Somewhere in the universe of TV viewers, there's got to be a person who actually likes those pop-up, onscreen promotions. Someone who thinks, "Thank you, network people, for those useful, informative announcements that block what I'm watching to tell me what I'm watching, or tell me what I could be watching next, which will then be blocked by reminders of what I could be watching after that."
Maybe he or she exists in some den or family room absorbing those intrusive promos that undermine what TV networks are ideally in business to do: entertain, not tick off.
TV exists above all as a medium of escape. But how do you escape into a TV show when it's plastered with scene-stealing hype?
At least one Web site, stoptvpopups.com, serves as a sounding board and support group for an outspoken few.
Viewers hate the detective hero of Monk rising from the bottom left screen for eight or nine seconds of vamping, followed by a ghostly but distracting text line that looms for several long minutes to accommodate even the slowest readers: "Monk All New Tonight 9/8c."
The USA network's motto is "Characters Welcome." Well, that Monk message adds up to 21 characters, none of them welcome.
And what about TBS, where "Freakin' Sweet!" is an onscreen message plugging Family Guy episodes available on that network's Web site: "Very Funny" is TBS' motto. Nothing funny about those cover-ups for its comedies.
Viewers don't forget. Viewers still cite the giant fireball, complete with a whooshing inferno sound, erupting on the screen to promote FX's firefighter drama Rescue Me. It makes them mad to even think about it.
Even cartoon viewers like Marge Simpson get riled.
In a classic scene from The Simpsons, Marge realizes that the TV screen that frames her is cluttered with visual promos. She takes a hand vacuum and sucks up the American Idol logo. When a squad of football players plugging "Football on Fox" swarms across the bottom of the screen, she sprays them with insecticide.
"Can't anyone just watch the show they're watching?" Marge says with a sigh.
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