We were among the last family on Earth to get a color television but I never complained. Why? Because my dad told me that ALL TVs start out as black&white and then eventually turn color with time. I just had to keep waiting.

toon

I used to believe that black-and-white TV was there for you to colour in, I got in so much trouble when I put crayon on my Nanna's telly, then realise that the pictures moved too fast for me to colour them all in!

Lisa (England)

I used to believe that inside the television were thousands of little people who at the end of the night when the tv was switched off would come out of a little door on the side and sleep in our cutlery drawer.

Ian

I grew up in the 1950's and our first TV was black and white. I knew there a was a disease called TB, and I misheard that as TV. So, as a little guy, I was terrified to sit too close to the TV and get TB. This was doubly hard on me as I was near sighted.

Rob

i used to think that if you watched a movie or a show on tv and then you went and watched it on a bigger tv you would see the backstage crew and the cameras and stuff in the extra space that wasnt there before..whoops!

Joan

When I was little my mother used to watch Star Trek and as this was before I realised that most TV wasn't live. In one scene a character was wearing an outfit and then seconds later the scene changed to one later that day and there he was in another. I remember asking in bafflement how could actors change their clothes so quickly and my mother answered absently that they probably had a machine for it. For *ages* I believed that all actors had to run of stage and stand still while this little robot dressed them and then run off to act again. I asked my mother about this later and she said that because we'd been watching Star Trek she's thought I meant the characters getting changed rather than the actors.

Emmylou

I used to believe that if the T.V. was on and somehow broke the characters of the show would come out and kill you.

Anon

When I asked my dad how the tv guide stays up-to-date on current tv shows, he told me that they change it every week. For the longest time after that, I believed a man sneaked into our house every week at night to re-write the tv guide. He had super sensitive hearing, so you couldn't sneak up on him while he was writing it, because he'd hear you and run away. Instead, I hid the tv guide in my room and pretended to be asleep, hoping to catch him coming in to re-write the guide.

Nina

For a while (by which I mean about 12 years) I thought that when people said "pay-per-view", they were really saying "paper view".
I just didnt understand why people would pay to watch a piece of paper...

Gazza

When I was little I loved watching TV and trying to stay up late (still do), but Mother told me the TV went to sleep at night, so I left it alone at bedtime, making sure not to wake it up and make it mad.

Kaivxn

my mom said that if i watched tv for too long my head would turn square shaped. I definately thoght that this was true when i was little and there was even a time when i was sure my head was going square.

rose

I used to believe that people on TV used to have some surgery done to them so they didn't need to pee. Because you know no one EVER goes to the bathroom.
Then I asked my mother and she said they went during the breaks (during taping.) I assumed that meant during the commericals, so I used to watch the sides of the tv very carefully when the TV show came on just in case someone took a little longer...

Ah, how television destroys your mind.

Anon

I could never understand why I couldn't see the blinking eyes of the camera man when I was watching T.V. I thought that what I saw on the screen was what HE saw, so surely I should see his eyelids every now and again...

Anon

When I was 2.5, I thought that the people on the TV could feel pain. So I went to the TV screen and poked them in the eye. They didn't yelp in pain.

Helen

I remember once when I was a kid, there was some kind of technical problem at a TV station and the station would play. They had some picture of a sun wearing sunglasses and a TV antenna with a message stating there was solar disturbances and programming would resume shortly. In the background they were playing music and it was the song "Baby Elephant Walking." For some reason or another; this whole thing scared the hell out of me. I guess I thought that meant the world was ending and TV was the first thing to go. To this day when I hear that song I get a little nervous.

charity

when i was a kid and used to watch quiz shows that offered the 'holiday of a lifetime', I actually thought that you went on holiday for the rest of your life!

Shona

Remember the emergency alert system? How it would always say, "This is a test. Had this been a real emergency, this alarm would be followed by safety instructions" or something to that effect? As a kid I never EVER heard them say, "It's for real this time, no fooling around!" So naturally I assumed it was the government's practical joke on us and that the president and all his men were sitting in their offices giggling at how stupid we were.

Katie♥

When we were younger, both my sister and I thought that Mr. T. was saying "I'm pinny the po fu. Don't eat my cereal". He was not saying that, rather he was saying "I pity the poor fool who don't eat my cereal."

KurtIsTheCoolest

Whenever there were technical difficulties and the "Please Stand By" message came on the television, I believed that I fixed the TV by standing next to it until the picture came back.

Linda

I used to believe that Superman (played by George Reeves) was real and that the reason I'd never seen him flying around was because he lived in America (I'm Australian).

Fred