TV taste yet to grow up

It seems that my family’s television viewing choices are doomed to never intersect with my own. I’ve been waiting for nearly two decades for my day in the TV-viewing spotlight to arrive. For years I waited, through countless episodes of “Barney,” “Teletubbies” and “Sesame Street.”

Surely this won’t be forever, I reasoned with myself as I fantasized about throttling Barney till he turned purple. Oh wait, he already was purple. Maybe he’d have turned flesh-colored with a good squeeze around the gullet.

Next came the Nickelodeon, TV Disney and ABC family years, during which I had to suffer my way through endless reruns of “Boy Meets World” and “Full House” (man, those Olson twins went to seed after that), episode after episode of “Seventh Heaven” (which I’m convinced causes diabetes, what with the treacly subject matter) and Hilary Duff’s “Lizzie McGuire,” part of the far more nefarious brain-washing/conspiracy organization I call the Disney Nostra. There were a few years there where I was convinced Disney was trying to take over the world by melding the minds of the world’s youth.

Video killed the star

Next came probably what would be the most torturous of viewing times. I’ll never forget when my teen daughter came home sick from school one time, plunked down in front of the television all cozied up in her blankie and a mug of chicken soup, and flipped on MTV. That would be Music Television, which features absolutely no music. But what it lacks in music it makes up for in an ample supply of lowest common denominator programming, much of which involves lots of T&A and titillation out the wazoo.

On that specific day, the program involved a “reality” program featuring a bisexual porn star who coaxed a co-ed group of wannabe lovers - you read that right, by the way (makes one downright nostalgic for “The Dating Game”) - to ingest such creatively conceived inedibles as cow feces and pig gonads in order to prove their undying love for said porn star.

Good TV - we miss you

At the time I reflected fondly on my own days missing school due to illness when I was growing up, when I’d settle in with such classic shows as “The Beverly Hillbillies” and maybe a rousing round of “Match Game” with Charles Nelson Reilly or “Hollywood Squares” with that kooky Paul Lind. My daughter didn’t get it, rolled her eyes and told me I was weird.

My kids are older now, and so their viewing content has, mercifully, evolved. The programs that captured my kids’ attention during much of this summer were hospital-driven shows (“House” is on 24/7 here) and series in which people die and are then dissected, and in which raunchy murders are uncovered (“CSI” in any city is fine by them).

All this unpleasantness being broadcast smack dab in my living room makes a bizarrely cynical-yet-Pollyanna kinda gal like me who just wants a little cheerful programming want to run for cover.

In my faux little world of television wonder, people fall and remain happily in love, and the only conflict involves something mindless, like Ritchie Cunningham accidentally touching Fonzie’s leather jacket. No one ever gets sick or dies, and yeah, while the world must become a victim of severe overpopulation because of it, we never see that problem, so no worries in the wonderful world of Jen-o-vision.

And no one, but no one, must commit to memory the “Barney” theme song or have to watch Jamie Lynn Spears play the perky California prep school girl-next-door (till her rising star gets hit by a destructive PR meteorite of epic proportions).

But finally salvation has arrived: By summer’s end, my girls mysteriously became glued to the Food Network, hallelujah! At last, programming I can sink my teeth into. And my living room has become a de facto extension of my kitchen, where my kids actually learn something useful while watching the boob tube.

Sure, the girls tend to prefer the reality programming aspects of that channel - the cake-making smack-downs, the speed cooking with weird ingredients. And every show the prefer seems to have a team of stern taskmaster judges, which thank goodness is not the case with my own cooking. Though I fear that might be right around the corner: my girls grading my mealtime performance, and I’m pretty sure it might fall well below my girls’ new Food Network standards.

In that case, I might just have to find myself a large purple dinosaur costume so I can get even with them, singing, “I love you, you love me, we’re a happy fa-mi-ly, with a great big hug and a kiss from me to you, won’t you say you love me too” until they beg for mercy. And hand me the remote.