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I'll take 'Everything I Know' for $200, Alex "Monday I lost a link to my first experience with consumer awareness. Rod Roddy, the man who spent the last 17 years yelling "Come on DOWN, you're the next contestant on... 'The Price is Right!' "died of cancer. Presumably he'll move on to the Showcase Round. "When I was growing up, "The Price is Right" and "Jeopardy!" and similar game shows were my primary source of information. By the time I was 9, I could accurately identify the tallest waterfall in the world (Angel Falls), what "ZIP" in "ZIP code" stands for (Zoning Improvement Plan), and the sticker price for an Amana two-door electric freezer ($1 more than whatever the middle contestant guessed)."
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quote: Thanks to "M*A*S*H," I've always been ready to perform an emergency tracheotomy with a ballpoint pen at a moment's notice.
We all take television for granted. If you watch boaring old PBS, you can pick up some really great facts too. I filled in all my holes on the Civil War from Ken Burns' documentaries!
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I made a point of not mentioning PBS, the History Channel, or anywhere else where you might find programming actually intended to teach. I wanted to focus on the stuff I picked up despite myself, like learning how to do a 180 in my car.
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The Price is Right was an integral part of my childhood...
(thinks) Let's just hope that his career didn't follow him into the grave... I mean, I think I'd freak if I was close to death and heard, "come on down..." Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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More science,especially quantum physics, could be learned from one season of Star Trek (take your pick, any series will do) than from the Terminator movie and all of the "Back to the Future" movies.
It wouldn't be any more accurate. There is just much more of it.
"Emergency" or "Squad 51" could greatly improve your medical skills, including knowing that you to revive the patient fromt the heart attack, wait until the counter reaches 400 before placing the paddles on the chest.
Women never have heart attacks. I've seen the doctors and paramedics on TV rip the shirts off of men having heart attacks, but never once from a woman.
Japan was also in WWII. This was taught to me by the Professor on Gilligan's island when they found the surviving soldier sharing their island with them.
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Stargate SG-1 taught me that once you hit colonel in the Air Force, you can backtalk all you want, especially if you've saved the world a few times. I also learned that wormholes go only one way.
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Mental note: talk to Dan_Raven before writing any more of those kinds of columns...
The unedited version was half again as long and had more attributions, but I've been trying to control my column size.
I watched "Emergency!" faithfully with my parents every week and the only things I remember at all is that the lady at the hospital was named "Rampart" and that once they had to rescue a woman who had her toe stuck in a tub faucet.
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Did you, like me, also learn history from The Voyagers and Quantum Leap?
Loved the article. "It's funny because it's true!"
Oh, and a little side-anecdote: The preamble, as sung in Schoolhouse Rock, is wrong! The first day of first grade, thinking I was "all that," I raised my hand in response to the teacher's question as to whether or not anyone knew the preamble.
"We the people, in order to form--"
"Wrong. Anyone else?"
The song leaves out "of the United States." I don't know if I've ever gotten over that feeling of abject failure and humiliation in front of a class of my peers. Luckily, later that same day, someone (E.J.) peed his pants because he was afraid to ask to go to the bathroom, so I didn't remain the focus of ridicule.
quote: The techno babble is actually more factual than non trekies realize.
Well, sometimes it was.
There's a great Trek filk called "The USS Makes Sh*t Up" that discusses this in detail.
"I was stranded, on a planet just me and Spock We met a nasty nazi alien who locked our asses up. We found a hunk of crystal and a metal piece of bed and made a laser phaser gun and shot him in the head.
(chorus) And I said, Bounce a graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish. That's the way we do things, lad we're making sh*t up as we wish! The Klingons and the Romulans hold no threat for us, for if we find we're in a bind we'll just make some sh*t up.
I was standing on the bridge when Sulu came to me. With tears in his eyes he said, Captain, can't you see? The ship is gonna blow, do something, he beseeched. I got a tribble and some chewing gum and stopped the warp core breech.
(chorus) And I said, Bounce a graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish. That's the way we do things, lad we're making sh*t up as we wish! The Klingons and the Romulans hold no threat for us, for if we find we're in a bind we'll just make some sh*t up.
etc. etc.
It goes on, covering every version, and is hilarious.
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quote:I watched "Emergency!" faithfully with my parents every week and the only things I remember at all is that the lady at the hospital was named "Rampart" and that once they had to rescue a woman who had her toe stuck in a tub faucet.
Another "Emergency" factoid: When asked in one episode where he went to high school, DeSoto (the serious paramedic, as opposed to Gage, who was the wacky one) answered that he graduated from Norwalk High. Which was cool, because that was the high school I graduated from. We got a good laugh over that in our house.
Anyway - great column, Chris. But I must be old, because I remember "The Price Is Right" before Rod Roddy was the announcer. For that matter, I remember when Bob Barker was the host of "Truth or Consequences", before TPIR ever came along. And I remember "Jeopardy" when it was a network show and Alex Trebek was not the host. It was on in the mornings and I was always glad when I had to stay home sick from school, because then I'd get to watch it, right after "Concentration".
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during the summer when I was little I would watch The Price is Right faithfully everyday and 90% of the time was better on the bids than the contestants. I also watched $100,000 Name That Tune, Press Your Luck, and Let's Make a Deal reruns from before I was born where the retail value of the new car was $5,000!
I will always remain a Jeopardy! nerd, though.
In Spanish-speaking countries, do you think it's ¡Jeopardía! ?
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A show that seems to be full of (maybe) useful information is CSI... that is, if you ever wanted the help the police figure out one of your neighborhood crimes.
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Can I be the your triplet? (Oh, wait—I'm already Annie and Katharina's triplet, so does that make us quadruplets?) I've always had fantasies of going on The Price Is Right or Jeopardy!Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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I was on "It's Academic", a high school quiz show in D.C. Does anyone out there know if Mac McGarry is still alive and doing it? He was looking pretty mature in 1986.
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Jon Boy, I said this to hansenj in another thread when we decided that she and I were twins:
quote: We're all connected actually because Annie is my other twin, and she's triplets with Jon Boy and katharina. So, we're all twins a few times removed.
We have this wacky family tree around here...
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My senior prom date won on college Jeopardy -- does that count for anything? (Since we didn't go on any subsequent dates and college comes after high school, and she sent me none of her winnings, I do realize that the apparent answer is no.)
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