The Definitive 1000

We are going to be counting down the Definitive 1000 things. Why are they Definitive? Because The Friendly Friends have deemed them as such.

#974 - TV Signoffs

Channel 17 was the home of the second tier cartoons and road Flyers and Phillies games.

FFJewbacca: When the Friendly Friends were just wee lads, these things appeared at the end of every "broadcast day" on the over-the-air channels in Philly. Yes, wee FF's watched TV until the end of the broadcast day.

Quite honestly, I had completely forgotten about them until today when there was a link to one of the best time wasting websites ever on Fark (which is, oddly enough, also one of the best time wasting websites).

The link in question took me right to J. Allan Wall's TV-signoffs.com and took up most of my afternoon at work. He has a great little Philadelphia section that immediately took me back.

There's something comforting and peaceful about these things. When I was a kid, if I was up late enough to see one of these things, it usually meant that something was wrong. Somehow seeing the signoff made things feel more calm and relaxed. If the TV was going to sleep for the night, then maybe I should too.

FFMatt: Like rotary phones, pagers and even cassette tapes to an extent, my kids have no idea what this is about. Also, one of the links takes you to the sign-off for New Year's eve 1986... my Freshman year of high school. You know I was watching that one, not celebrating with a cute girl at some "rad" party. In fact, I was almost certainly sitting in long johns and a Member's Only jacket on my couch wondering if we'd get heat back in the house anytime soon.

No one can honestly say that a screaming idiot with a British accent selling some sort of oxygenating, ink removing, floor steaming food dehydrator is better than this!!