No one in 1939 would have imagined that television would be the sort of venue that would allow millions of strangers to see Tyra Banks get a breast exam, but that is the kind of institution it has become.
Alan Rinehart, writing for Stage Magazine, was astonished to find that so much dough was being invested in such a young industry, yet he recognized that T.V. was capable of much good, but was also capable of generating the kind of banality that we’re used to.
“What then, will be the entertainment value of television?…What’s to be the entertainment? Why should we tune in? Will we get more than we will on the radio?…The revolutionary idea about television is that the medium has been developed before the art. It’s as if the piano had been invented before music, or paint and canvas before drawing.”
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