Anyone remember the early days of television?

[samclem]

I’m sure we do this same thread about once/year.

I’m sure I had a tv before anyone on this board.

I was born in 1944. Arlington, VA. Washington DC tv. Four channels. We got our 12" black and white Philco ($425) in the Fall roll out of tv’s in the US in 1948. First on the block. The “block” came down to watch Truman’s inauguration.

This was a “golden age” only in the sense that nothing had ever happened like this in history. Radio was great, but to actually “see” people/things–incredible.

One difference between those years and the last 30 40 years---------tv tubes.

You had electronic tubes in your tv. One might often fail. You called a tv repairman and he came out and changed a tube(cost–$10). Finally, they got “tube checker machines” at your local drug store. You could pull the tubes yourself, check them, replace one, all cheaper than calling a tv repairman.

Your movie selection might consist of 1930s-1940s black and white “B” westerns.

Cartoons were composed of “stick mice and cats.”

Special effects were by George Pal. Pretty ancient.

I wouldn’t trade the memories for anything.

[Maserschmidt]

@terentii

I think the last to go was “Kraft Music Hall,” which lasted into the early '70s on NBC. (The only time I remember watching it was when Johnny Cash was the featured artist).

Fill in the blank: Mutual of Omaha’s ___________ .

[ThelmaLou]

@AuntiePam

I remember very little of the programming, except for a couple of local children’s shows, and one (maybe national) where you could put some clear plastic stuff on the screen and I’m not sure what next – draw on it?

That was Winky Dink.

[ThelmaLou]

@Maserschmidt

Fill in the blank: Mutual of Omaha’s ___________ .

Wild Kingdom.

[carnivorousplant]

@ThelmaLou

Wild Kingdom.

Marlin Perkins:

“I’ve shot the cheetah with a tranquilizer dart from the helicopter. Jim will descend and tag the cheetah.
The cheetah seems to be making up early…Cheetahs can run at 35 miles per hour…Jim seems to be making about 36…You can protect yourself and your family, as does Jim, with a Mutual of Omaha insurance policy.”

[Freddy_the_Pig]

@TriPolar

Yeah! The anthem, then the Indian, and then static. Then at dawn the farm report comes on.

Don’t forget the sermonette. The sermonette, then the anthem, and then the Indian.

Although my memories of the sermonette are from later. I have no idea whether they had them in the earliest days.

[IvoryTowerDenizen]

@terentii

I think the last to go was “Kraft Music Hall,” which lasted into the early '70s on NBC. (The only time I remember watching it was when Johnny Cash was the featured artist).

There were lots of them in the '50s; e.g., Martin and Lewis were sponsored by Colgate, Palmolive, and Camel Cigarettes. Even in the early '60s there were anthology series sponsored by Chrysler, Reynolds Aluminum, and so on. They had kind of petered out by about 1965.

One really good one I remember watching Sunday nights on CBS was, I think, sponsored by Alcoa. They often did historical docudramas like “The Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich.” I think it was on either just before or just after “Twilight Zone.”(This was 1961–62, IIRC.)

Don’t forget Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. I watched that in the late 70s.

ETA: scooped!

[Sam_A.Robrin]

L’Age d’Or

Ages are Golden
Only when olden,
Once all that was rotten
Has long been forgotten.

[Sam_A.Robrin]

@TriPolar

Yeah! The anthem, then the Indian, and then static. Then at dawn the farm report comes on.

What–no “High Flight”?

[Becky2844]

I have a picture of me at about 2 1/2-3 sitting on our linoleum (?) living room floor, (discreet faded green leaves,) legs stuck straight out, watching a big ass TV. (We had a “console.”) No idea what I watched. Early '50s.

Next strobe light-like memory: Daddy watching baseball in his easy chair (before recliners.) I’d stand by his chair and watch, too. The news was “Good night, David. Good night, Chet.”

The next frame: the Mull’s Singing Convention. (Ain’t that right Miz Mull?) Must have been local. Gospel music on Sunday mornings. It started my singing (non)career. My granma would take me out back, flip the washtub over and set me up on it and demand Sing! And I would, whatever I could remember from TV, I think.

Daddy killed—lean times. Romper Room; she never called my name, and it’s not that uncommon. Howdy Doody and Lampchop freaked me out because they weren’t REAL.

Stepfather had a tiny TV that must have been from the early ‘50s; tall wooden column, tiny TV on top, lower 2/3 a long speaker. Cartoons were on from 7am to noon. Heckel & Jeckel, Mighty Mouse. My little brother and I would run to the kitchen and get chairs to turn over in front of the TV and straddle them like we were riding rockets, too. After, we’d put the chairs back and open the umbrella, spread towels on either side of the handle, and lay back "chillin’ at the beach" for the rest of the shows. Folks weren’t home—working. Every Saturday we woke up to a quarter each. Went down to the corner store for food (another thread) and got to do what we wanted all day long. (We mostly jumped on the funiture before going out to play.)

Red Skelton. Arthur Godfrey. Queen For a Day and Sky King. The dancers who spent most their time on their backs on the Jackie Gleason show. Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Twilight Zone.

TV was still raw. I saw the Nuemburg trials, I think. Skeletal Jews scooped up with shovels and slid down a chute. I saw a live show (t was like a play) about a mad wife locked away, and over her bed were fingernail scars in the plaster, where she tried to scratch her way to freedom. We watched young soldiers with their guts hanging out on the news while eating dinner.

