If you'll notice, all his references are fairly dated. He could watch TV as a teen or younger.
It's mentioned a few times, often in his interactions with Butters, that he is dated in his references.
Basically, butcher uses it as an excuse to only reference the pop media from his golden years. And it works pretty well imo.
None come to mind but even if he did make any newer references I’d attribute it to >!his spending time around Billy and the Alphas. Harry seems to have attended weekly game-nights and hangouts with them during the time between the end of *Summer Knight* and *Changes.*!<
Spoiler tag is for material from *Summer Knight* through *Changes*
He did make some newer references later on, >!After Bob moves on to Butters and gets access to the internet, he becomes the source of the TV based wise cracks, the one that stands out to me being Firefly's Special Hell. Needless to say, Harry had a few moments of existential dread at being the guy who didn't get the reference.!<
Spoiler tag is for material after Changes.
Strictly speaking this is a minor spoiler. Only minor in my opinion, but someone did think it was meaningful enough to report it, so we ought to go ahead and fix it. I think anything in that *Summer Knight* to *Changes* range you mentioned would be fine. Please reply here after fixing it so I can reinstate the comment. Thanks!
Yeah, I think he was also able to attend movies at some older cinemas and drive-ins so long as he say far enough away from the projector.
I'd imagine he could also work to actively suppress his field like he did for awhile on a certain talk show.
He *can* sit in a car for a bit after all, so long as nobody starts engaging him with magic
I've always assumed he could work something out with some tolerant friends.
Such as getting him set up in a comfy chair with his tray of snacks and drinks inside a ring of salt, and then not letting him break it until they've turned the tv off again and unplugged it.
Or sitting on someone's outdoor patio/verandah while the window or bay doors are open and the tv volume is turned up. I'm not sure if i'm right but being outside the strict threshold might dampen things slightly.
Edit: If he had a group of friends to watch stuff with they could keep one of their homes where he is "uninvited", so he'd have to leave most of his power at the door to go inside. Might be seen as too risky if an emergency arose, or it could cause some unintended metaphysical consequence if he played with the invitation/threshold too much.
Anything with a microchip would fry, movies on film with an analog projector would be fine, think the phone in the apartment, no chip, just analog. Butcher had Harry mention he could go to the movies but not to any new theaters.
He explicitly says he goes to drive-in movies. He parks wayyy away from the projector, and just chills on top of his car (my headcanon is that the dent in the front makes for a nice seat after hitting it with a hammer a few times), and uses that and his height to see over the other cars. He even took >!Luccio!< therre a few times to watch old movies in the hopes she'd understand what he was talking about all the time.
Word of Jim says he sits on a bench outside the TV store, but I reckon he also watches a bit at game nights, or hands out with his non-magical friends and chills out enough that the TV works.
Tack on to this that Butcher, himself, was 29 when Storm Front came out in 2000. The references are definitely going to be from a time he experienced in depth, to add that depth to Dresden. Imagine if he was trying to write about familiarity with Taylor Swift or Kanye having not really engaged their content at all?
A reference to the special hell for talking in the theatre
Edit found it
Cold days spoilers
>!Bob: "Hush, Harry. Or you'll go to the special hell."!<
>!Harry: I blinked at that, confused. I'm not supposed to be the guy who doesn't get the reference joke, dammit. Cold Days ch 17!<
Neither have I. I learned the word after watching the rebooted James Bond film in which some very impressive parkour takes place in the intro -- *Casino Royale*, I believe -- and discussions of the film used the term.
Maybe he read about it in a book somewhere, or saw it in a movie?
Maybe his favourite drive-in theater has TV marathon nights, and he just chills out there between saving the world?
Ok so Michael actually gets a giggle about this one.
To paraphrase
Michael Carpenter: "Harry I don't think it is necessary for one to shout parkour"
Harry Dresden: "not once did I poke fun at your Latin battle cries"
Drive in movie theaters and he used to sit outside electronics shops and look in to see the TVs
Although now I’m guessing Bob just projects anything he’s seen on the internet
He does say he watches sports with Michael, so clearly he *can* watch TV sometimes. And in one book I think he takes a potion to suppress his magic so he can go on the Larry Fowler show.
He probably couldn't keep a working TV in his apartment (even if it did have electricity), but he could set things up so he can watch a bit of TV here and there. He also hangs out with the werewolf kids a lot so that would keep him topped up on pop culture references.
