My sister is three years younger than me, and when we were younger I used to torment her by pointing the TV remote towards her and rapidly pressing the on/off button, screaming "Radiation! Radiation!" She would scream and hide under blankets! She really believed that by getting the 'microwave signal' from the remote sent to her instead of the TV, she was getting lethal doses of radiation, and would get cancer and die. I was a horrible child.

Anon

I used to be afraid of party political broadcasts on the tv, because they always started with the Party's name on a black background and silence, so I thought the prime minister lived in a horrible dark world and if I watched I might get sucked in or something, so I hid when they started and never saw what they were really about... i was a disturbed child!

megan

In the early eigthies when i first heard about satellite TV, i thought it implied cameras mounted on satellites filming other countries and people, for us to watch.

Kris

When i was younger my mum said that watching too much TV would make your eyes go square, i believed it fully. Quite a few years later i asked her that if TV's make your eyes go square why don't they make round TV's

Nick Macmillan

When I was little, my older brother had the wise idea of scaring me by threatening to turn me off with the remote control and I was so dumb to believe him. So everytime he wanted to have some fun, he'd just point the remote at me and say "I'm going to turn you off", and I'll go off running and creaming because I didn't wanted him to turn me off.

Romy

I believed that if I watched a television program I was helping it stay on the air. Conversely if I didn't watch a show that I wanted to stay on the air, I was contributing to it possibly being cancelled.

Stephen

When I was young, a very long time ago, I used to think that television companies employed very small actors. These people entered the TV through the cable at the back. I also believed that actors who were shot actually died,

fja

I was about 5 years old when my grandmother was interviewed on t.v. I freaked out & thought she was trapped in the television; I was inconsolable for the rest of the night.

Tessa Stephens

When I was little my parents used to record shows off the tv onto tapes. Every time they did I would constantly tell everyone to be quiet otherwise our voices would be recorded onto the tape with it and mess up the recording. It took me a while to realize that can't happen because everytime someone tried to tell me i kept telling them to be quiet until it's over.

Ashley

i used to believe that if you bought an old tv it would only play films or programmes from its era. made perfect sense at the time!

lynda, UK

When I was little there was a hole in the top of my TV and I thought that if I got into it, I would be come part of whatever I was watching so I put my arm in and thought it was part of the Lion King and was really excited. When I realized it didnt work I yelled "BLUE SKIDOO! YOU CAN TOO!" and ran at the TV. After slamming my face into the TV I didn't try again.

Wanna be on TV!

I used to believe that Andy Rooney, of 60 minutes, was my real father!

KM

I used to believe that when a TV cameraman used his camera to film something, the image passed straight through the camera, through his eye and body and up to the transmitter aerial. I could never understand why the screen DIDN'T go black every time hewould blink. I even drew diagrams to explain my theories.

Harry Palmer

When I was a nipper, I'd occasionally catch the end of Emmerdale Farm of Crossroads, and, once the titles had finished, there would be still shot of a novelisation and the announcer would say that the latest book was "available from all good book-sellers". I thought he was saying 'book-cellars', and that you could only buy these in bookshops that were underground.

Uncle Korky

When the drama and soaps production teams wanted to have either snow, rain or strong winds, I always thought that they had to wait for the weather to arrive. I thought that this was the case until I went on a back stage tour at Disney MGM Studios.

Helen

I used to think that the only things they were allowed to show on television on Sundays were golf and the news, because that's what my dad was always watching. I thought it was some religious thing and they weren't allowed to show anything that kids might enjoy watching.

Athazagoraphobia

When I was little like 4, 5, or 6 I thought that you could stick the tape in the VCR and record something that you missed on TV. So I tried doing that once when I missed my episode of Arthur. So now in the middle of a Charlie Brown Christmas on video tape is Bill Nye the Science Guy talking about desert animals.

I want my Arthur!

When I first heard the expression "No news is good news" I took it literally and whilst watching tv one day my mom asked me what I was watching and I answered 'good news' thinking that because I wasn't watching the news then I must've been watching good news!

Jezabelle

When I was younger I used to think that at 2:00 in the morning the power company would shut off all of the tv's in the world because i thought no one in the world would be up at that time.

*Anonymue

When I was a child, my Dad placed a huge stuffed bear next to the TV. At least it was huge to me at the time.

Dad told me that if I touched the TV the bear would get me, and if my Dad couldn't find me then he would know what really happened when he wasn't looking.

I watched more bear than TV for the longest while.

Then came the remote control. ;-)

Bear Survivor