Sunday, January 27, 2008

Remember when History was history?

I like the History Channel. Have for a long time.

The Wife doesn't understand how I can go to sleep watching TV, much less, watching the History Channel.

One of her common complaints was "waking up at 2 o'clock in the morning and -- BOOM! -- explosions going off. Sure enough, it's you gone to sleep with the Hitler Channel on."

That was her pet name for the History Channel: the Hitler Channel.

Because of all the World War II shows they'd show. Yeah, I'm sure you had already figured that out.

But that's the old History Channel.

Now, when I turn on the History Channel, I'm finding things like the prophecies of Nostradamus. Or some show about Bigfoot. Or a bunch of UFO hunters.

At noon today, for example, there was an episode of the series Decoding The Past. That sounds all well and good. Except the name of the episode was Doomsday 2012: The End of Days.

Excuse me?

But 2012 isn't history. It's the future.

And now this TV show is telling me all about stuff that will happen in the future.

In other words, crap.

Like the shows about UFOs.

Some people believe all that stuff.

Me? I am aware that The X-Files was a TV show and not a documentary.

So why does the History Channel show things like Bigfoot, UFOs, and 2012?

Because people will watch those shows. And lots of folks believe that stuff.

And here's the scary part: those folks can vote.

Anyway, I think they need to start up another channel: The Suckers Who'll Believe Anything Channel.

And give me back my Battle of Britain.

6 comments:

  1. Remember when SciFi actually showed science fiction? Now it's got damn ghost stories and horror movies & s**t.

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  2. Amen. I, too, spent many nights engrossed in the documentary/history programming that used to be the hallmark of the History Channel. Now, I increasingly find myself watching Discovery (often not much better) or even Food Network in an attempt to escape the "Search for the Alien UFO Ghost Hippies from the Missing Planet."

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  3. You forgot all the "earth science" and climate change bits. Those are decidedly a-historical too.

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  4. Jenda: Ah, yes. I'm wondering sometimes if I'm watching the AlGore channel.

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  5. I love the History Channel's historical epic "Ice Road Truckers!" I eagerly await their "Gopher Gangsters of Hoboken" series. Just as the history channel no longer deals with history and the Sci Fi channel now features the adventures of battle star Valvoline I also notice that even the cooking channel now features fewer and fewer cooking shows and instead shows us the adventures of fry chiefs in outer space or challenging the history channels executives.

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