when i was 4 i thought that when you shut the tv off, your program would stop right there where you left it, so you could come back later and continue...

but then my whole world was shattered the day my mom and i went to the store in the middle of Batman and then i came home to find the evening news running instead.

i still hate the evening news.

bubba, alameda, ca

I watched TV shows that sometimes had "applause" signs. I believed that the signs said "applesauce" and wondered why it would say that.

Alia

Although I never believed that there were actually people inside your tv, I thought that you could see the other channels by looking up the side of the tv screen, as if they were all in a big line, and when you changed channels they simply moved across.

Rachel

i used to think that when you turned off the television is paused like a tape. so everyday i would come home from school at 3 and watch ghostbusters. my mom would make me a sammitch or something and i would come back and be very discontented at the fact that someone had turned the tv back on.

dan

One time I was in bed with my parents watching "Star Wars." It got to the best part and then the tv turned off. I got really mad about this and asked my parents about it...they said that the tv's bedtime is 9:00 and it turned off to go to sleep. For years I would turn off the tv right before 9:00 so that the tv could get some rest. It took me forever to realize my parents had just used the remote...duh!

mallory f

My dad used to always tell me i sat too close to the T.V. and that i watched it too much. He said that he was only telling me for my own sake so that i don't end up like the other 10% of children whose bodies rotted and turned inside-out from doing so.

sSsSs

I used to believe that when you turned up the volume on the T.V the people had to shout louder.

Tanana

I used to believe that the people broadcasting TV programs were really lazy, and turned it off when you blinked. I used to sit there for ages, eyes wide open and streaming, trying to catch 'em out in the act. I never managed it.
I guess this means that at the age of six I was roughly on a par with Schroedinger.

Pete

When I was little, I used to think there were people that lurked in the bushes to see what others were watching on TV and that that's where ratings came from.

Anon

I used to believe that there was a town named "Woodbie" because of watching the news and hearing about the "woodbie burglar," "woodbie car thief." Took me a few years to figure out it was "would be" - I was relieved, because I thought that Woodbie place had a lot of crime!

kathy pope

when i was younger my dad told me that if i waited patiently by the TV then i would get to see all the people leaving at the end of the night. I waited for them to come out!!

Anon

When I was little I used to believe that our region had won some kind of lottery and the local news was broadcast nationally; and everyone else across the country had to patiently watch our news, hoping that their region would be selected next. It never occured to me that you could split the signal into different regions. My brother only pointed this out when I was explaining it to a Swedish visitor who was staying at our house, aged about 7. Quite worringly, I now work for the same broadcaster in the department responsible for regional broadcasting!

Olly

when i was a kid i saw in a magazine a picture of some people on a ski lift. for quite a long time after that i thought that power/telephone lines were in fact chair lift lines which enabled actors who had been shrunk to get into the back of the tv set. and perform live.

jon

When I was a kid, I used to believe that the actors on tv would run from one channel to the next as you changed the channel. I guess I figured they were really little people running around inside my tv set.

Kimberley

This isn't me, it's something my younger brother thought:
A couple years ago, my brother said that he liked our grandma's TV, because it had a bigger screen than our one. Why was that so good? He thought that smaller-screened TVs didn't show all the picture, some of it got chopped off. He had lived about 7 years in a house that has a few various-sized TVs and never noticed that the picture got smaller on smaller TVs.

Anon

I used to believe that all the actors I saw on t.v got phone calls one day telling them they have to act. I was a shy kid and did not want to be an actress so I dreaded the day someone would call my house to tell me I need to act on a t.v show.

Marisa G

When I was a kid I thought that the newsreaders on satellite TV lived in the satellites.

Mat

My friend, James, use to belive that if you bought a new telly it would show programmes from the very start of television history. His theory fell apart when I asked him how both out tellies had the same program on at the same time. "Our mums must have bought them at the same time!"

tehe.

todd, uk

when i was about 7 i thought that whenever i flicked to a different tv channel, everyone elses tv would change too. i used to flick back and forth between channels every few seconds so as to baffle the other viewers. i was an annoying child.

Sara

i was around 6 when i developed a paranoia about t.v. screens. i thought i would die instantaniously if i licked it.

Zo