thanks!
ah a couple people have said that, i guess i didn't telegraph well enough what to do. You can turn the NES on and off, but the TV has to be on channel 3
Ah I see! I went back to try it and it worked! In hindsight I probably should have tried something like that on the static channel my first playthrough. Walking around in the game really gave me vibes of playing old NES games at a young age and not knowing how to play, but wandering around and gazing in awe at what the game world looked like. Very surreal experience!