That assumes he watches the sports on TV, and doesn't just go to the venue and watch them in person.
Remember, he gets free tickets to the baseball every so often >!for helping the goat!<, Michael coaches sports teams and can likely get tickets for bigger matches because of his contacts in the industry, and there are lots of options for sports in a big city.
I can also see Harry getting out into the country occasionally to watch demolition derby or similar grass-roots racing. I'd LOVE to see him end up entering a rally in the Blue Beetle as part of a case.
I had two friends convinced I had read Dune because it's such a part of nerd culture that I had just acquired the entire plot without reading it or seeing the original film
I always saw that as evidence that Doc Brown's vocabulary is impoverished enough that he doesn't know that 'heavy' and 'grave' have related meanings and the obvious implication is that the situation is quite serious.
When Friends was on TV, just the sheer number of articles, interviews and ads made it possible for me to answer any question related to the show on any quiz-type game show--Hollywood Squares, Jeopardy!, etc.
Never watched Friends in my life, never going to.
And yet Harry had to have Bob explain timeline splits in Proven Guilty. I know it's for the audience benefit, but that's the *one time* that Harry should've picked this stuff up easily thanks to pop culture.
You really ought to see at least the first. It's a classic and hugely entertaining, although not very good SF. The second and third are worth seeing too.
But yeah, I know lots of memes that I don't know the origins or even the full meaning of; I once got in trouble for saying "Surprise! It's corn!" although in my defense it actually *was* corn.
Right? And I recall reading something about locals sitting on a hill where they can see the drive in screen, and tune in on the radio. It's not referenced in the books, but if Harry had an old enough radio, it would be plausible.
He wouldn't even really need to use his own radio. With all the other cars around you playing the movie over *their* radios, you can easily turn your own off, roll down your windows, and hear the movie well enough.
This is true. I remember a scene in an 80’s movie where the kids were sitting on their roof with a radio watching a nearby drive in movie. Monster Squad might be the movie but not sure as it’s been 20 years since I’ve seen it.
Can, and does. He can sit way away from the projector, and the radios are super low-tech stuff. Really, the only issue is that the popcorn machine makes funny noises when he gets near it, and the fancy computerised drinks machine nearly got him barred for breaking it.
I think his workaround there is that he has to get a member of staff to operate it for him while he instructs them from a safe distance.
Not sure how old you are but shows like X-files were huge when they were on. It wasn’t some syfy channel original. It was part of Fox’s primary line up in a time before streaming and TiVo. Whether you watched it or not, everyone knew about it.
He mentions at some point that he used to stand outside a department store and watch *Knight Rider* on the TVs in the window. I always just assumed he had to watch from a distance.
u/MrRobonaut, this post is causing a lot of ruckus. People are replying and including spoilers in their comments, and I'm having to chase them all down one by one. Could we change the flair on the post to Spoilers All to that responses won't need independent spoiler protection? I can do it if you give your permission. But it is up to you; you properly protected the only spoiler you had in your post itself. Please just let me know either way. Thanks!
I think you should just tag it. I really appreciate you trying to mark the spoilers. I’ve read all the books (except the latest novella) but I remember reading these for the first time. Nothing more frustrating than having some story line spoiled before you’ve had a chance to experience it.
Thank you so much for your understanding. I've changed the flair, and I will go back and re-instate the comments I'd called into question. I hope you have a fantastic weekend - stay safe out there!
What's the range on his magic breaking tech? If it's small enough he coud absolutly watch stuff by using a projector that is far enough behind him.
Or maybe he read the Buffy and X-Files comics?
Jim answered this in 2009:
>He goes to the drive-in. Also, there’s a TV store near Wicker Park, and he sits on a bench across the street from it and watches shows with closed captioning. Yes, Harry is often like a sad Dickens character, standing outside the window looking in.
The one I've always wondered, I think there's a point in one of the books where Harry says something about the Wayback Machine, and I've never been able to figure out if that's just a saying, or if there is a different Wayback Machine other than the Internet Archive, or if it actually just means the Internet Archive
The concept of a “wayback machine” pre-dates the Internet Archive. They didn’t come up with it; they just named one of their functions after it. Near as I can tell the first usage of the term came from *Peabody’s Improbable History,* which was a segment on the *Rocky and Bullwinkle Show* in the 1960s.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayback_Machine_(Peabody%27s_Improbable_History)
Ahhhhh, ok. I've only ever been able to find references to the Internet Archive when I've searched in the past, and Rocky and Bullwinkle wasn't a show I got a chance to watch a ton of as a kid. Thanks for solving that mystery for me!
