Television gets a bad rap. As early as 1961, President Kennedy’s FCC chairman, Newton Minow, famously characterized most programming as a “vast wasteland.” Today, everyone from pediatricians to self-designated protectors of public morals point to TV as a cause of … well, you name it: childhood obesity, political apathy, high murder rates, low literacy rates. It sometimes seems that every societal ill is (or can be) in some way tied to the tube.

Be that as it may, we like television. We like it a lot. Here, LIFE.com offers a photo gallery that celebrates, without apology, what is arguably America’s true national pastime: watching TV.