It's time for me to open up a can of whupass that I've been meaning to unload on Australia's television networks for some time now.

Indeed, many have beaten me to the punchline, many times, in Letters sections of TV guides nationwide, berating the networks for this particular piece of televisual stupidity.

In short:

WHEN WILL THE DAMNED NETWORKS STOP PLAYING INANE STATION PROMOS OVER SPED-UP, SQUASHED-INTO-THE-LOWER-THIRD VERSIONS OF THE CLOSING CREDITS OF MOVIES?

Like me, you may have watched Seven's 'prime time' movie offering on Sunday night, Judd Apatow's flawed but enjoyable Knocked Up.

If, like me, you've seen it before, you'll know that the closing credits feature an amazing cavalcade of 'real life' baby photos of the cast and crew, and this beautiful Loudon Wainwright III song, Daughter (written for the film's soundtrack):



Like so many end credits montages (or even post-credits scenes), the photos and song are just as integral to the film as the actual guts of the movie narrative. They're a crystallisation of the good heart that lurks beneath most Apatow offerings, and a lovely way to end a movie that isn't really sure if it's a gross-out farce or a romantic comedy or a meditation on family.

If, however, you hadn't seen the film before - and I think I'm right in saying it was a prime time premiere - you wouldn't have been able to enjoy the credits (which reduce most viewers to a puddle of happy tears), because as soon as the final scene faded, the credits squashed down into the lower third of the TV screen, Loudon was silenced, the credits started rolling at triple speed, and a promo for Seven's new gee-whiz ratings monster Flash Forward showed up:



To say I was incensed would be an understatement. My Mum, who was my viewing partner, exclaimed "What are they doing, the bastards? I want to hear that lovely song!"

Allow me to expand: I like watching the credits. It's a way of, tenuous as it may seem, offering your thanks and respects to the hundreds (sometimes thousands) of people who contribute to the wonderful world of cinema. In my entire moviegoing lifetime, I have left a cinema before the credits finished rolling a grand total of four times; two early vacations were due to arguments with stupid exes, and two were my only ever walk-outs (for the record, Sahara, and The Hairy Bird).

Network television, on the other hand, "walks out" just about every time it shows a movie. Credits - whether old-fashioned, plain text-based or accompanied by further dialogue, special songs, bloopers or bonus scenes, are squashed, sped up, and shat upon.

Here are a few other notable end credits sequences that network television would rather you didn't watch (based on recent research, i.e., viewing):





And so on; I assume by now you're getting the picture if you don't already share my rabid hatred of this broadcasting trend.

From memory (and not surprisingly), it was Nine that started the trend back in the '90s, when they'd play Pete Smith voiceovers during credits sequences, imploring us to tune in for Sale Of The Century or the latest episode of E.R.

After they set the ball rolling, it was a free for all - it's quite rare to be able to watch a movie's credits either in full, or at all, these days. More often than not they are shoved to the side while a promo for some hateful new reality dross is played.

Do the networks not trust us to be able to spend a minute or two reflecting on the film we've just watched? Do they not realise that we're more likely to, in fact, turn off or switch channels as soon as our cinematic reverie is blasted to kingdom come by a squawking promo for Beauty & The Geek or The Farmer Wants A Wife than to make a mental note to keep watching?

It's the televisual equivalent of the radio edit, in which the guitar solo integral to My Sharona is unfairly snipped in twain - for what? An extra 15 seconds of talk time? Wow, that was worth it!

Look, I try not to watch movies on television if I can avoid it - largely due to the ad breaks - but this 21st century technique of damning the cast and crew in order to get a few quick plugs in has almost guaranteed that I won't (or at least, that I'll watch ABC instead).

In closing, I would just like to send a big message to the people at the commercial networks who are responsible for this rampant movie vandalism: I HOPE YOU DIE IN A PIT OF LEECHES YOU PHILISTINE NEANDERTHALS.

And, just on principle, I will not be watching Flash Forward. Stick that in your ratings and smoke it!