The Wayback Machine you're thinking of was named after the Wayback Machine from the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show from the 60s. The show has had enough reruns over the years that Harry definitely could have seen it on TV in his youth/adolescence.
Ahhhhh, ok. I've only ever been able to find references to the Internet Archive when I've searched in the past, and Rocky and Bullwinkle wasn't a show I got a chance to watch a ton of as a kid. Thanks for solving that mystery for me!
There are honestly tvs everywhere in the world these days, so assuming set in modern times any time spent in a hospital waiting room, or in a hospital room with a patient, or in the lounge of a hotel, or at any other bar then his normal, the list goes on and on and on. If he stays far enough away he can probably still watch them.
Explained in one of the earlier books—watches TVs through plate glass windows at appliance stores.
At least that’s how he watched Knight Rider.
He also doesn’t get a Firefly reference when Bob makes one (the Special Hell).
Something like that, which isn't tied so specifically to TV, could easily have come from him reading a magazine, seeing people doing it around the city, or just one of his friends telling him about it. It's something I could definitely see coming up while hanging out with the Alphas, for instance.
Per, WOJ. He has a spot across from a Electronics shop where he watches TV. He sits on a bench and reads the CC subtitles from across the street. And now he has Bob, who's learn to get online.
This was inevitable, Harry’s timeline is currently in 2014, the internet and social media are there and thriving and streaming services are about to begin. Jim had already had Harry starting to use out of date pop culture references, I do not doubt in 12 Months Jim has Harry catching up with stuff via the Bobnet.
For a start Harry freaking Goodman Grey out by sending him an e-mail dictated to the Bobnet.
It's mentioned in Peace Talks that the svartalfs have ways around magic messing with technology. While staying at the embassy, he has access to a lot of modern amenities that he didn't in his old apartment. So he's likely become with Frozen and other such thing that young girls would be into. Even if he was able to use technology as most people, it's likely he wouldn't have watched it without Maggie.
This will need *Peace Talks* spoiler protection. Please label it as such in clear text, and reply here after you've fixed it so I can reinstate the comment. Thanks!
This needs *Skin Game* or beyond spoiler protection. Please remember to state in the clear the book title you're tagging it to, and hide the references to that person you mentioned last. Also please reply here when it's fixed so I can reinstate the comment. Thanks!
Well now with bob he doesn't really need a tv. Bob could probably build a magic projector and storage device for films if he really wanted to and just fill them with movies and TV shows for dresden to watch.
Harry's narrating from the future. The framing device of the books is Harry telling his story by reviewing his case files. And there's more than one hint that Harry will no longer be a regular wizard, maybe even a regular human, by the end if his journey. So the woes of wizarding magic with technology just don't apply to him anymore.
I guess I never really thought about it too much, but if I did I would assume he just either saw stuff about these shows in magazines or his aura was less potent when he was younger and he was able to watch some stuff. Then again he's in his 30's in the show and it was 2007, Buffy came out a decade earlier. So he'd be in his 20s, still would probably have too strong of an aura to watch tv since it's not like he was 12.
If you'll notice, all his references are fairly dated. He could watch TV as a teen or younger. It's mentioned a few times, often in his interactions with Butters, that he is dated in his references. Basically, butcher uses it as an excuse to only reference the pop media from his golden years. And it works pretty well imo.
None come to mind but even if he did make any newer references I’d attribute it to >!his spending time around Billy and the Alphas. Harry seems to have attended weekly game-nights and hangouts with them during the time between the end of *Summer Knight* and *Changes.*!< Spoiler tag is for material from *Summer Knight* through *Changes*
He did make some newer references later on, >!After Bob moves on to Butters and gets access to the internet, he becomes the source of the TV based wise cracks, the one that stands out to me being Firefly's Special Hell. Needless to say, Harry had a few moments of existential dread at being the guy who didn't get the reference.!< Spoiler tag is for material after Changes.
Strictly speaking this is a minor spoiler. Only minor in my opinion, but someone did think it was meaningful enough to report it, so we ought to go ahead and fix it. I think anything in that *Summer Knight* to *Changes* range you mentioned would be fine. Please reply here after fixing it so I can reinstate the comment. Thanks!
Fixed.
Thanks - it's back live again. Have a great weekend!
