ABSTRACT
A mild version of the trend occurred in the common parlance that arose to refer to television users, although perhaps not as pathological. In ordinary conversation, Americans have applied a variety of terms to television and to adults who use it too much: couch potato, boob tube, idiot box, and addict. These names, often used in jest but based on a belief in their essential truth, suggest that some adults lacking intelligence or ambition watch too much television. Magazines published a steady flow of cartoons about TV watching through the 1960s. The New Yorker's picture of television America, as revealed in its many cartoons, is intrusive. From the mid-1940s to the early 1950s, the cartoons typically portrayed television families with husbands who wore suits and ties, reflecting the audience skewed to the upper-middle class who then could afford a TV.
