The Un-learning Channel

Once upon a time, The Learning Channel had a cool logo – a black-and-white image of a tree, perhaps suggesting the “… tree of knowledge”. They billed themselves as “The smart choice on cable”.

So, what happened? Now, I'm not one to point fingers (poke, poke), but when they first cranked up as a public TV station, formed by NASA (yes, the actual NASA), they had educational shows like:

Learn to Read, a program to help adults learn to read.

History programs such as Battles That Changed the World.

Paleoworld, which aired from 1994 to 1997, a 50-episode documentary series about dinosaurs.

And, preschool educational shows, such as Ready, Set, Learn! in 1992.

Then, something happened, and reality set in.

Reality shows, that is. The mid-90’s brought us Trauma: Life in the ER, sensationalist TV thinly disguised as a medical show. I mean, heck, if it has medical-sounding terms like ‘trauma’ and ‘ER’, surely it’ll be educational, right?

Then came Wedding Story and Baby Story. And, now, oh, let's see. What say I do a quick check right now of the ol' TLC schedule (they're not calling themselves The Learning Channel now):

There's Cake Boss: Next Great Baker. And, it looks like we have a mini-marathon of cake bosses.

Tomorrow morning we have 19 Kids and Counting, then later is Make Room for Multiples".

But, for some really good educational programming, tomorrow morning at 10 and 10:30 AM we have back-to-back episodes of I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant.

Say, have you heard the one about a station that showed cool music videos and... stop me if you've heard this one.

'til next time... Adios.