Why Things Suck and How to Fix Them Part 462: The History Channel
If you're like me - and, these days, who isn't? - then you can remember a halcyon era, not too long ago, when MTV and VH1 showed music videos, The Learning Channel was bereft of chocolate-making Little People and deranged helmet-haired Talibangelicals, and the History Channel showed actual programs about History. Sadly those days, much like Charlie Daniels' few remaining brain cells, are gone.
Now, in the case of VH1, replacing Poison videos with a cruel social experiment involving Brett Michaels and a group women who were found hanging around the Modesto Free Clinic actually improved the network. Come to think of it, Teen Mom is much more of an "alternative" show than MTV's 120 Minutes ever was. And anyone who was surprised that, in the land of anti-intellectualism, a network called The Learning Channel would eventually morph into a Freak Show would also be shocked to learned that we almost elected a Vice President who didn't know that Africa was a continent.
But The History Channel? The History Channel was something different. It was the lifeboat many of us crawled into once PBS, suffering from a lack of government funding, began ceding airtime to thinly veiled infomercials and WASPs Gone Wild (aka The Antiques Roadshow). And while The History Channel still presents many wonderful programs like Cities of the Underworld, Ancient Discoveries, and Bad Girls Club, The History Channel has also become home to such as moronfests as MonsterQuest, UFO Hunters, and countless "specials" (as in short yellow bus "special") about Nostradamus and the Antichrist (AKA Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, Pope Benedict XVI, Emperor Nero, and/or Barack Obama) .
And that (along with about a million other things) is what really melts my s'mores. Look; you don't have to make up History in order to make History interesting. Mount Vernon is a fascinating place - it's where the Father of Our Country grew hemp and made booze. You don't need to send a couple of cretinous "Ghost Hunters" out there in the dead of night to help the spirit of Thomas Jefferson find his bong. that's not exploring History. That's not popularizing History. That's polluting History.
If the general public thinks History is dull, then that's only because no one has told them that Francois Rabelais used to wipe his butt with a live goose (Let's see that on Animal Planet. The guy made Michael Vick look like Betty White). If you can find a way to make that tidbit more interesting by tossing in two old farts and a Ouija board, I'm all ears.
