And, indeed, from the obscure Santa Barbara to the infamous Baywatch, we had them all, and, boy! was it fun. From 2 hours of programming before December 1989, mostly Ceausescu’s speeches and soviet cartoons, to a 24/7 outpour of sunny beaches like Santa Monica and glistening homes in Beverly Hills - the onslaught of American programming marked my generation of TV viewers deeper than we’d like to admit.
Not only can I relate to Alf fans (I rooted for him against the household cat), I also named my first two goldfish David and Hasselhoff. In fact I can still quote entire lines from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles “They’re heroes in a half-shell and they’re… green!”.
Oh and Captain Planet … (okay, many Americans might not even remember Captain Planet, but I had a badge and a Power ring that I won in an acting competition when I was 12 and I was NOT AFRAID to use them).
And of course, Married with Children – which I’m sure inspired many a Romanian man to adopt Al Bundy’s disgruntled, cannot-be-bothered attitude towards all things domestic. And while I’m on the topic of life mimicking sitcoms, I must note that out of a class of 30, about 22 of my high school colleagues went on to pursue careers in law inspired by Ally McBeal.
Anyways, while the abundance of bad and profoundly enjoyable TV shows helped our English proficiency, it also marked our generation by a profound cognitive dissonance: the difference between our living standards and those of our beloved characters was painful. Sometimes I blame American TV for the deeply ingrained materialism of my generation – because we had so little and wanted so much, many of us ended up caring more about things than about people, and more about money than about anything else.
But then, without American TV, how would I be able to look now at California’s beeches and say, in all honesty: “Yes, this definitely looks familiar”
Sitcoms = 1. Life = 0.
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