Once upon time there were big television sets. Really big. Not the size of the screen, usually, but the chassis itself. The innards were tubes and capacitors and resistors and transformers. And the quality of the picture could be measured by the number of tubes and capacitors and resistors and transformers stuffed into the chassis. Not always. But usually.

(And if "Midnight Mulling" continues for awhile, perhaps somebody will someday tell the story of "Muntzing," "Madman" Muntz, and the Muntz legacy in the hall of Television Design - and 4-Tracks too.)

But this is not about the man in the picture. Instead, turn your gaze to the desk in front of the man. Specifically, the item on the desk. No! Not the elbow. I'm talking about the rectangular item that bears an uncanny resemblance to a pack of cigarettes.

Specifically a pack of regular sized "Lucky Strike Cigarettes." And if you have reached a particular age, you would have known it without checking Wikipedia. It would have been in your DNA. (And your lungs. But that's another topic.) There was not a chance, it was a guarantee, that - if you watched any non-public, non-church, television programming from noon until the Star Spangled closing, you would have seen cigarette ads. Cigarette advertising was the mothers' milk of television budgets.

So when cigarette advertising on television was prohibited, what was going to replace it? Credit stuff, prescriptions with death warnings, cars, and pocket phones. That's about it.

Until election season.

And that's when the golden age of television advertising comes back. The drama. The dramatic music. The very ultra dramatic 'warning' ads. So, of course, the length of the campaign season has to get longer. Your TV demands it.

"What about the first golden age of television? Can I date the seasons? The peak?"

Yes you can. Remember the first paragraph about the bigness of early television sets? You used to huddle around the big, unmovable television set to watch the dancing cigarette packs. While your snacks would be passed by the miracle of the Lazy Susan - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazy_Susan - TM. Zillions did it.

Then, somebody thought, "What if the Television Set was perched on top of the Lazy Susan (TM)!" And that was the original golden age of television advertising. In color! With filters!! Regular or 100 mm longs - at the same price!!! And if Uncle Horace wanted to get a closer look at the dancing packs and those legs, just spin the TV in his direction. And remember, while Uncle Horace likes his Camels unfiltered, Cousin Hortense likes menthol. That's because cigarette advertising works. And it keeps off things like 'anal leaking.' Or it did.

So if you need a reason why our elections seem to always be going on, blame it on the cigarette TV ads. Rather, the ending of the cigarette TV ads. There had to be something to fill the space.