Inaction-Packed Feat! Man Watches TV 99 Hours Straight

Television is not just a mindless wasteland--or so says Chris Canole, channel surfer extraordinaire.

He should know. Then again, after all the TV he’s been watching, maybe not.

For more than four days ending Sunday--99 hours, to be exact--he worked on breaking the Guinness world record for nonstop television watching. Camped out at the Irvine Spectrum, across from the Edwards Cinema, conveniently near a Johnny Rockets restaurant and sandwiched between the maze of sunglasses vendors, leather handbag sellers and silver jewelry specialists, he succeeded at 3:30 p.m. Sunday. Pending official word from Guinness, of course.

With the same soundtrack of shopping center Muzak playing over and over again in the background and between telephone conversations with assorted news outlets around the world, Canole, 53, watched everything from “West Wing” (which he thought was great adult drama) to “I Love Lucy,” with about 10 hours of the Masters golf tournament wedged in there.

A sign posted on Canole’s 12-by-12-foot tent proclaimed, “Guinness World Record Holder Attempts New World Record.”

Twenty years ago, Canole says, he was running a coffeehouse in San Diego and had become concerned that the art of conversation was dying. In an effort to rectify the problem, he conversed with various people for 99 hours straight, landing him a spot in Guinness archives.

Interactive Health, a robotics company, and Action Lane, a furniture manufacturer, teamed up to construct an affordable massage chair available at a starting price of $999. Before it was unveiled last week, they contacted Canole, now a professional photographer in La Jolla, and offered him sponsorship to perform another record-breaking feat and money to promote their new product.

After hearing about the record attempt on a radio station, a Cincinnati man flew in to see the feat.

“That causes you to pause for a moment,” Canole said in a raspy voice that, by Day 4 of TV watching, occasionally cracked like a prepubescent boy’s. “He was absolutely casual about the whole thing too.”

Curious shoppers and passersby wondered how he stayed awake and how interruptions caused by, er, nature’s call were handled. A bucket of ice for his bare feet and a very helpful and attentive security guard, he said, were his secret weapons against nagging fatigue.

Bathroom breaks were made possible with a tiny hand-held television set.

One man walking by with his family asked, before leaving, “Does he spend most of his time in an insane asylum when he’s not here?”

For the most part, Canole said, he has been comfortable. With his stockinged feet propped up on a coffee table, a box of water bottles on the floor and a big bowl of trail mix, he said it was a cathartic experience and he was looking forward to a bike ride before going to sleep.

“Any cliche has a large percentage of validity,” he said. “Beyond that, the individual has to discover beyond the public perception . . . that the TV is a vast wasteland. I’m sorry, but the American desert can be a vast wasteland until you explore it on your own.”

Words from a sage or a man who’s been hearing a redheaded comedian get Ethel into trouble a few too many times?