The Boob Tube

Here are some of my favorite quotes concerning television.


"Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other." --Ann Landers

“They say TV really is still in its infancy, which helps to explain why you have to get up so often to change it.” --Linda Erdman

"If it weren't for electricity we'd all be watching television by candlelight." --George Global

“Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but television's message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that offers whiter teeth and fresher breath.” --Dave Barry

"Sometimes what’s right isn’t as important as what is profitable." --Trey Parker and Matt Stone

“Television - a medium. So called because it is neither rare nor well-done.” --Ernie Kovacs

“Seeing a murder on television can help work off one's antagonisms. And if you haven't any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some.” --Alfred Hitchcock

“Television is the first truly democratic culture - the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what people do want.” --Clive Barnes

“The Internet is a giant international network of intelligent, informed computer enthusiasts, by which I mean, "people without lives." We don't care. We have each other.... While you are destroying your mind watching the worthless, brain-rotting drivel on TV, we on the Internet are exchanging, freely and openly, the most settings, uninhibited, intimate and, yes, shocking details about our "CONFIG.SYS." --Dave Barry

“Television is chewing gum for the eyes.” --Fred Allen

“The one function TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were.” --David Brinkley

“Television enables you to be entertained in your home by people you wouldn't have in your home.” --David Frost

“Television is a device that permits people who haven't anything to do to watch people who can't do anything.” --Fred Allen

“There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?” --Dick Cavett on TV causing violence.

“First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII - and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we've realized it's a brochure.” --Douglas Noel Adams

“Television is a triumph of equipment over people, and the minds that control it are so small that you could put them in a gnat's navel with room left over for two caraway seeds and an agent's heart.” --Fred Allen

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” --Groucho Marx

“There are days when any electrical appliance in the house, including the vacuum cleaner, offers more entertainment than the TV set.” --Harriet Van Horne

“Everywhere we look, the world urges us to turn on the radio or TV, to make a phone call, to see a movie. Many of us fear, worry, that if left alone with our thoughts and feelings, we may discover that we do not make very good company for ourselves.” --James O. Freedman

“Television has changed the American child from an irresistible force to an immovable object.” --Laurence Peter

“If it weren't for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we'd still be eating frozen radio dinners.” --Johnny Carson