TV Essay

Raphael Pires

Oct. 24, 2012

Survey of mass Communication

Professor Carpenter

           

I’ve been watching TV since as early as I can remember. Honestly I believe that I watch too much TV. It’s easy for me to turn on the TV and drift off for hours. Sometimes it causes me to forget about homework and get to work late, but the worst part is that most of the time I couldn’t even tell you what I was watching. It seems that I am put into a TV trance. The only time I actually pay attention to what I’m watching is when I happen to be viewing one of my three favorite programs. Those three consist of “Tosh.0,” “Swamp People,” and “E News.”

            Tosh.0 is a comedy show that stars Daniel Tosh on Comedy Central. Tosh is a host that pulls videos from the internet and makes fun of them. He has certain sections in the show such as the “web redemptions” and the “Breakdowns.” The “web redemption” is when he gives people in one of the web videos a chance to fix something they did wrong. And the “breakdown” is when he literally breaks down a video frame by frame and makes funny comments on what the person in the video was thinking throughout it all. I like the type of dry comedy that Tosh presents on his show, making fun of anyone and anything. I also find it interesting the way Tosh found a way to put two of the “big hitters” of mass media ( the TV and Computer) together and make a lot of money off of it.

            “Swamp People” is literally about swamp people.  The show follows a bunch of different gator hunters who live on swamps and pretty much hunt gators all day. To many people this sounds like a boring show, but the characters they found to be on the show is what makes it entertaining. Although I pretty much try to watch any show on TV about gators anyways, this seems to be the one that keeps pulling me back. Once again I believe it’s the characters. One of the characters, Troy Landry, who has been hunting gators since he was a kid, is known as “King of the Swamp.” He is one of the best gator hunters around, and he has one of the strongest Cajun accents you’ll hear. Anything that Troy says on the show seems to be funny. When I decide that I’ve learned all there is to know about gator hunting for a day, I turn to the “E” network.

            The show I seem to like most of all is “E News.” It is a news show for everything going on in Hollywood, whether it’s about a new movie that’s coming out, or something more serious like the death of a celebrity. Back in high school I got into broadcast journalism. A big part of that was because I watched “E News” and admired the way that the hosts could captivate an audience just by the way they said something. I was amazed and the power and responsibility that a host is given once he/she is put on the air. From then on I decided that I wanted to be a host. I continue to watch “E News” everyday, and try to pick up on certain ways that the hosts use the English language to persuade and audience to feel one way or another. In some ways I consider it homework, because I watch it to learn useful techniques for what I hope will be my career.

            Of course I watch a lot of other shows besides the three I mentioned, such as “How I Met Your Mother” and “The Big Bang Theory.” The difference is that I’m okay with watching the re-runs of those shows, and not with “Tosh.0,” “Swamp People,” or “E News.” I don’t like to miss when a new “Tosh.0” comes out because then my friends will keep mentioning jokes from the show that I wont understand. I don’t miss “Swamp People” because I truly do like to watch people hunting gators. But I especially try not to miss “E News” because like every other news station, its different everyday. If I miss one of the airings, then I might miss out on some information that might not be presented again.  This is why I also pay attention to all these shows, when I truly watch all the others shows because its a lot easier than doing anything else.