I'm a girl who loves to sleep. If I don't get at least 7-9 hours a night I'm pretty crabby the next day. That being said, it should come as no surprise that I'm asleep well before midnight during the work/school week. Last night I was helping some friends out and volunteered to watch their two young kids (so they could go to a concert in NYC) KNOWING it would be a late night.
Not thinking about caffeine, I drank plenty of Diet Coke throughout the night so catching a nap before they returned at 2AM was no longer an option. I'm not a huge television watcher and spent most of my night texting friends, reading and surfing the net. However by midnight my eyes were feeling a little strained from staring at small screens (iphone and laptop) and I decided to turn my attention to the nice 60" screen at my disposal.
Of course being someone who is NEVER up at this hour I had no idea what was even on. I knew there were some "late shows" on at that hour but they are all repeats in June and I wanted to watch something that felt a little more current. Let me tell you (if you don't watch TV in the wee hours) that there are some OLD shows on after midnight. For example, the first show I landed on when I turned on the TV was the Oprah Winfrey Show. I figured that perhaps it was a repeat of the show that was broadcast earlier that day. After all it was on the same network. SURPRISE! This episode was from 2006! Why? Honestly, were there no other (more recent)shows they could've aired?
I changed the channel to view the "directory" figuring there must be a recent show I could catch. From midnight - 2AM there were plenty of shows on including Oprah, Malcolm in the Middle, King of The Hill, Seinfeld and Family Guy, and a few random dramas. I knew that the Seinfeld episodes were old but had hoped to find some other show from at least 2009 I could watch. As I read the descriptions I realized that some shows were first aired in 2000 -- TEN YEARS AGO! C'mon people ("people" meaning tv execs who put on REALLY old shows at this hour)! Can you really not do ANY better than this? If I didn't know better (and being pretty tired after midnight, the thought did cross my mind) I swear I could have been having a Twilight Zone experience. You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone! Seriously, what year . . . what decade is this again?
That's when it hit me: THIS IS WHERE OLD TV SHOWS FIND THEIR FINAL RESTING PLACE: MIDNIGHT - 2AM IS THE TV GRAVEYARD! To make things worse -- this time slot is TOO EARLY for my beloved infomercials! Oh well! Tonight I will go back to my usual bedtime but with a new found appreciation for the lame 2009-2010 re-runs I'll watch from during the Prime Time hours all summer long!
Happy Thursday Everyone! -- Dawn
OMG! I love that "Mum, Mum, Mommy"...that is the ringtone when my son calls my cell!! I crack up everytime he calls me...and then I remember...if he's calling me, he wants something, and I usually stop laughing! haha
Following you from MBC and on Facebook as well....I like your humor!!
Posted by: Lesa | June 03, 2010 at 09:43 PM
it had been a LONG time for me, too, since i was ever up at that hour. but i like your theory on tv show graveyards!
Posted by: liz | June 03, 2010 at 10:41 PM
I am the opposite of you, I am a night owl and so have grown to love the old re-runs, especially M.A.S.H, Three's Company and Roseanne!! However, I do feel your pain and know how it feels to have all those channels and nothing on!! Makes me laugh at the fact that growing up, the tv was limited to three channels....3, 6 and 8 and if you were lucky, 13 would come in when you put aluminum foil on the antennas! We've at least come a long way from then! Enjoy your writing style! Following you back from MBC, thanks for visiting me at www.critiqueoftheunique.blogspot.com
Posted by: Hazel | June 04, 2010 at 02:53 AM