#87 …But I Play One on TV

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The real problem with television isn’t violence, or inappropriate content, or news stories which appear to have been invented just before the cameras rolled. The real problem is that kids are imitating the stuff they see between the commercials.

Kids grow up watching ER (now airing its fifty-first ‘episode that changes everything’?) and they’re just dying to become nurses and doctors. By the time they discover the practice of medicine isn’t all trauma and drama, they’re so buried in education loans theyâll be healthcare wage-slaves for the rest of their lives. The only steamy romance they’ll see is if they get off shift in time to catch the newest ER (which will be the two-hundred-and-twenty-third ‘episode that changes everything.’?)

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Want to get the rest of this essay or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

NOTES:

• The title of this essay is a meme that originated in a cough syrup ad in the mid-eighties. It stared a very serious Peter Bergman who stared into the camera, and declared “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.” For some strange reason this was supposed to give us confidence in his pronouncements. You can judge his success for yourself by watching the ad on YouTube:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM9ziBfuGvM
• I tortured the English language in the “Eric Blair, Action Essayist” bit of this episode. So, it’s only fair that I do something nice for my mother tongue. If you’re not already a fan of the incomparable Grammar Girl, check out her show (and all the fine Quick and Dirty Tips podcasts at:
  http://www.QuickAndDirtyTips.com.
• Finally, if you’re curious about the real Eric Blair, check out his Wikipedia entry:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Blair.

Tags: humor essay | humor column | tv | career | csi | er | television | comedy