About

Raised By TV is a Zelig-like journey through television history, and all items shown are from the personal collection of Paul Messina.

Messina grew up in a home with 8 TVs, including one in the powder room. Starting at age 13 he watched 8 hours of TV a day… more on weekends. If he had not been born, Sony might have invented him.

Paul Messina is a writer, reporter, producer, humorist, media maven, raconteur and all-around good guy.

Messina is an expert on Freddie Prinze Sr. and Johnny Carson. He once drove to Jack Paar’s house in Connecticut, but turned back once he got to the sign reading “Private Road.”

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This website has no affiliation with any media corporation or broadcast network, and none is implied.

4 Responses to “About”

  1. George Tafelski October 23, 2011 at 12:35 pm #

    Hi Paul
    It took me a while to realize that you have a blog and a nice one at that. It will take me awhile to look through the old posts but I promise to do that.
    GT

    Reply
  2. Jeff York July 2, 2012 at 4:10 pm #

    Paul,

    I didn’t think that there was another single person on this planet that loves TV as much as I do and the same way that I do. I’m thankful to know that I’m not the only one.

    Jeff

    Reply
  3. Paul Legas May 7, 2014 at 3:07 am #

    Love your site, Paul. I have a question for you, you have a great picture of Freddie Prinze Sr and Johnny Carson from The Tonight Show in 1975 or so; the jacket Freddie is wearing is owned by a friend of mine who runs a Freddie Prinze Sr.Tribute website and we are trying to find out if anyone knows the airdate of that particular one and if any clips exist or a complete DVD of that show does. Thanks, Paul.

    —Paul Legas, Cypress, California

    Reply
    • Paul Messina May 31, 2014 at 1:45 am #

      Paul — Sorry for the delay in responding. I will check the actual photo, but since I wrote “circa 1975” on the caption I believe there was no date on the photo. As far as finding the date of the show and a copy — unfortunately, the Carson people used to have a search option on the website JohnnyCarson.com where you could get a list of every appearance of a certain guest. That is no longer available. At that time, you could also purchase tapes for personal use, but now it is only for professional use and quite expensive. That would be the only place I could think of with the info. If I think of anything else I’ll let you know.

      Reply

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