Yeah, I think he was also able to attend movies at some older cinemas and drive-ins so long as he say far enough away from the projector. I'd imagine he could also work to actively suppress his field like he did for awhile on a certain talk show. He *can* sit in a car for a bit after all, so long as nobody starts engaging him with magic
I've always assumed he could work something out with some tolerant friends. Such as getting him set up in a comfy chair with his tray of snacks and drinks inside a ring of salt, and then not letting him break it until they've turned the tv off again and unplugged it. Or sitting on someone's outdoor patio/verandah while the window or bay doors are open and the tv volume is turned up. I'm not sure if i'm right but being outside the strict threshold might dampen things slightly. Edit: If he had a group of friends to watch stuff with they could keep one of their homes where he is "uninvited", so he'd have to leave most of his power at the door to go inside. Might be seen as too risky if an emergency arose, or it could cause some unintended metaphysical consequence if he played with the invitation/threshold too much.
A projector setup would work pretty well. IIRC, Dresden does say he went to the drive-in a couple times.
Anything with a microchip would fry, movies on film with an analog projector would be fine, think the phone in the apartment, no chip, just analog. Butcher had Harry mention he could go to the movies but not to any new theaters.
He explicitly says he goes to drive-in movies. He parks wayyy away from the projector, and just chills on top of his car (my headcanon is that the dent in the front makes for a nice seat after hitting it with a hammer a few times), and uses that and his height to see over the other cars. He even took >!Luccio!< therre a few times to watch old movies in the hopes she'd understand what he was talking about all the time. Word of Jim says he sits on a bench outside the TV store, but I reckon he also watches a bit at game nights, or hands out with his non-magical friends and chills out enough that the TV works.
Tack on to this that Butcher, himself, was 29 when Storm Front came out in 2000. The references are definitely going to be from a time he experienced in depth, to add that depth to Dresden. Imagine if he was trying to write about familiarity with Taylor Swift or Kanye having not really engaged their content at all?
Yeah later on when Bob is living with Butters - Bob makes a pop reference to Firefly which Harry doesn’t get.
For real? What is it?
A reference to the special hell for talking in the theatre Edit found it Cold days spoilers >!Bob: "Hush, Harry. Or you'll go to the special hell."!< >!Harry: I blinked at that, confused. I'm not supposed to be the guy who doesn't get the reference joke, dammit. Cold Days ch 17!<
How would we explain Harry yelling Parkour, then? That’s relatively recent in comparison Buffy and X-Files. I’ve been asking myself this recently.
I mean I've never watched the Office. I started yelling Parkour because people around me did.
Neither have I. I learned the word after watching the rebooted James Bond film in which some very impressive parkour takes place in the intro -- *Casino Royale*, I believe -- and discussions of the film used the term.
Maybe he read about it in a book somewhere, or saw it in a movie? Maybe his favourite drive-in theater has TV marathon nights, and he just chills out there between saving the world?
Ok so Michael actually gets a giggle about this one. To paraphrase Michael Carpenter: "Harry I don't think it is necessary for one to shout parkour" Harry Dresden: "not once did I poke fun at your Latin battle cries"
That could also be Harry just hearing about parkour and thinking it's fun to yell.
Right and he's completely oblivious having been unable to watch "the Office"
Also Harry can watch drive in theatres.
Drive in movie theaters and he used to sit outside electronics shops and look in to see the TVs Although now I’m guessing Bob just projects anything he’s seen on the internet
That can't end well. "AGAIN with the midget amputee porn, Bob? You seriously don't have anything normal stored in there?"
He does say he watches sports with Michael, so clearly he *can* watch TV sometimes. And in one book I think he takes a potion to suppress his magic so he can go on the Larry Fowler show. He probably couldn't keep a working TV in his apartment (even if it did have electricity), but he could set things up so he can watch a bit of TV here and there. He also hangs out with the werewolf kids a lot so that would keep him topped up on pop culture references.
That assumes he watches the sports on TV, and doesn't just go to the venue and watch them in person. Remember, he gets free tickets to the baseball every so often >!for helping the goat!<, Michael coaches sports teams and can likely get tickets for bigger matches because of his contacts in the industry, and there are lots of options for sports in a big city. I can also see Harry getting out into the country occasionally to watch demolition derby or similar grass-roots racing. I'd LOVE to see him end up entering a rally in the Blue Beetle as part of a case.
In Ghost Story he mentions that as a teen he would go to stores and watch TV there. So maybe he still does that from time to time.
