Glued to the Set: The 60 Television Shows and Events That Made Us Who We Are Today

Mr. Stark has insights on television that you won't find elsewhere. He is fair and thoughtful. Although he appears to be a liberal (albeit with at least some sympathy toward cultural conservatism), you won't often find his analysis colored by party lines. He has positive things to say about Lawrence Welk, Mr. Ed and Ronald Reagan and harsh words about Masterpiece Theater, 60 Minutes and Edward R. Murrow. Moreover, he shows you why you should agree with him even if your initial reaction was quite the opposite. Many of the reviewers remarked that he would be a good person to have a conversation with. I heartily agree. I only wish that he would do a sequel. Reading this 1997 book in 2005 makes you realize just how much has changed since then.

This book is not meant to be about the 60 greatest shows ever to appear on television. It is not, in reality, a book about television at all, but rather about sociology. It analyzes the impact of television on American life, and, conversely, the impact of American life on television. Bravo to Mr. Stark for writing a book which gives us much more than so many other books do in discussing television. Mr. Stark actually makes us think about its impact.

The reviews here seem to conflict, but (aside from the Lucy corrections), they all say about the same thing and pretty accurately describe this book. It is not for people who don't want to hear about the relationship between what was on TV and what was happening in American politics and culture. And it will be an uphill read for anyone who wants to always agree with the author or who doesn't want the author to spin out some interesting speculations.Personally, I loved this book. I started browsing it in the bookstore. Had to sit down. Read for an hour. Put it back on the shelf. Picked it up again at the bookstore the next day. Got absorbed again. Had to buy it. I found it really readable and absorbing. I love the theories: maybe SNL isn't what it's cracked up to be. Stark seems like the sort of person I'd love to have around to have long conversations with... to argue with. I like the provocation!Don't go by how the star ratings averaged out. You can tell by these reviews whether you're the sort of person who likes this sort of thing. If you are, you'll probably love the book.

Steven Stark has an uncanny ability to bring cultural, social and political significance to the ubiquitous mundane world of television. I took no small delight in his insights and tracings of the effects of television as an event itself, rather than merely the presentation of events.In my own life, however, television events I felt were important were not even alluded to by Stark. To fill out that part of the picture, I write this review.To wit:In his discussion of Walt Disney's influence, he failed to mention all the nuclear power stuff. One significant episode involved Walt dropping a ping pong ball onto a ping-pong table covered with mousetraps and ping-pong balls, resulting in a flurry of popping traps and flying balls. This was to illustrate a nuclear reaction. For many of us impressionable youngsters, this was our first take on quantum theory and the "friendliness" of nuclear power. Stark just plain and simple missed this far-reaching segment of the television mind warp.In his discussion of Walter Cronkite and his reputation as the "most believed man in America" he failed to note this Walt's role in putting to rest, at least in the visible media, the nagging questions surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In 1967 (I believe), Mark Lane's book, Rush to Judgement, and several others had rightfully pointed to the impossibility of the Warren Commission's findings. There was nightly discussion on the veracity of the report throughout the television bands and in the press. Then along came Mr. Credibility, who looked at America over the tops of his grandfatherly wire-rimmed glasses and he explained the controversy, pointing to all the anomalies. It was a hell of an expose. But in the final moments of the show--the last one of any note to address the Kennedy assassination for two decades--he simply said words to the effect, "but in the final analysis, the Warren Commission stands tall, etc., etc." This particular television event was a w! atershed event in the use of the media by renegade segments of the government to steer the public discussion away from what they were doing and had done. Mr. Credibility was in the midst of it, and Stark missed it.A final weakness in the book is his failure to mention the program I Led Three Lives. Today I don't recall if the star was named Herbert Philbrick or if that was the main character's name. But the story line was always that dirty communists were being infiltrated by the righteous secret government agent who was working both sides and who was always in danger of being found out by the nasty commies. This show had a tremendous effect of us youngsters and set the tenor of much of the early part of our political and civic lives. When the sixties came along and higher education and notable research by scholars into the dynamics behind the Viet Nam War and the military industrial complex, the revolt was just as much against the world as presented by I Led Three Lives as it was against "