The radiator in my office was making more noise than Geraldo Rivera and a posse of Elvis impersonators. Outside, the sky was the color of Morton Downey`s teeth.
Inside, I found out my secretary had been reassigned to help out in the department of late-breaking recipes. On my desk was a pile of videotapes: a six-part PBS series on saving the American wetlands. Naturally, it had been produced in England.
The holidays are tough when TV is your beat.
I stoked up a 59-cent cigar, violating antismoking policies in all directions, and considered the landscape. Thanksgiving-wise, the chances of heading off to Grandma`s in a one-horse open sleigh seemed remote, since these days everybody`s grandma lives in a retirement village or in a two-bedroom condo off a golf course.
I needed reasons for thanksgiving. And, quite frankly, television seemed like a scary place to prowl.
Then again, I`m a reasonably optimistic kind of guy. I mean, you have to be if you`re willing to pay money for cable TV, right? So I poured myself another shot of decaf and right away got tackled by an inspiration. Is the cup half empty or half full?
It`s all a question of perspective.
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I mean, last Sunday night, NBC did give ”Wheel of Fortune`s” Vanna White a made-for-TV movie called ”The Goddess of Love.” And it was awful. Really, really awful. The kind of program where you can actually feel your brain calcifying. Vanna speaks, and those IQ points start tumbling.
Shall I watch ”The Goddess of Love,” or shall I just stick a hatpin in my frontal lobe?
So where`s the reason for thanksgiving? Well, remember that they waited six years before turning over two hours of prime time to America`s favorite ditsy letter-turner. Vanna started on ”Wheel” in 1982, and it`s taken nearly the entire Reagan administration for network programmers to exploit this lovely young woman`s stunning lack of acting talent.
Once I started thinking in this upbeat way, it was easy to come up with reasons for emulating those wacky Pilgrims and giving thanks.
For example, there won`t be another televised presidential debate for nearly four years. CNN`s Bernard Shaw probably won`t ever get to ask another debate question. Over at CBS, it`s not likely Dan Rather will have to talk to George Bush until well into the 1990s.
ABC`s Sam Donaldson won`t be covering the White House anymore. Oprah Winfrey has only one direction she can go in the weight-loss department, and that process ought to be worth a million laughs in the next year or so.
So much to be thankful for on TV.
Geraldo has already done prime-time shows on Al Capone, devil worship, teenage runaways, the ”war on drugs” and the Kennedy assassination. So once we get past Elvis sightings, we won`t have to put up with those topics again. You don`t see much of the Home Shopping Network anymore. There are only 14 more hours of ”War and Remembrance.” ”It`s a Wonderful Life” will start showing up on TV any day now. We`re still three winters away from another Winter Olympics.
Bears coach Mike Ditka has only two shows on local TV. ”The Frugal Gourmet” has only one show on local TV. On ”Entertainment This Week,” host Robb Weller has already told us where he was when John F. Kennedy was killed. So that`s out of the way.
Any day now the networks will begin chopping off shows like ”Raising Miranda” and ”Annie McGuire.” ”USA Today: The Television Show” is planning an entire week without a single segment on cosmetic surgery. WGN-Ch. 9 is threatening to go an entire week without showing a Chuck Norris or Clint Eastwood movie.
The more decaf I consumed, the more I realized how much we have to be grateful for as TV viewers.
In just a few weeks, it won`t be 20 years after 1968 anymore. And television won`t have a cultural or political anniversary a month to recapitulate and get wrong. The Democratic convention in Chicago, the murders of Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, the ferment of that memorable year; TV has availed itself of the chance to offer tone-deaf retrospectives on them all.
Sure, there`s still ”Circus of the Stars” to worry about, and we`re looking down the barrel of too many Christmas specials. But there isn`t a single country-music awards show on the horizon, the comic-strip ”Cathy”
special has already aired, and Marlin Fitzwater`s days as White House spokesman are numbered. Life is good.
My Thanksgiving reverie was broken by a well-known Chicago journalist who elbowed his way into my cubicle. ”Where are you spending the holiday?” he asked. And demanded a tape of ”The Goddess of Love.”