My brother and cousins and I came up with this game when we had been sent to play in an upstairs room at our grandparents’ house and were wishing there was a television to watch…

One person is the TV. Everybody else sits down facing TV, each holding an invisible remote control. TV stands there looking blank until somebody presses her remote and says, “On!” Then TV acts out a show–it can be a show you’ve really seen or something you make up. When a viewer tires of the show, she presses her remote and says, “Click!” and TV goes immediately into a different show. Viewers may discuss amongst themselves what they would rather be watching and switch to that particular channel, or simply channel-surf. When a viewer gets bored with this TV, he can turn it off and become the new TV, while the previous TV becomes a viewer.

This is great fun and really makes you think on your feet! One of the most entertaining tricks is to switch channels in the middle of a sentence, so that the sentence is completed with a fragment from a totally different context. For example, once we switched out of a commercial into a religion program: “Brush your teeth with—JEEESUS!” My cousin as the televangelist flung himself abruptly onto his knees and really bellowed, bringing all the adults upstairs to see what was going on!

This game may be helpful at times when kids are whining about having no access to a television or having watched all they’re allowed for the day.  It’s great during a power outage!