A long time ago, Saturday morning TV offered Lassie and Rin Tin Tin, two dogs that were kept busy making good decisions for people.
Fury, “The story of a horse and a boy who loved him,” was about a black stallion that would only let Joey ride him. Joey and Fury lived on the Broken Wheel Ranch and helped tourists stay out of trouble.
Sky King flew his plane, Songbird, out of the Flying Crown Ranch, where he used piloting and ranching skills to retrain robbers and bullies.
The Lone Ranger and his horse, Silver, opened with the William Tell Overture. The masked man known as Kemo Sabe, as Tonto called him, “fought for justice” every week.
The thing is, there wasn’t a variety of choices back then. You either watched or you didn’t. TV disassembled nature into pictures, words and actions for a couple of hours, then you went back outside.
Neuroscientists today say childhood has been rewired due to dopamine spikes caused by technology.
Wonder if rewired children will talk about how they had to use their phones to look stuff up instead of just dreaming it up.