The Fall of Fall TV

Considering how few channels there were when I was a kid, I watched an unhealthy amount of television. When Batman switched from black-and-white to color, the kids in my neighborhood worked out a whole rotation so we could go to houses with color TVs.

And when Fall rolled around, I didn't care about falling leaves or back to school, but the new TV shows. I waited for TV Guide's Fall Preview with the same avidity guys now pine for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. For a few years, I even compiled my own scrapbook of daily ads from the New York Times, organized by network, with a hand-drawn grid of what my favorites were.

I was thinking about that era this fall, because,