Major Spoilers Question of the Day: When You’re Not Paying Attention Edition

My mother had a lot of weird turns of phrase (‘doomaflatchie’ was her word of choice for a thing whose name she could not recall) but one of the most memorable was “video wallpaper”, her term for leaving the television on when no one is watching.  She used it to complain about a waste of electricity, but I have adopted it to describe when I turn on ‘How I Met Your Mother’ or ‘VicTORIous’ as background noise during other tasks. (Most of my work for Major Spoilers has had a vague Liz Gillies/Ashley Williams background radiation.)  One’s choice of video wallpaper can be difficult, as you don’t want something engrossing enough to draw you from the tasks you’re trying to complete, but it must be pleasant enough for those moments where you’re aware of it.  Syndicated shows like ‘Friends’, where most episodes follow the same pattern, are ideal, which leads us to today’s not paying attention query…

The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) has found that ‘Steven Universe’ is very bad for these purposes, as I sit and watch every second, but ‘Friends’ works out great, asking: What programs or music work best as background noise when you’re not paying attention?