![]() As McLuhan said, the real content of a medium is not the programming it delivers, not what’s “on” TV it’s us, the viewers who use it. “Video on demand” and “instant viewing” are also a kind of voting or data production, and TV becomes a near-instantaneous loop between producer and consumer, fulfilling Marshall McLuhan’s prophecy of a “cool,” tactile, and participatory medium that involves us in the “depth” of its very process. Nowadays television networking includes the cyber-networking whereby viewer behavior becomes instantly productive of televisual information. We don’t just watch TV, we send and receive it, gather and organize it on our personal touch screens, meanwhile interacting with sites to produce, wittingly or not, the consumer feedback that helps broadcasters determine a season’s programming (if TV still even thinks in terms of seasons). Like the working day, the boundaries and the notion of the “channel” have been overflowed. TV flows as easily and constantly as any other information, and this year it became obvious that TV no longer has a specific room or time slot-it’s whenever we want it, on our desks, in our pockets, or in bed, where sex can be endlessly deferred with back-to-back episodes of True Blood, Mad Men, or Breaking Bad. Decades later, the feelings of social exclusion that came with the experience of always missing the Banana Man inspired his own “remake.” These days, it’s impossible to “miss” a show. ![]() Kelley never actually saw any of the Banana Man episodes, only experienced them vicariously as school-bus hearsay. “Did you see Tina Fey’s ‘Brownie Husband’ sketch on SNL last night? Here, watch!” Or, “Did you hear Jeffrey Deitch got trampled at his own opening? Check it out!” TV is a weaker, less concentrated, and at the same time more dispersed and omnipresent signal than it was back in 1983, when Mike Kelley made a performance video based on memories of his grade school classmates’ gossip about a Captain Kangaroo character the kids were all obsessed with. Such moments of pseudosabotage of the traditional working day now merge seamlessly with that other engine of post-Fordist productivity: gossip. This cartoon taught children about the importance of oral hygiene.THIS YEAR we watched even more television at work, usually in the form of YouTube clips-if we weren’t streaming entire episodes on Netflix, Hulu, or sites operated by the networks themselves. This was an Australian cartoon about a family that was all oral hygiene products who would come alive after night fell. “The Toothbrush Family” also aired on “Captain Kangaroo” during the late ’70s. Keeshan was the narrator for “Captain Kangaroo” but the British version had another person to narrate. The show was about a boy named Simon who possessed a magical chalk where his drawing could come to life and he himself could enter their world. ![]() A British cartoon, “Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings” was a show that was Edward McLachlan’s book based. There was one more “Captain Kangaroo” cartoon that was a hit. Ludwig was an ode to Ludwig van Beethoven with the background music being his. The show was mainly about the issues faced by the forest animals which would ultimately be cleared off by Ludwig. “Ludwig” was a British-made cartoon that involved a magical robot resembling an egg-shaped gemstone. ![]() The “Tom Terrific” show mostly involved Tom’s adventures with his buddy, Mighty Manfred the Wonder Dog, and his rival, Crabby Appleton. During the ’50s and ’60s, “Tom Terrific” was a young boy who had the ability of shapeshifting with the help of his funnel-shaped cap. “Captain Kangaroo” would also have a 5-minute long cartoon show. The Banana Man was acted out by Sam Levine for both “Captain Kangaroo” and “The Ed Sullivan Show.” The comedic persona was initially Adolf Proper’s creation that would play clown-like character producing random props like a bunch of bananas from his ridiculous costumes. Stories such as Curious George, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Make Way for Ducklings, and the Sweet Pickles series would be read where children listened attentively. “Captain Kangaroo” had a popular segment where the Captain had a “Reading Stories” session.
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