Slightly Off the Mark

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

            There’s some irony in the fact that I’m not as thrilled about naked people on TV now as I was decades ago, when it was almost impossible to find any.

            When cable TV first came to Albion, it excited people in many ways. You could see music videos! You could watch movies on Home Box Office, almost as if you had a box office in your home! They had an entire channel devoted to the weather! How cool is that?

            Another exciting thing was that you could see the channel at all. If you happened to live in a bad place for receiving signals over the airwaves, you could swear every TV show took place in a blizzard. When I was a kid, if you wanted to go from watching three Fort Wayne TV stations to the two more or less visible South Bend stations, you had to physically go outside and move the entire pole the antenna was on.

            I’m not making this up, you whippersnappers.

            But without a doubt, the channel that most excited people of my age was a pay channel called Cinemax. Why? Well, we called it Skinemax, which should give you a clue.

            The first movie I ever saw on HBO was Star Wars. The first movie I ever saw on Cinemax was H.O.T.S., which according to a character in the trailer meant “Hold On To Sex”. Young college woman—who seemed just a little old for college—went topless in this movie. No tops! It also had a plot … I assume.

            Nudity on TV!

            Now it’s hanging out all over the place.