The same way I can make Back To The Future references without ever having seen the movies.
Great Scott!
I had two friends convinced I had read Dune because it's such a part of nerd culture that I had just acquired the entire plot without reading it or seeing the original film
Yeah, I could probably have recited the whole Fear is the Mind Killer spiel before I ever read the books. It was really everywhere.
Read the book!
I've been intending to for years, it's on a very long list, actually bought a copy today to try and force myself to do it
This is heavy.
Is there something wrong with the gravitational field in 1985?
I always saw that as evidence that Doc Brown's vocabulary is impoverished enough that he doesn't know that 'heavy' and 'grave' have related meanings and the obvious implication is that the situation is quite serious.
When Friends was on TV, just the sheer number of articles, interviews and ads made it possible for me to answer any question related to the show on any quiz-type game show--Hollywood Squares, Jeopardy!, etc. Never watched Friends in my life, never going to.
And yet Harry had to have Bob explain timeline splits in Proven Guilty. I know it's for the audience benefit, but that's the *one time* that Harry should've picked this stuff up easily thanks to pop culture.
You really ought to see at least the first. It's a classic and hugely entertaining, although not very good SF. The second and third are worth seeing too. But yeah, I know lots of memes that I don't know the origins or even the full meaning of; I once got in trouble for saying "Surprise! It's corn!" although in my defense it actually *was* corn.
Previous to his powers, he could watch TV, etc. There's a part where he also says he can go to drive-ins
Right? And I recall reading something about locals sitting on a hill where they can see the drive in screen, and tune in on the radio. It's not referenced in the books, but if Harry had an old enough radio, it would be plausible.
He wouldn't even really need to use his own radio. With all the other cars around you playing the movie over *their* radios, you can easily turn your own off, roll down your windows, and hear the movie well enough.
This is true. I remember a scene in an 80’s movie where the kids were sitting on their roof with a radio watching a nearby drive in movie. Monster Squad might be the movie but not sure as it’s been 20 years since I’ve seen it.
Can, and does. He can sit way away from the projector, and the radios are super low-tech stuff. Really, the only issue is that the popcorn machine makes funny noises when he gets near it, and the fancy computerised drinks machine nearly got him barred for breaking it. I think his workaround there is that he has to get a member of staff to operate it for him while he instructs them from a safe distance.
He used to watch tv with CC on outside an electronics store. I thought that was well known.
Not sure how old you are but shows like X-files were huge when they were on. It wasn’t some syfy channel original. It was part of Fox’s primary line up in a time before streaming and TiVo. Whether you watched it or not, everyone knew about it.
He mentions at some point that he used to stand outside a department store and watch *Knight Rider* on the TVs in the window. I always just assumed he had to watch from a distance.
u/MrRobonaut, this post is causing a lot of ruckus. People are replying and including spoilers in their comments, and I'm having to chase them all down one by one. Could we change the flair on the post to Spoilers All to that responses won't need independent spoiler protection? I can do it if you give your permission. But it is up to you; you properly protected the only spoiler you had in your post itself. Please just let me know either way. Thanks!
What a champ. Thanks for your hard work
I think you should just tag it. I really appreciate you trying to mark the spoilers. I’ve read all the books (except the latest novella) but I remember reading these for the first time. Nothing more frustrating than having some story line spoiled before you’ve had a chance to experience it.
Thank you so much for your understanding. I've changed the flair, and I will go back and re-instate the comments I'd called into question. I hope you have a fantastic weekend - stay safe out there!
W moderator.
Anyone remember the USB stick? 1 Go to friends house. 2 Draw a magic circle to keep his influences inside. 3 Watch movie or TV show.
What's the range on his magic breaking tech? If it's small enough he coud absolutly watch stuff by using a projector that is far enough behind him. Or maybe he read the Buffy and X-Files comics?
He reads magazines, at the library, because they are free there.
Jim answered this in 2009: >He goes to the drive-in. Also, there’s a TV store near Wicker Park, and he sits on a bench across the street from it and watches shows with closed captioning. Yes, Harry is often like a sad Dickens character, standing outside the window looking in.
