the Drummonds moved to the ABC. The ill-fated move opened up a whole Pandora's box however. Though it was a while later, I had my own problems with drugs and the law. How else could I succumb to the Drummond Curse unless I was on ABC?

The white stepfather with the cute,chubby ethnic wiseass stepson; the later drug use; the simultaneous move of my family and the Drummonds. Can't someone give up the ghost and tell me who the sponsor of my show is at least? I guess what might be right for me may not be right for some.

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Point #2: Schoolhouse Jiggle

What does a baby like to do all day? It likes breastfeeding and watching moving colors with music (a mobile, for example). So, if you want to make a baby coo with your TV shows, you probably want to have some fine Saturday morning cartoons. Nonviolent cartoons with no story. Exactly what Schoolhouse Rock was. Schoolhouse Rock was a popular favorite with Generation X - my generation.


How popular? De La Soul sampled "3 is a Magic Number." Bill Bellamy had a classic stand-up routine in which he deconstructed "I'm Just a Bill" as a tirade against Richard Nixon. Black entertainers weren't the only ones who were wistful about the educational cartoons. The whole cast of "Reality Bites" sang "Conjunction Junction" in unison. Atlantic Records released an album of hip '90's acts doing remakes of Schoolhouse Rock called Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks. And it didn't have post-grunge garbage like Candlebox. It had the alpha and omega of cool: Pavement and Ween. Yeah - rockers and rappers agreed on two things in the '90's: smoking pot and Schoolhouse Rock. The Simpsons referenced it. God forbid you didn't respond to Schoolhouse Rock references. In my high school, if you didn't remember Schoolhouse Rock, you had to wear a scarlet 3 on your left breast.

None of these references went over my head, of course.How could they? ABC's power was too great. Entertainers that had no affiliation with ABC liked Schoolhouse Rock. Artists - true artists like De La Soul and Pavement - shilled for the Rock. Why would they unless they had to coerce me to join the crowd and sing "I'm Only a Bill;" to join the contemporary Gen-X Schoolhouse Rock movement?




But ABC stole my attention from the other six channels by showing me what any breastfed infant likes to see - plenty of mammaries. ABC went #1 in the Nielsens with what was called "jiggle TV." Let's cut the bullshit: jiggle TV meant "Charlie's Angels," which premiered in 1976 - the year I was fucking born.




Why would ABC show an infant breasts? Babies know one thing: breasts=food. So if I associate ABC with breasts, through some twisted mutation of Pavlovian conditioning, I associate ABC with food. Thus, ABC at an early age gives me a primal attachment to its network. I can't breastfeed anymore, but I can still watch Desparate Housewives.

Not convinced that I know my whole life is on ABC and I'm not taking a shot in the dark? Point #3 is coming up tomorrow and you know what they say: three is a magic number.

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Point #1: Bicentennial Baby

The ABC television network aired its first signal in 1948. ABC was not number one in the Nielsen ratings for one year in the '60's, when the ratings were first used.

ABC's first #1 season was 1976-1977. The year I was fucking born.

I mean, if someone were to make my whole life a television show, they would have to start from my date of birth of course (if you don't know by now, it's 2/6/1976, shitdick). Wouldn't that be a unique, historic, cloyingly sentimental series premiere - the birth of a child?

This alone does not rend the fabric of my reality. But it is quite a clincher for my argument -- that I know my whole life is being broadcast on ABC behind my back.



And while we're on the topic, wasn't 1976 the year of the Bicentennial? If some exec whose cartilage was perforated from coke wanted to tape somebody's life without that person knowing from birth to age thirty, wouldn't he have gotten the greenlight if the show chronicled the first thirty years of a person born on the year of the Bicentennial to immigrant parents? Hell, I think that's the name of my show: "An American Life".


You scoff now, but come May 23rd, we'll see who's season finale is "gripping."






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You Think I Don't Know

You think I don't know. When I talk to people at work and all they talk about are insurance plans and Scions. They're hawking products. Why?

I know my whole life has been broadcast on national television. Every building I walk into has a "security" camera. Everybody has a camera phone. Every traffic light and toy has a camera. My subvocal thoughts have been transcribed by computers.

Fuck it. I'm not going to dwell on it -- you know damn well that my life is on TV. And I know the next thing you will say is no one watches my show anymore. How can they? I never involve myself in any steamy sex. I never win any contests. I never get fired. Still, someone somewhere must like my show. You're reading my blog anyway, motherfucker.

The whole idea of a blog was invented for the purposes of my show. Since I was 12, I wanted to write, but was too lazy and shy to do it. Two years before the end of my 30-year contract (I'm that good -- I know the show will go off the air next May [and no, I won't start a failed Hollywood career]), everybody makes a big stink about blogging and how anybody can write and potentially become famous overnight. So here I am with my blog, and perhaps by next year, at the end of the whole damn series, I will become a great writer and move to California to languish in obscurity as a Hollywood hack.






Enough digression. What I aim to show you is just how good I am - to show you the fifteen reasons that I have rightfully deduced that not only have all twenty nine years of my life been broadcast on television, but that the network is ABC. Since I have recently concluded that my life is on ABC through ratiocination, I am using the conspicous ubiquity of ABC's semiotic overload as evidence that my life is on ABC. I will go through the points chronologically.



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