Atari changed my family’s life. We got it for Christmas and played it all the time. (Animation! Skill! Hillbilly crack!) We played it when we should have been cleaning, doing yard work, homework. When we finally got used to it and could go off and do others things, we still, whenever somebody started playing, would all gather in the den to watch.

A few years ago a woman who turned 100 plus was asked what was the greatest thing she had ever experienced in her lifetime. She said “Electricity.”

I still get a charge out of it. The Internet.

[cochrane]

My first memories are of the early 60s. I remember watching the 3 Stooges, Romper Room, the Mickey Mouse Club. I remember Ed Sullivan with the Beatles and a clean cut standup comedian in a suit named George Carlin. I remember the sign off with the National Anthem and the test pattern with the Indian chief. All in black-and-white. We didn’t get a color set until 1967, just in time for Star Trek. I remember my dad taking the back off the TV and pulling out tubes and taking them to the drugstore to test them.

As amazing as all of that seemed, I think the most amazing thing is that I can pull my iPhone out of my pocket and watch a baseball game or Conan and have TV pretty much everywhere I go.

[Mean_Mr.Mustard]

Here is what I remember about our first TV: Sometimes the picture would get all zig-zaggy. The fix? You literally smacked it *forcefully *on the side of the set. All good.
mmm

[terentii]

@AuntiePam

I remember very little of the programming, except for a couple of local children’s shows, and one (maybe national) where you could put some clear plastic stuff on the screen and I’m not sure what next – draw on it?

I remember once when I was probably 3: I either had lost the plastic sheet or never had one in the first place, and I spent the morning drawing right on the screen with purple crayon. My mother had a fit when she finally woke up and wandered into the TV room and saw what I had done.

I used to wake her up early in the morning doing Captain Kangaroo–type stuff (singing, banging on pots, making soapflake sculptures, etc.) and she would always be sooooooo pissed off. My God, I was an adorable child!

[terentii]

@Sam_A.Robrin

What–no “High Flight”?

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth,
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds,
and done a thousand things you have not dreamed of.
Wheeled, and looped, and soared, high in the sunlit silence.
Hov’ring there, I’ve chased the shouting wind along,
and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up, the long, delirious, burning blue,
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace,
where never lark, or even eagle, flew.
And, while with silent lifting mind,
I’ve trod the high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand
and touched the face of God.

[salinqmind]

Yup, I’m way old and remember most of the early days of the electric tee-vee. The first shows I actually remember were Capt. Kangaroo, Howdy Doody (did. not. like.) and watching Art Linkletter and Arthur Godfrey (or, Offy Goffy) with my grandma. Oh, and Queen For A Day!

In the 60’s, our city finally got a third channel! ABC! The local TV station was in a shopping mall and offered local programming - kids shows, showing cartoons like Popeye interspersed with a local actor telling jokes or whatever, you know. At 4 p.m on Fridays there was a local Dance Party show (a la American Bandstand) with kids from different schools invited every week…and best best best of all, Saturday night (after Hootenany) there was a local Fright Night with the best vampire host and friends ever! He was SO funny, we struggled to stay awake till midnight or 1 a.m. through mainly dull black and white 50’s sci-fi just to watch the host segments. My god, he was hilarious, it was a very low-rent, on-the-fly kind of thing. Some years later the TV station at the mall suffered a fire and all this stuff on tape was destroyed, there are only a few precious bits and pieces left that they show on Halloween so us babyboomers can remember what occupied our time when we were younger. (I miss the hosted movies, there were a couple of afternoon ones, and later we had my dear syndicated Elvira. Kids today just are missing out SO much on the long-ago American and British sci-fi and horror crap. They have all new crap now. But few hosts. Well, you don’t miss what you never had.)

[salinqmind]

@terentii

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth,
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds,
and done a thousand things you have not dreamed of.
Wheeled, and looped, and soared, high in the sunlit silence.
Hov’ring there, I’ve chased the shouting wind along,
and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up, the long, delirious, burning blue,
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace,
where never lark, or even eagle, flew.
And, while with silent lifting mind,
I’ve trod the high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand
and touched the face of God.

Possibly the best poem ever, thanks for putting it here.

[ThelmaLou]

@terentii

I think the last to go was “Kraft Music Hall,” which lasted into the early '70s on NBC.

I loved those Kraft commercials. They were the precursor of FoodTV. They’d demonstrate a whole recipe using Kraft products.

@Becky2844

Howdy Doody and Lampchop freaked me out because they weren’t REAL.

Lambchop freaked me out because of the NAME. Something that “chops lambs”? That CAN’T be good. :eek:

[terentii]

Does anybody remember, in the really, really old “Dennis the Menace” comics, there was a second feature called “Stevie Tee-Vee,” in which the little kid (who wore huge screen-shaped eyeglasses) was already a TV addict? (Remember, this was mid-to-late '50s at the latest; prophetic, to say the least!)

[terentii]

@ThelmaLou

Lambchop freaked me out because of the NAME. Something that “chops lambs”? That CAN’T be good. :eek:

I was always drooling over Shari Lewis too much to pay attention to the hand puppets. (Yes, I was a very, very precocious child! )

[JKellyMap]

@terentii

Does anybody remember, in the really, really old “Dennis the Menace” comics, there was a second feature called “Stevie Tee-Vee,” in which the little kid (who wore huge screen-shaped eyeglasses) was already a TV addict? (Remember, this was mid-to-late '50s at the latest; prophetic, to say the least!)

Interesting. I thought Roald Dahl made up this kind of character in 1964, but he was almost surely inspired by the one you just mentioned.