tv

When I was a little girl my father was on TV and radio a lot. Most of his broadcasts were live. Whenever I would hear or see him I would understand he would be at work. Which in my opinion was being inside a radio or TV. It started getting really confusing when there were prerecorded broadcasts and he would be sitting next to me...

N. W.,the Netherlands

In 1969 when I was six, my class were taken into the the class next door to watch the first moon walk LIVE on our new school tv. I did understand the concept of "live", as in happening right now, but I live in England, as then, and really believed, with childlike disgust, that our teachers were lying to us about this broadcast being "live" because how can you have live coverage of the moon, (only available at night) when it was a bright sunny day just before lunchtime? For years I believed this was really a recording that I saw, until in 1999 I watched a 30th anniversary programme about it when they gave out the time this happened in the UK. Then it all came flooding back to me and I realised that I had actually witnessed a live event. I felt humbled, you know and then I laughed and laughed. My own children thought I was truly stupid.

Stephanie

When we got our first television, it was during a presidential convention week. Every time it was turned on it was the same program. I thought that it just picked up where it left off when you turned it on.

Anon

I used to believe that the map they show on the weather-rapport only showed half the world,and I couldn't wait to grow up and travel around exploring the rest of it! No need to say I was heart-broken when I found out I was stuck on this side of the (boring) world!

mena-norway:)

I used to believe that if i watched TV for too long, my eyes would turn square. As told to me by my mother.

Alex

As a young child, I knew things on TV were in black and white and therefore "not real". I could never understand what my dad found so facinating about "the news"- it was just a person sitting there talking!

Many friends had color TV's, but it was still fake, they were just special. It was color films at school and daycare that confused me most. It was on TV so it MUST be fake, but it was at school, so it must be real.... what a conundrum.

the_only_nighthawk

I always thought you could break through the tv screen and walk into whatever was on the screen at the time.

Linda

My mom use to tell us if we sat close to the TV we'd have to wear glasses. I'm not sure if this is true or not, but I don't sit close to the TV, and I wont let my kids do it either.

bendaini

I used to believe that when a TV cameraman used his camera to film something, the image passed straight through the camera, through his eye and body and up to the transmitter aerial. I could never understand why the screen DIDN'T go black every time hewould blink. I even drew diagrams to explain my theories.

Harry Palmer

Back WAY before VCRs and DVD's, I used to think that when you turned off a broadcast TV program, that the program would resume from where you left off when you turned your TV back on. :oD

Patrick Lynn Burns

I believed Walter Cronkite knew everything, that's why they let him do the news.

Dixon

When i was younger i allways watched childrens t.v @ my grans house after school for hours on end! They said to me everyday that i would get square eyes. Then when i had 2 get picked up by my mum and dad i allways would go "mum, dad are my eyes square??" They allways said yes you have, as my gran allways stood behind me nooding her head to make them say yes. Why did i belive them?? because i was only little and they brought me up like that!

$arah

I remember once when my grandmother--a dear old soul, but never the sharpest tool in the shed--was watching a Western with my family, and she asked, "How did they film that? Did they have movie cameras back then?"

None of us made a sound, but the silent laughter was deafening.

She also thought, when somebody got killed in a movie, then they really were dead.

She could never get the concept of that show, "Police Squad" either--you remember, the show that was like "Airplane," but it made fun of cop shows. There would be a cop (Leslie Nielsen) and a bad guy firing at each other, and the camera would pull back to reveal that they were, like, two feet apart. No matter how many times we explained to grandma that the show was a spoof, and was supposed to be stupid, she'd still say, "Well, that's just silly. How can they miss! Even I could hit somebody that close!"

I have a zillion stories about her like that. TV was a lot more fun when she was around.

Dan

I always thought TV was on hold when you shut it off. I would come home from church and expect the Smurfs to still be on, at the same place as when we left!

Matt

When my dad and me drove past the Crystal Palace tv transmitter tower. He told me 'thats where you get your telly from' and for years after I believed getting a telly involved climbing up the tower and asking a nice man at the top for a TV who would provide you with one. Risking you life for the luxury of owning a TV.

Marky D

I used to believe that Andy Rooney, of 60 minutes, was my real father!

KM

I used to believe that actors got paid so much money because everytime an ad, tv show or movie that they were in played on TV they had to act it again. I didnt realise that it was taped and they just did it once and replayed the tape. I just figured they stayed in the studio or where ever waiting til they got told that their part was in.

Blonde