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Dennis Hensley
Not long ago,
a struggling actor pal accosted me on the street and asked
if I’d seen his new soft drink commercial. I lied and
said yes. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I
haven’t sat through a commercial since the day I got
TiVo nearly two years ago.
Then there
was last Halloween. I had planned to attend a party dressed
as a giant TiVo remote--brilliant, I know--but when the night
rolled around, I decided I’d rather stay home and watch
TiVo.
I’m
addicted to TiVo and I don’t care who knows it. And
I’m not alone. Chances are, if you’re among the
half million-plus disciples who’ve come into the fold
since TiVo launched in 1997, you’re pretty much hooked.
“My husband and I have nicknamed ourselves the D-dink
D-dink D-dinks,” reveals Manhattan attorney Kerry Woo,
referring to the exhilarating sound TiVo makes during super
fast-forward mode—which, if I may brag for a moment,
allows me to sail through the insufferably padded Entertainment
Tonight in 8.5 minutes. “Sometimes when we’re
watching live TV, we forget that can’t fast forward,”
adds Woo. “It’s like, ‘Oh (expletive), it’s
not TiVo’!”
And it’s
not just regular folks who gush. Rosie O’Donnell, Jay
Leno and Sarah Michelle Gellar have all gone on the record
as TiVo junkies. On a recent Sex and the City, Cynthia Nixon’s
Miranda carried on an obsessive love affair with her TiVo
that hit a snag when her maid accidentally sat on the remote
and deleted her favorite shows. “I was kind of dismayed
when I saw that because it could never really happen,”
carps Boston actor/TiVo addict Eddie Ratkowski. “I was
like, ‘TiVo’s better than that’.”
For you tragic TiVo virgins out there, here’s how it
works. The TiVo Series 2 unit—which sells for $249 for
40 hours of memory and $349 for 80--is installed between your
cable system (or antenna) and your TV and also connected to
your phone line. (Tivo’s lesser know competitor, Replay
TV, works much the same way). Once a day, it calls TiVo headquarters
and downloads detailed upcoming TV listings (This service
is $12.95 a month or $299 for the life of the unit.) To record
a show, simply enter the title with the simple-to-use remote,
and TiVo will track it down. Want to record The Anna Nicole
Show every time it’s on? Me neither, but if you did,
all you’d have to do is click on the “Season Pass”
option and you’d be up to your elbows in Anna.
Or more highbrow
fair, if that’s your thing. “I always wanted to
be the type of person who would watch Charlie Rose, but I
would never be in front of the TV at the right time,”
reveals L.A. director Terence McFarland whose so TiVo-addled
he sometimes finds himself trying to fast forward real life.
“TiVo takes care of that for me and now I’m a
better, smarter person. TiVo’s the perfect combination
of a cruise director and the geek from the Information Technology
department at school. TiVo’s the guy who can make everything
happen.”
Rutkowski
loves TiVo for its ‘Key Word’ and ‘Wishlist’
features. A fan of old musicals, the actor simply enters his
favorite stars’ names on his Wishlist and TiVo records
everything they’re in. “Although sometimes you
get all the Ann Miller movies and all the Penelope Ann Miller
movies, which is not such a good thing,” says Rutkowski.
“And with TiVo’s slow-motion feature, I can watch
dance numbers and see exactly what they’re doing. I’m
a little nuts that way.” You don’t have to tell
me about nuts, Eddie. When Tyra Banks demonstrated the difference
between ‘live’ eyes and ‘dead’ eyes
on America’s Next Top Model, I had a hard time differentiating,
until I watched it again in slow-mo. Then, I could totally
see it. And it was electrifying.
Even hardcore TiVo holdouts like Eric Lapidus, a writer and
producer on the upcoming Charlie Sheen series Two and Half
Guys, understand the magic box’s appeal. “I would
still like to leave the house every once and a while,”
he says when asked why he hasn’t taken the plunge. “If
I have twenty hours of Sex and the City recorded, that would
be my weekend.”
Now, I realize the headline of this article includes the word
help but the truth is, like most of my fellow addicts, I don’t
want any help. You can have my TiVo remote when you pry it
from my cold dead fingers.
“Most
people are comfortable with their addiction,” asserts
Shanan Carney, the official ‘Voice of TiVo’ who
edits the company’s newsletter. “If I were to
do a search on the e-mails I receive and type in ‘changed
my life,’ hundreds of e-mails would come up.”
One such missive, she reports, came from a subscriber who
thought that TiVo was deleting all his favorite programs prematurely,
but later realized he had been watching and deleting the shows
himself—while sleepwalking. Then there was the bride
who received TiVo as a gift and was so enchanted she plopped
down on the floor and programmed it for her honeymoon while
still in her wedding dress. “People send me pictures
of TiVo birthday cakes,” continues Carney, “or
of their dog curled up with the little TiVo plush toy.”
Say what?
I may be addicted but I’ve never taken a picture of
my dog with the TiVo plush toy. That’s just sick.
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