I agree with you and Mr. P. My kids did not watch tv on school nights, were too busy after school to do so. Sat. morning they could watch cartoons for 1 hour and have cereal while doing so-that was a huge deal!
We took them to movies that we chose, most of which I would never have watched, but were good deal for kids. Surprise, they all read before starting kindergarten and still prefer that to most things on tv-well except sports.
When they got to high school, started letting them make their own choices-by then they just couldn't get into the dumb 'cool' shows. They knew what was stupid and boring. Sure it was hard, when they would complain that 'everyone' was talking about such and such. Oh well, that's life...