Given that I don’t watch a lot of TV that has commercials, I’m certain this is not the first Christmas commercial broadcast. However, I am announcing that my first has just been experienced and it is Denny’s pancake sort of dish; I don’t know what it is called because I was focused on the little nutcrackers behind the food display and the bouncy, cheery Christmas music.

Thinking back, I believe commercials were something that we endured and maybe used to our advantage to run and snack or go to the bathroom. When I started watching WGN’s Late Night Movies, which came on at 10:30pm because we were on Central Time in Chicago, the commercial breaks did get annoying and lengthy to the extent that I would often fall asleep, missing scenes in classic movies. However, you really weren’t certain you’d missed anything because you’d seen the movies so many times before. Of course, if the National Anthem was playing or you were looking at a test pattern, you knew the vision of Bogart and Rains walking into the fog talking about a “beautiful friendship” was from a previous viewing.

Once, in a sort of misguided idea of tradition, we watched “It’s A Wonderful Life” on broadcast TV. Lordy! We could have played the video tape three times in the time it took to make it to Zuzu and the angel getting his wings and George Bailey winking upward to Clarence.

I must admit, though, sometimes a commercial pleases me. The latest is the Geico commercial with the pigeons on the telephone wire using the phrase, “Fire at will.” Then one pigeon thinks Will has flown by  . . . and it is not unlike a short “Who’s on First” experience.