media

I used to believe…

That little people lived in the television, and they would act out stuff whenever we wanted. I used to stick my fingers in the vents in back of the T.V. to try and grab them...

I thought that in cinemas, all the dust particles that you could see lit up in the beam of light from the projector were actually thousands of little pieces of the film travelling to the screen to make the picture!

I used to believe…

When I was a small child, I used to love to watch Godzilla movies. I thought they were like documentaries and I felt so sorry for all those people in Japan who kept getting attacked by Godzilla and the other monsters. I also worried about the day that they eventually made it over to California (where I live) and attacked us. I guess my parents should have talked to me more.

I used to believe…

My parents had gotten an old radio from my grandmother, which they listened to the oldie stations on. Being the young Sherlock Holmes that I was, I came to the conclusion that it only picked up old radio stations and in order to hear newer music we'd have to buy a newer radio.

I grew up in western Canada we got the Spokane affiliates of all the American networks. For most of my childhood I believed that while movies were made in Hollywood, all TV programs were made in Spokane, Washington.

I used to believe…

My sister was convinced Laurel a Hardy were puppets because of the lines in the old black and white films. We were quite young, and I didn't have the ability to persuade her otherwise, despite knowing she had to be wrong. It was very frustrating.

I used to believe that everything I saw in the movies was a documentary, so I could never understand why people kept rebuilding Tokyo or any of the other cities, because King Kong, Godzilla, etc were only going to come and stomp them flat.

I used to believe…

When I was three or four years old, I had seen an aerial view of New York City. I asked my father, a left-brained engineer, what would happen if I would "bust" into the tv. He answered that, of course, I would die. I assumed that I would be killed as a result of falling from the sky onto the concrete of New York!

I used to believe that William Shatner starred as "The Incredible Shrinking Man." Once I saw the movie with Grant Williams in it, I came to believe there must be another version, identical in every way except with William Shatner in it.

I used to believe…

Note: This is borderline "Misheard Lyrics." I've been a Trekkie ("Star Trek" fan, for the 2 or 3 out there who don't know) since I was born. Once when I was about three, I asked Mom & Dad when Kirk & the crew of the "Enterprise" were going to see the Snowman. "... to boldly go where Snowman has gone before." Nowadays, I'm an illustrator; and whenever I paint a nighttime or outer space scene, I always include a close-knit binary pair of stars that resembles a snowman.

I used to believe…

For some reason, when I was very little, I thought that TV shows "stayed inside the TV" until it was turned on. When we watched TV, the shows were "leaking out." When I started going to school, I would come home in the afternoon, try to watch "Sesame Street" and find that it wasn't on. I then asked Mom not to watch TV while I was at school, as it "wasted" "Sesame Street."

I used to believe…

My mother used to tell me that when people French-kissed in movies they were actually not really kissing, as with their heads at an angle to each other their lips did not touch (somehow that meant it didn't count as a 'real' kiss).

I'm still inclined to believe that she believed it, too. And still does.

I used to believe…

When I was very small (3 years), I would only catch bits and pieces of M*A*S*H as my mother and grandmother watched. I knew there was a character called Radar, and I figured it must be the one who dresses up like a woman, because he'd be able to sneak up to the enemy in all of his disguises.

20 years later, M*A*S*H is still one of my favorite shows of all time

I remember being 6 years old and watching some sitcom (Silver Spoons, maybe?) On this particular episode, Soleil Moon Frye (aka Punky Brewster) guest starred. I told my parents I hoped she got a good night sleep, because she had to wake up early the next morning to be on Punky Brewster. They laughed and tried (unsuccessfully) to make me understand that TV shows are not shown on TV as they are filmed.

I used to beleve that there was one person at a network station that sat behind a desk all day randomly picking commercials 24 hours a day. I thought that the rare times you see a commercal twice in a row was when the button for that commercial got stuck.

I used to believe…

When I was 4 or 5 Mom would watch her soaps while ironing Dad's shirts. Her favorite was "Shirts for Tomorrow". It was years later I realized what she'd been watching was "Search for Tomorrow".

I used to believe…

When I watched PBS programs, there was always a long pause between the programs. I remembered watching my teacher rewind the movie reels in class, and stick another film on the projector. I imagined that was what was happening at the studio during those long pauses...the people in the studio were re-winding the movie, and sticking a new one on. Now that I am a broadcast technician by trade...I know what I thought was actually occuring...because TV programs back when I was growing up actually did come off of movie reels. Nowadays though, they come off of videotape. I also thought if you held a piece of videotape up to a bright enough light, you could see the pictures on it, just like on a piece of movie film

I used to believe…

When people got killed on the big or little screen, I thought it was for real. When grown-ups were "tired of living", they would very naturally volunteer for that kind of thing.