Because those are major popular icons and you don't need to have seen much of it yourself to reference it
The one I've always wondered, I think there's a point in one of the books where Harry says something about the Wayback Machine, and I've never been able to figure out if that's just a saying, or if there is a different Wayback Machine other than the Internet Archive, or if it actually just means the Internet Archive
The concept of a “wayback machine” pre-dates the Internet Archive. They didn’t come up with it; they just named one of their functions after it. Near as I can tell the first usage of the term came from *Peabody’s Improbable History,* which was a segment on the *Rocky and Bullwinkle Show* in the 1960s. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayback_Machine_(Peabody%27s_Improbable_History)
Ahhhhh, ok. I've only ever been able to find references to the Internet Archive when I've searched in the past, and Rocky and Bullwinkle wasn't a show I got a chance to watch a ton of as a kid. Thanks for solving that mystery for me!
They also ran those cartoons during the Bozo the Clown show, which was out of Chicago, i believe. He'd have had access to WGN when he was young
The Wayback Machine you're thinking of was named after the Wayback Machine from the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show from the 60s. The show has had enough reruns over the years that Harry definitely could have seen it on TV in his youth/adolescence.
Ahhhhh, ok. I've only ever been able to find references to the Internet Archive when I've searched in the past, and Rocky and Bullwinkle wasn't a show I got a chance to watch a ton of as a kid. Thanks for solving that mystery for me!
There are honestly tvs everywhere in the world these days, so assuming set in modern times any time spent in a hospital waiting room, or in a hospital room with a patient, or in the lounge of a hotel, or at any other bar then his normal, the list goes on and on and on. If he stays far enough away he can probably still watch them.
Explained in one of the earlier books—watches TVs through plate glass windows at appliance stores. At least that’s how he watched Knight Rider. He also doesn’t get a Firefly reference when Bob makes one (the Special Hell).
And how is he up in current trends like "Parkour"? Well, current when Jim wrote Skin Game. And now that phrase makes the book dated.
Something like that, which isn't tied so specifically to TV, could easily have come from him reading a magazine, seeing people doing it around the city, or just one of his friends telling him about it. It's something I could definitely see coming up while hanging out with the Alphas, for instance.
Harry's references are dated, though. Nobody yells 'parkour' while doing parkour.
Per, WOJ. He has a spot across from a Electronics shop where he watches TV. He sits on a bench and reads the CC subtitles from across the street. And now he has Bob, who's learn to get online.
This was inevitable, Harry’s timeline is currently in 2014, the internet and social media are there and thriving and streaming services are about to begin. Jim had already had Harry starting to use out of date pop culture references, I do not doubt in 12 Months Jim has Harry catching up with stuff via the Bobnet. For a start Harry freaking Goodman Grey out by sending him an e-mail dictated to the Bobnet.
A lot of the references he makes also come from before his powers manifested as far as I can tell. Then someone else mentioned the WOJ on this
[удалено]
It's mentioned in Peace Talks that the svartalfs have ways around magic messing with technology. While staying at the embassy, he has access to a lot of modern amenities that he didn't in his old apartment. So he's likely become with Frozen and other such thing that young girls would be into. Even if he was able to use technology as most people, it's likely he wouldn't have watched it without Maggie.
This will need *Peace Talks* spoiler protection. Please label it as such in clear text, and reply here after you've fixed it so I can reinstate the comment. Thanks!
This needs *Skin Game* or beyond spoiler protection. Please remember to state in the clear the book title you're tagging it to, and hide the references to that person you mentioned last. Also please reply here when it's fixed so I can reinstate the comment. Thanks!
Well now with bob he doesn't really need a tv. Bob could probably build a magic projector and storage device for films if he really wanted to and just fill them with movies and TV shows for dresden to watch.
The commercial breaks would be porn...
He can watch TV, he just has to sit in a circle so that his magic does not fry the TV.
Murphy only had to turn off her computer at work when he was outside her door so if he sat at the other end of a large room he should be fine
Harry's narrating from the future. The framing device of the books is Harry telling his story by reviewing his case files. And there's more than one hint that Harry will no longer be a regular wizard, maybe even a regular human, by the end if his journey. So the woes of wizarding magic with technology just don't apply to him anymore.
H
I guess I never really thought about it too much, but if I did I would assume he just either saw stuff about these shows in magazines or his aura was less potent when he was younger and he was able to watch some stuff. Then again he's in his 30's in the show and it was 2007, Buffy came out a decade earlier. So he'd be in his 20s, still would probably have too strong of an aura to watch tv since it's not like he was 12.
He reads magazines
Old t.v. with an antenna.
For some of this stuff I just assumed he had read novel or comic book adaptations.