Clearing up some myths that surround television

NEW YORK -- Your 401(k) plan ... skaters' gold medals ... the housecat you loved for being unique -- the world isn't always the way you imagined.

The same goes for television. So let's clear up a few of its illusions:

Myth: You are changed in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

Truth: You are fundamentally the same -- at least, in television's eyes.

Befitting a nation where capitalism reigns, tragedy and heroism have been tapped for advertisers' campaigns, and nowhere more than on TV.

Defiance in the face of terrorism is used as a shopper's call to arms, and whatever the product being pitched (cars, beer or the networks' own programming), it wears the Stars and Stripes.

So in a nation where consumerism overshadows citizenship, your patriotic duty hasn't changed, except in urgency: Watch those commercials and buy what they stand for.

Myth: Children are our country's most precious asset.

Truth: They're precious all right. Especially if you can cash in on their precious purchasing power.

No need to lament here the increasingly canny way in which kids programming on commercial TV serves as just one phase of a cross-promoted, multi-platform marketing blitz with similarly branded movies, songs, videos, books and, of course, a line of merchandise to keep the dollars coming.

But what's dismaying is how advertisers have infiltrated kids shows on public TV. Before and after the cartoon show "Arthur," a certain cereal sponsor offers this sugar-frosted claptrap: "26 little letters," goes its blurb, "that spell the names that tell the world who we are, and help us make new friends and make the world a nicer place to be." All part of your good breakfast.

Another sponsor, SpaghettiOs, shrewdly co-opts "Sesame Street's" learning-oriented spoof of sponsor IDs by declaring that the show is "brought to you every day by the letter 'O.'"

But worst of all (so far) is a feature on the "Elmo's World" segment of "Sesame Street," where the furry red Muppet plays with his computer and receives e-mail while the PC jabbers, "You've got mail! You've got mail!"