Bob

Batz

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February 13, 2009

The Crawl is Out of Control!

I’ve about had it with those on-screen weather warnings they show on TV.

I agree the silent messages – called “crawls” – provide a valuable service when they tell viewers of approaching blizzards, ice storms, dust storms, extremely hot weather, extremely cold weather, droughts, floods, tornados, earthquakes, tsunamis and, of course, lottery winners.

The problem is, the messages have changed dramatically in recent years.

In the beginning, TV crawls were one-line running messages that moved slowly across the bottom of TV screens. That’s good.

They provided weather warnings and other important messages to viewers. That’s also good.

Because the crawls took up so little space on the TV screen, viewers could read them and watch their favorite shows at the same time. It was a really neat concept and people appreciated it.

Now, let’s cut to the present day when – probably thanks to some yet-unnamed doofus in the TV industry – many of the once-subtle crawls have doubled in size. That’s not good.

Instead of being non-intrusive-yet-noticeable public service announcements, the messages are sometimes so wide they cut off the legs and other body parts of many of my favorite TV characters. That’s not good, either.

Or, to put it another way, these public service announcements have finally finagled their way into starring roles on all sorts of prime-time TV programs.

The way I figure it, it’s only a matter of time before you hear the host of an Emmy Award special say “The winner of the award for best TV drama goes to a weather crawl about a dust storm in Alaska.”

Contact Bob at bbatz@woh.rr.com

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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