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Most American television stations reproduce
all night long only what a Roman could have seen in the Coliseum during
the reign of Nero.
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-George Faludy
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*[Since television
programs were the first Earthly broadcasts to travel through space
outside our solar system, they may be an extraterrestrial civilization's
first glimpse of Earthlings. For instance, the first television message
strong enough to reach into space was Adolf Hitler's opening speech at
the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.] "Those goddamn programs are our
ambassadors into space . . . the Emissary from Earth." She paused to
savor the phrase. "With an ambassador, you're supposed to put your best
foot forward, and we've been sending mainly crap to space for forty years.
I'd like to see the network executives come to grips with this one. And
that madman Hitler, that's the first news they have about Earth. What
are they going to think of us?"
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-President Lasker, a character in Carl Sagan's
Contact, 1985
Part I, "The Message", Chapter 6, "Palimpsest"
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We're in the same position as a plumber
laying a pipe. We're not responsible for what goes through the pipe.
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-David Sarnoff
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It is difficult to produce a television
documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes
one is interrupted by dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.
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-Rod Serling
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Stupid TV. Be more funny.
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-Homer Simpson, a character on Matt Groening's
The Simpsons
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*The day I need a
television puppet or clown to tell my children what's right and what's
wrong, I'll bow out as a mother.
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-Elinor Goulding Smith
"Won't Somebody Tolerate Me?", 1956
(Full text is available at
Daniel P. B. Smith's website.)
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