FIRST BROADCAST: What television looked like in 1939

          

Bentley's on TV!

Bentley never ceases to amaze us with his awareness of things. We've seen him watch TV before, ads and things like that, where patterns move rapidly. Cartoons are a favorite. But this time it was a show on CBC's The Nature of Things, all about the domestic cat. For the first five minutes he sat demurely, facing the TV with his ears alertly pricked. Then suddenly he jumped up on the TV stand as if he wanted to become part of the action on the screen.

Obviously he knew these were cats, but because we adopted him so young, I'm not sure how many cats he has actually seen or interacted with. But he knew. At some point he even looked around behind the screen, as if he thought the cats were actually there. Then he pawed at the screen the way he sometimes paws at the window. This carried on for at least half of the hour-long show, meaning my cat has a longer attention span than most humans.

He often did look like part of the show, which was a bit eerie. He fit right in. It gave the program an oddly 3D look. The first gif looks a bit like one of those silhouettes of a movie audience watching a romantic encounter on-screen.

Until that old geezer/cat expert comes on-screen, it looks for all the world as if Bentley is scratching at a real fence.

Bentley doesn't just want to be on TV. He wants to be in TV. 

Whatever happened to that Blue's Clues guy?

Who cares? But he was pretty creepy. I only remember this vaguely from when my grandkids were toddlers, which I call the Poop n' Pampers years. Later, the Poop n' Pull-ups, then the go-sit-on-the-potty-or-I'll-kill-you years, or - etc. etc. The Blues Clues Guy drove me crazy because he shoved his face right into the camera with these big, blank, staring eyes. He's no different now, but I'll spare you the six-minute YouTube update from which I made this gif. The significant thing about the gif is the Amazing Self-Erasing Windowpane! Look closely, and you'll notice the pawprint is actually coming off BEFORE the Blue's Clues guy takes the rag to it. He should have patented this instead of going on to a failed career as a rock musician. Still, he lives in a penthouse in New York, and my guess is some very rich guy is keeping him, and they "do it" to reruns of Blue's Clues. Oh, sorry - that was a really horrible joke, but then, that was a really horrible show. Except for the self-erasing windowpane.