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Halloween heebie-jeebies year-round on TV

Looking for year-round fright? Turn to  TV. Not for reassurance, or even distraction from life's bogeymen. But to get the willies in acceptable fashion.
/ Source: The Associated Press

Yikes! Just in time for Halloween, North Korea's bully-boss starts making noise about a nuclear war. For any of us looking to be spooked for the holiday, Kim Jong Il seems happy to help.

But, sadly, come November 1 the "Dear Leader" isn't apt to join all true Halloween demons and vanish into the ether for another year. Nor will real-world terror's spell be broken as we scrap this season's costumes, masks and candy corn.

What to do? We can turn, as ever, to our TV. Not for reassurance, or even distraction from life's bogeymen. But to get the willies in acceptable fashion. To get our fear intake in a suitable dosage and convenient form right there on the screen, in dozens of variations at the click of a button.

Maybe we feel like wallowing in the nightmares of a community cut off from a world otherwise devastated by nuclear blasts. Well, we can help ourselves to CBS' "Jericho," one of the season's most popular new series.

Could be, we've got a hankering to watch a handful of loners struggle to prevent a nuclear attack they see flattening New York this very November 8. "Heroes," a new hit for NBC, is just the ticket.

Or, taking us out of the nuclear rut, the CW has two beefcake brothers chasing goblins on "Supernatural." And Jennifer Love Hewitt counsels dead folks on CBS' "Ghost Whisperer." (Sure, it's supposed to be comforting to watch her point a soul toward the light. But, sorry, even a ghost in need is still a ghost, and that's creepy.)

From 'CSI' to Katrina, horror everywhereOur taste for ghoulishness is served by the ever-more-grisly display of corpses in dramas like "CSI" and "Bones." Didn't we get our fill of real-life bodies sighted floating in floodwaters or abandoned at a curbside after Hurricane Katrina?

Celebrity Sightings

Slideshow  26 photos

Celebrity Sightings

Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans Jr. on the "Let's Be Cops," red carpet, Selena Gomez is immortalized in wax and more.

Heck no. We never get our fill. What we fear isn't getting more, but not getting enough. We fear that TV, even in its excesses, can't offset its impact on us as a desensitizing agent. We fear that it won't keep pace with our dulling sensibilities.

We crave fear.

Though, granted, not always. Not at, say, the airport, where fear directs us to remove our shoes for strangers.

But when we're vegged out at home in front of the TV, our shoes are probably off anyway. Then we're relaxed, in aspiring fear mode.

Bring it on.

What (beside Kim Jong Il's nuclear threat) do we viewers fear? Hearing someone's point of view we don't agree with. Losing cable service before a big sportscast. Getting so befuddled by an episode of "Lost" we think we'll never catch up. Putting something on YouTube, then nobody watching. To name a few.

Bad news also alarms us — in a titillating way. "The next story will shock you" is our favorite tease. We're beside ourselves at the prospect of shock value. Twenty years ago Dan Rather signed off by saying "Courage," and people are still laughing at him. Courage would just spoil our high.

The news washing over us like acid rain is scary, all right.

But even more scary are the adjacent commercials. On the evening news, one warning follows another from products for diseases we never knew existed. Overactive bladder! Chronic dry eye! Restless leg syndrome! Plus old reliables like arthritis, insomnia, cancer, bone loss, high cholesterol, asthma, erectile dysfunction.

Advertising about fomenting fearBut any advertising is about fomenting fear. Fear that we're not healthy, attractive, rich, successful, youthful, sexy, smart, hygienic, slender, souped-up, strong, patriotic or otherwise worthy enough as consumers.

We fear not getting our share, whatever it is.

We fear not being ready "when the time is right."

Fear is the empty calories we binge on.

Bring it on.

Life hands us the opportunity to make growth choices or fear choices. It's advertising's job to sell fear choices. The defensive solution. A quick fix for a problem we didn't know we had.

We let commercials, and the larger ethos of TV, plant doubts in us, and then, our faith shaken, we keep measuring ourselves against people on TV. So we can rely on always coming up short. Unless we tune in "Jerry Springer," where we revel in the horror of seeing ourselves in the willfully wretched specter of his guests.

We watch toothpick twit Paris Hilton and joyously recoil at her vapidity.

Eagerly we brace ourselves for TV's next four-letter word or wardrobe malfunction.

We savor the madness of Nancy Grace. (What's scarier than that?)

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself, as we all know. But we retreat into it anyway. Into palatable, entertaining fear. Our cheap substitute for feeling at peace. And the easy alternative to boredom. Which, of course, is the thing we fear most.

Boo!