TeleVisionary By Jesse Greist
Presented as the Message for All on January 13th, 2019
In a land far away on the other side of possibility, there lived a people who only ever watched TV. They watched TV at home. They watched TV at school. They watched TV while traveling. They talked to each other through TV’s and they cooked, cleaned and voted all through TV screens. If you couldn’t find the answer to a question through TV, then the answer didn’t exist!
When little Tanya Venable asked her mother if a horseshoe crab could survive out of water, her mother told her to be a good little girl and go watch channel 13.
When Timmy Varsh asked his father “What’s for dinner?”, his dad said “Don’t ask me silly questions! Turn to the food network and find out for yourself!
So, when Tito Vick raised his hand in school one day and asked “What if the story we just watched about our first president, Telly Voosevelt, is wrong? Can we get a second opinion? Can we please, just this once read a book?” His teacher and all the students gasped and turned around as one, saying what was always said when someone suggested such a ridiculous thing:
“Impossible! We are TV people. We have always been TV people! Our parents watched TV, and our grandparents watched TV and even our grandparents’ great grandparents watched Rockumentaries on stone slab TV’s!”
Tito Vick got quiet, but the question got louder in his head. That night, when the washing machine broke at the house, Tito suggested that they consult the old fashioned paper instruction manual. After grounding him for a week, his parents said with one voice:
“Impossible! We are TV people! We have always been TV people! Now turn on the automobile fix it channel”
Later that week, when Tito went for a health screening, the doctor monitored his test results and declared “Take two hours of Health Channel and call me in the morning.” Tito Asked, “What about vitamins and exercise? I heard about a study that was done overseas –“
But the doctor interrupted, saying “Impossible! We are TV people! We have always been TV people! Now forget about those fancy overseas “scientific studies” and go watch some Health Channel!”
A bit later that week, Tito Vick’s parents were getting ready to go out to one of those new, fancy TV Diners. His mom dabbed some channel number 5 behind her ears and his dad put on one of his favorite Family Ties. But a breaking news announcement interrupted their plans. It seemed that the power plant was running out of power! All citizens were called to a special meeting to find a solution. Tito’s family rushed to their screens and logged into the meeting, where people were desperately shouting out suggestions: “We need to watch more TV!” They said. “What about the power plant channel?” “What about old episodes of the Electric Company?”
But alas! There was no power plant channel, and it turned out that the Electric Company was more about grammar and reading, and was no help at all.
After several fruitless minutes of shouting about which channel held the answer, Tito timidly said “What if we look somewhere not on the TV? Perhaps a book? A magazine? A research paper? There might be more than one way to power a plant?”
The town replied together “Impossible! We are TV people! We have always been TV people!”
But Tito was ready for this. He grabbed a nearby camera and a copy of “How to Fix Your Power Plant with Renewables” and began to broadcast to the big screen on the town green.
“Hello everybody! This is Tito Vick with a special report. Go read this book now!”
Well, that did it! The TV had told them to go read a book!
They opened up the dusty door of the old abandoned library and found exactly what they were looking for. In fact, after the power plant was back up and running, they made Tito head broad caster and he made all kinds of shows! One was called:
“Professors Gotta Profess”
Another was
“Weather – go see it outside!”
His most popular show was simply called “Talk to each other”
Before long, everyone was doing things their great grandparents had only ever imagined. They read without subtitles! They sang without karaoke! They grew gardens and built better homes. And eventually they even did these things without the TV telling them to.