I never got my ducks in enough of a row to enter the TiVo Gets Me Contest, but I’m sure I would have won if a video could have been produced. The product of my glee about the groundbreaking digital video recorder has a great vocabulary and looks good on camera. Of course, if Carter had been the Makice Family spokesperson and we won a Series 3 DVR, I’m sure there would have been some justified claims to install the new device in his room (perhaps on the top bunk, where he could OD on Discovery Channel without other humans bothering him).
TiVo entered our household as an early adopter gift to Amy for Carter’s first Christmas. She was skeptical, especially since the setup took about an hour. We initially used it to mine 4am Northern Exposure episodes back before such was available on DVD. Having not seen that great television series in almost a decade and not being able to convince Amy to get up before dawn to watch it (heck, I didn’t even know it was on at that time), TiVo was a great partner in reacquainting ourselves with Joel and Maggie. TiVo also introduced us to Bob Schneider (Austin City Limits subscription) and allowed us to keep a Bob Newhart psychiatrist skit forever (“Stop it, or I’ll bury you alive in a box” used to be on YouTube, but Viacom International made the site pull it down after it got Dugg). Mostly, though, TiVo allowed us to enjoy television—which I really, really do—without being chained to it.
Flash backward to early 2000. Carter, a newborn, has needs. He wants his mom and/or dad to hold him and comfort him, perhaps dance with him to Van Morrison. Mom and Dad have needs, too. They want to be able to watch The Simpsons or Buffy the Vampire Slayer when it comes on. The contemporary technology—video tape—requires that they (a) plan in advance, (b) find a blank tape, and (c) figure out when and where the show is going to be broadcast. It also means that if Carter tries to cooperate and falls unconscious during the first verse of Moondance, Mom and Dad still have to wait the full hour until the credits and scenes from next week are recorded on Buffy. Even then, the only way to watch that taped show is to not watch whatever else of interest is currently playing on the networks. Delayed gratification of Buffy makes Mom and Dad cry, waking up Carter. It is a vicious circle.
With TiVo season passes, not only can we ignore a-b-c above, but we can start watching whenever we want to, even if the live show just started recording a minute ago. Chicago Bears games are no longer a choice between loving kids or football, as I can start the game late, catch up at halftime, and pause whenever one boy starts pummeling the other with a Rescue Hero. We were able to get caught up on an entire season of Heroes thanks to TiVo stockpiling new and rerun episodes for months. The only thing it doesn’t seem to do it generate content, like recording Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends episodes that don’t exist.
The kids have clearly been impacted by growing up in the TiVo generation. Carter learned to read, in part, by looking for “Dora” and “Bob” in the now playing list. Now with KidsZone, they have some freedom of choice from a small, protected list of shows. Cyberchase and Magic School Bus seem to dominate, except on weekends when we quickly expand their selection to include other less educational shows, like Kim Possible and Time Warp Trio. Their expectation is that is how television works, so much so we sometimes encounter tears when we travel and the hotel room inevitable is not TiVo-enabled.
My family was once burned on 8-track tapes, so I went through a phase where hyper-caution urged me to avoid flash-in-the-pan technologies like CDs and Cable television. I jumped on board with DVDs and DVRs partly in response to that response, but it has worked out well for both technologies. We miss commercials, but apparently we that won’t prevent them from being effective. We don’t even fully exercise all that TiVo brings—like networking it with our computer and other televisions in the house—because it fits so nicely with who we are as is.