The History Channel 730,363 views The History Channel is a television network that was originally intended to air

programs about history. But then the producers shrugged and said, "Eh." Just The Facts The History Channel used to be known for the disproportionate attention they gav e to Nazis. Then they changed their motto to "History: Made Every Day." This is ingenious, because it means they can make a show about anything--truck d rivers, aliens, some guy breaking shit with power tools--and pass it off as hist ory. How the History Channel Loosely Interprets Its Own Name A while back, it became fashionably witty to refer to the History Channel as "th e Hitler Channel," because going by its schedule, you'd think World War II accou nted for about eighty percent of the human record. It may have seemed like the n etwork had a soft spot for National Socialism, but really it was simple laziness : the abundance of WWII film footage made it easy for them to fill out their lin eup with documentaries on dogfights, D-Day, and legendary officers like George P atton and Tom Hanks. Decorated with an Academy Award for outflanking the box office at the battle of Philadelphia. To be fair, though, it wasn't unreasonable for the network to air some extra pro gramming devoted to World War II, seeing as that conflict did kill seventy milli on people and shape the world we've known ever since. Besides, it was awesome. In the past few years, however, things have changed. The History Channel has rel egated most of their shows about planes, guns, and fascists to their mildly psyc hotic offshoot, the Military History Channel. This has left them with a lot of n ewly available airtime, which they've used to... go completely nuts. First, they changed their official name from 'the History Channel' to simply 'Hi story,' apparently hoping to trademark an entire academic subject. Paradoxically , however, their programming has less than ever to do with the study of the huma n past. Nowadays, operating under the premise that 'everything becomes history a s soon as it happens,' they just make shows about whatever the hell they want. Like, for instance, Ice Road Truckers: a program that follows gruff, prideful be ar-men as they drive heavy trucks over the long, treacherous routes of the froze n north. Aside from the odd truck breaking through the ice, most of the show jus t depicts the truckers cussing at each other over the CB and bragging to the cam era about how suicidal and thankless their job is. This show bears no more relevance to history than radish farming does to particl e physics. The only link to anything historical that the show's promoters can co me up with is that these cold-weather truckers are "making history" -- which sou nds like the kind of B.S. logic we'd use to shoehorn Metallica into an eighth-gr ade social studies paper on "any historical topic."

Zombie movies incorporate a little of both. PROBLEM SOLVED. And speaking of saws, another new History show, Sliced, explores the subtle and challenging historical issue of cutting things in half. The host shows you how a ppliances work on the inside, using power saws instead of instruction manuals. I t may have nothing to do with history, but it's kind of fun, as long as they sta y away from making episodes on 'nuclear reactors' or 'male reproductive organs'. At least some of History's other shows have better claims to historicity. Pawn S tars and American Pickers, for example, are essentially more adventurous version s of Antiques Roadshow. Now, I know what you're thinking: how could Antiques Roa dshow possibly be made any more exciting? That would be one way. Pawn Stars follows a high-end Las Vegas pawnshop that specializes in vintage ant iques and historical relics. It's not at all like the other kind of pawnshop, wh ich specializes in giving detectives case-cracking leads. American Pickers, on the other hand, follows two antiques dealers who travel the countryside buying valuable scrap that reclusive old men have hoarded since the McKinley administration. Some of these hermits make a few hundred bucks selling their old signs and rusty motorcycles to the pickers, who clean it all up for r esale; others suddenly become defensive of their forgotten junk and decline to t rade, insisting that they're going to do something with it beyond letting it sit there another forty years. (They won't.) "Well, I dunno, see, the Guggenheim was gonna pay me a couple million for this f ound art exhibit I'm developing..." The History Channel also seems obsessed with the future -- or rather, the end of it. They have no fewer than four programs dedicated to the apocalypse. Life Aft er People and Mega Disasters approach apocalyptic scenarios from a scientific, " what if?" perspective, while Armageddon and The Nostradamus Effect give credence to the prophecies of ancient peoples, who supposedly could foresee our demise, despite being completely surprised by their own. But perhaps the most disturbing development on the History Channel is that even their history shows are being invaded by ample amounts of "WTF?!". In April they debuted "America: The Story of Us," a miniseries that uses live actors and CGI to recreate everything from starving Jamestown settlers to Henry Ford overseeing his factory. The odd thing about this show is that the usual tweed-jacket professors have bee n replaced by a random selection of famous people with no history credentials wh atsoever. So, if you've ever wanted to hear Melissa Etheridge's opinions on West ward expansion, or fashion guru Tim Gunn's take on the industrial revolution, yo u're in for a treat! You'll even get a rare opportunity to hear Sean Hannity tal k about how much he loves America. "But really, the thing I love most about American history is that my viewers don 't know anything about it." In producing this star-studded patriotic tribute, the History Channel did hit up on one idea that is uniquely American: the assumption that fame is an acceptable substitute for expertise. Despite these questionable choices of programming, I still love the History Chan nel, and I will continue to watch Modern Marvels marathons to the point of negle cting sleep and personal hygiene. The problem is the slippery slope towards the

utterly ridiculous. A line has to be drawn somewhere, or eventually you'll see t he History Channel airing cooking shows, ultimate fighting matches, and Hannah M ontana specials in the same afternoon, under the blanket principle that everythi ng in existence will become history sooner or later.