media

I have a very, very vague memory of the Lawrence Welk show. I don't really recall what it actually was, but I do know that part of it (the opening, maybe?) involved bubbles, and that there were people playing music - for years, I believed that this was what people were referring to with "soap opera".

I used to believe…

When the Sony Playstation first came out, I had only hear people talk about it and I never knew what it was. I always asumed it was a toy train. I couldn't understand why so many people wanted one!

I remember that when watching TV before there was a comercial break someone would say, "This program was brought to you by veiwers like you. Thank you." I used to believe they were saying, "This program was broktuyued by viewers li-(etc.)" I thought this meant people from the show would occationally recruit loyal viewers to do the long tedious task of broktuyuing the shows. Man I was weird!!!

I used to believe…

The first feature-length film I ever watched was "The Never-Ending Story". It was longer than any TV show I had ever seen. For years, I was convinced that it was called "The Never-Ending Story" because it was so long.

I used to believe that when they played songs on the radio, the bands actually came into the station and set up and played. Every time. I was like, "I wonder how they sound exactly the same every time though?"

I used to believe…

My parents frequently had my older brother baby-sit me. I remember one night we were watching TV...and it was past my bedtime. My brother was 15 and I was 9. My brother decided he wanted to watch Candyman. He tried to make me go to bed but I insisted on staying up until our parents got home. I didn't like sleeping not knowing where they were. So, I ended up watching Candyman at 9 years old. For years afterwards I was scared to go into a dark bathroom.I was convinced the Candyman would reach through the mirror and impale me on his hook. After I was finished using the bathroom I would step out into the hallway, reach around the door and turn the light off. God forbid if the power went out in the house and I had to go. I would scream and cry.

To this day I still turn the bathroom light off AFTER I step out in the hall. I'm now 21.

I used to try my hardest not to rewind or fast-forward videos, because I thought that each time you did that the actors had to play their parts either really fast or backwards. I felt sorry for them.

I figured out how women got pregnant from the movie "Grease" when I was six or seven years old. When Rizzo and her boyfriend are in the car about to have sex (I didn't know what they were about to do, of course), and the condom breaks, I thought it was a plastic ring, like the kind you get from cereal boxes, that they used as a symbol of their relationship. From that point on, I thought that if a piece of jewellery that a guy gives you breaks, you get pregnant.

The way I figured out she was pregnant was because she says she "skipped a period". Naturally, I thought she skipped a period at school, and thought, "Well, I'd skip gym if I was pregnant." I'd probably seen the movie 10 times before I was old enough to realize what was actually going on.

I used to believe…

When I heard the Shipping Forecast on the radio and they gave a weather report for Dogger (i.e. as in Dogger Bank), I thought that was the name of a dog. I once had some cut-out animals on a breakfast cereal packet, including a dog which I named �Dogger�, the name I had got off the Shipping Forecast! Another thing that used to puzzle me on the Shipping Forecast was when they say �Showers, good�. I thought, how can the weather be good if there are showers? Only when I was much older did I find out that �good� referred to visibility, not the weather!

I used to believe…

When I was little, I used to believe that people were always, always looking at me: through windows, around corners, under whatever I was sitting on, you name it.

I also thought my parents set up invisible cameras to watch all of my actions and that my various pets had cameras in their eyes and reported everything I did to them (my parents). I was also dead certain that people were always reading my mind and recording my thoughts in order to use them against me later.

I was kind of a weird kid.

I used to think that Alex Trebek's name was 'Jeopardy Alex', because after introducing the contestants, the announcer would say "Now here's the host of our show, Jeopardy's Alex Trebek!" I thought he was saying 'Jeopardy Alex Trebek', and anyone who hosted the show had to change their first name to 'Jeopardy'.

I used to believe the when you heard people clapping on television shows that they were other people at home watching tv just like me. So I used to laugh outloud in hopes that others were hearing me.

I used to believe…

When I was three, I got the idea that my life was one big movie, and that somewhere, President Clinton was sitting all alone in a movie theater, watching it as it was happening.

I used to believe…

A lot of people have said they believed when Mister Rogers said stuff to the camera that he was talking to them personally. I didn't believe that--I thought he was talking to the cameraman!! I always liked how he was so nice to the cameraman.

I had a bunch of misconceptions when it came to Wheel of Fortune. When I was really little, I thought Vanna White was a robot because she never talked (I guess I always missed the end segments). Once I figured out she was a real person, I thought she and Pat Sajak were married (I believed this for years). I also believed that the center of the wheel was filled with green slime like on Nickelodeon.

I used to believe…

When I was a kid I watched The Price is Right a lot. Every once in a while they would bring a puppy on the show to do a PSA for animal shelters, but it always occured right after they described one of the prizes. I used to think that whoever won that prize also won the puppy. I wanted to go on the show so I could win a puppy and my grandpa never bothered to straighten me out on the subject.

I used to believe that when a product had the label of "all new materials" that the material used to make it was all new--as in just made up, just discovered. but then i couldn't figure out why my T-shirt (as example) would be 'all new', it just seemed like cotton to me!

I was once very puzzled as to why TV weather reports would sometimes repeatedly say that the weather was "overcast". I thought they could reduce the problem by NOT repeating the reports so much. (I thought that "overcast" meant forecasted too much.)