Very few words have a birthday so precise, and so precisely known, as couch potato. It was on July 15, 1976, we are told, that couch potato came into being, uttered by Tom Iacino of Pasadena, California, during a telephone conversation. He was a member of a Southern California group humorously opposing the fads of exercise and healthy diet in favor of vegetating before the TV and eating junk food (1973). Because their lives centered on television--the boob tube (1966)--they called themselves boob tubers. Iacino apparently took the brilliant next step and substituted potato as a synonym for tuber. Thinking of where that potato sits to watch the tube, he came up with couch potato.
i thought that it might be connected to the popularity of the remote control device. not that i was an early adapter. im wrong. i had a roomate that kept a pool que next to his bed to punch the buttons on his portable tv. the remote gave onto channel hopping and channel surfing (which predated internet surfing). tv party
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- steve 9-30-2009 3:46 pm
i thought that it might be connected to the popularity of the remote control device. not that i was an early adapter. im wrong. i had a roomate that kept a pool que next to his bed to punch the buttons on his portable tv. the remote gave onto channel hopping and channel surfing (which predated internet surfing). tv party
- bill 9-30-2009 4:09 pm [add a comment]