TV Wonderland: The Enchantment of Early Television

Afterimage, July-August, 2005 by Joanna Heatwole

TV WONDERLAND: THE ENCHANTMENT OF EARLY TELEVISION

by Brad and Debra Schepp. Collector's Press/176 pp./$14.95 (sb).

TV Wonderland: The Enchantment of Early Television is an engaging introduction to the pop culture phenomenon of TV marketing in the 1940s-60s. Structured around recurring phrases in the advertisements such as "New and Improved," the book both outlines and illustrates the strong influence of television on the social fabric of the times: from TV dinners to family life to news broadcasting. The Schepps trace the emergence of this powerful marketing tool through short essays and facts about television history. The brightly colored reproductions of hundreds of vintage advertisements allow readers to make some of their own observations. The authors offer a refreshing focus on television, not only as a media phenomenon, but also as a physical object in interior architecture: a machine that became furniture. Through the chronological and thematic build of advertisements in the pages, the reader observes the creation of the need for endlessly bigger, better, faster, clearer and more colorful media machines. Despite an unapologetically nostalgic and uncritical tone toward the subject matter and times, TV Wonderland is still noteworthy to media studies due to its bold graphic quality and accessible content.

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JOANNA HEATWOLE is a recent alumna of Visual Studies Workshop and incoming Managing Editor of Afterimage.