Lightspeed Briefs: As Seen in Your Dreams

Posted on November 23, 2007 by Gene

I’m watching last night’s broadcast of “The Incredibles” on NBC, and just as I am drawn into this witty and beautifully animated film… a stick figure pushing a shopping cart with a Target logo runs across the bottom of the screen.

We’re now watching commercials WHILE the show is playing — not just promos, logos, and the like, but actual ADS moving around the screen.

And yet I wonder, when will I simply turn it off, disconnect the satellite, and stop watching?

Meanwhile, yesterday I found some old videotapes of “St. Elsewhere” that I’d taped in the 1980s. I popped them in and watched with nostalgia as the show aired without a network logo (except for “IN STEREO where available” at the beginning), with no promos every few minutes, with no rating every time it came back from commercial. I was more nostalgic to see bumpers when going to commercial, a quaint network custom that clearly delineated where the show ended and the ads began. What’s more, the end of the show had real credits, not cut down or squished to make room for more ads. And most shocking of all, the show ran an astounding 48 minutes, leaving only 12 minutes of ads. Guess what? Hour-long shows today are 42 minutes which leaves a whopping 18 minutes of ads — and this doesn’t include the ads that are shown DURING the program.