ABSTRACT
This is one of the classic images of the television viewer, found in countless films, novels and comics. Cartoonists still use the TV zombie as the butt of innumerable jokes: heard the one about the man who watched the plug when the television went away for repair? Zombies also make frequent appearances in the snide columns of the ‘quality’ newspapers. It seems that some writers and critics are incapable of using the phrase ‘…in front of the television’ without automatically adding the prefix ‘slumped’. Sometimes, these characters show up on television itself-in serious plays like Mike Leigh’s Meantime, or Lindsay Anderson’s The Old Boys, and as the butt of jokes in sit-coms like Till Death UsDo Part,andHancock. Even the BBC’s children’s programmes department called one of its productions Why Don’t You Turn OffThe Television And Do Something More Interesting Instead?
