As a kid, I grew up with cable and spent a fair amout of time watching TBS. If I can recall, they played pretty much nothing but B&W WWII movies back in the early 1980s, except for Atlanta Braves baseball and a brief stretch between afterschool hours, they’d often play Three Stooges shorts. They were the first experiences that told me at a young age that B&W wasn’t all boring and old and bad. Little Rascals soon followed. Then Laurel & Hardy. I’m 35 now and I still know people my age that just can’t get into anything in B&W. Sad, no?
I’m 34 and I can remember a lot of B&W TV growing up. Old Beverly Hillbillies, Munsters, Bewitched and The Addams Family episodes (some were colored later but older ones were black & white) were still a regular UHF staple. Late night had the Honeymooners. And, of course, the Three Stooges. I also remember a good bit of Alfred Hitchcock on Saturday nights. Of course, even half of the ‘color’ television I saw as a kid was watched on an old portable b&w television anyway.
So I guess I never had to ‘embrace’ it – it was just part of growing up.
That’s a good point. Our reception was never really the best, and it paved the way for me to watch The Twilight Zone, The Munsters and The Addams Family, as well.
There’s gotta be an entry point, though. Because, as I’ve said, I just found the B&W depressing in its own context. I guess the Three Stooges were the perfect opening for my immature mind.
I’m 30 and I really started watching black and white in a couple of places. Like Jophiel, I used to watch “Honeymooners” reruns every night on a local channel. Actually, now that I think about it, “Leave it to Beaver” reruns on TBS predated that, as well.
There was also Nick at Night - I used to sit and watch hours upon hours of Donna Reed or Patty Duke. I especially loved the Donna Reed show when I was a young lad. I also liked the 50’s “Dennis the Menace” shows for some reason.
I also just took those shows as natural, I think “Leave it to Beaver” was probably the one that broke B&W open for me. It never struck me as particularly odd, though, I always just accepted it as “old but still good”.
I remember B&W TV growing up too - but it wasn’t a novelty. I’m Gen X, and we had A BLACK AND WHITE TELEVISION until I was about 12 or so. Part of the territory of being poor.
Also, my parents were older parents, so I was introduced to a lot of Saturday lunchtime 1940s movies.
I’m pretty solidly in the middle of Gen X, and B&W was just a part of TV when I was growing up. Our TV in the family room was in color (my parents were very excited) but it was the thrill of my young life when I finally convinced them to let me have a B&W portable in my room. This was pre-cable, so I don’t think there was too much concern that I would come across any inappropriate programming.
I never really connected B&W with “old” exclusively, it seemed much more about the kind of TV one had. I was surprised later in life to realize that some episodes of Bewitched (as one example) were broadcast in B&W – I knew some were color, and figured all the B&W ones I had seen must have simply been viewed on a B&W TV. It works the other way, too – I “remember” some shows as being broadcast in B&W, but they really weren’t.
My dad is a huge old-movie fan. We used to sit on the couch and watch them. Many of the old black-and-white films are perfectly suitable for small children in terms of sex/violence, and since dad particularly liked the really absurd ones, they were funny as well. When I didn’t get the humor, he would explain to me why – for instance – it was amusing that Sherlock Holmes (played by Basil Rathbone) was prowling around London in a deerstalker during the Blitz, spying on Nazis. You know? It was a father/daughter bonding experience.
I never liked the b/w television shows, though. Leave it to Beaver? The Addams Family? Change the channel – they’re showing The Bat again on Showtime.
Speaking of movies, my childhood was filled with Saturday monster movie matinees on the television. Many of which were in black and white. I’m sure many Chicago region Dopers remember Son of Svengoolie as fondly as I.
If you’re 30, you’re not Gen-X.
As a 46 y.o. smack in the middle of being a genexer, I can’t understand why younger people so willingly want to use that to label themselves.
Generation X came after the Baby Boomers, and is notable for being just that, not a booming generation. We came after the BB and before their kids, being squeezed from two sides by large demographic groups, fighting for space, jobs, attention, education or whatever.
I think someone should mention that 30-year-olds aren’t really Gen-X. Gen-Xers kinda came between the Boomers and our kids. They’re characterized chiefly by the fact that no one ever notices them. It’d be nice if one dropped in the thread to share.
I think the cutoff date for Gen-X is supposed to be being born in 1977, so 30 is the tail end of that. I’ll be 31 next week myself. Anyway, we only had a B&W TV until I was about four, and we watched tons of old movies and TV shows. I plan to raise my kids on lots of old movies too, and to look down on people who won’t watch anything in black and white.
Every definition of “Generation X” I’ve heard of runs through the early 70’s. A quick Google for “Defintion of Generation X” supplies many links agreeing with these dates.
So I guess the reason why I’d apply the label to myself is because I fit the standard definition given on the label.
When I was a kid we didn’t have cable, but we finally got Fox, which had shows like Bewitched and the Addams Family on it. When we moved into town Nick at Nite showed shows like Car 54 Where Are You? and such. I didn’t get into serious old movies, silents, and foreign films until I took a nerd camp film class, though. My dad was always watching old war movies when I was a kid, but I’ve never been interested in those.
Oh come on, there’s no way in holy hell that a 46-year-old is a Generation Xer.
I always thought it meant being born in the 1970s. Is there really no label for someone’s age group between us and the boomers?
Well, Douglas Coupland who wrote Generation X shares birthyear with me. Billy Idol, whose band was Generation X, will be 52 this month.
I guess, for the whippersnappers, Gen-X is associated with “being a cool slacker”. However, “being a cool slacker” is not exclusive for genexers and being a genexer is actually something else, to wit: being too young to have really experienced the cool 60’s, flower power, anti-war marches, being rebels. And at the same time being to old to embrace to optimism of the post Berlin wall era. We didn’t fight for civil liberties, we fought for our “right… to paaaarty”.
Being a true genexer is not about being a slacker, it’s about detachment, not feeling you care about anything, neither the idealistic stuff from the 60’s, neither the late 80’s through 90’s era idea about career, fame and fortune. It’s no wonder punk struck a chord with our generation - Fuck it all and let’s party seemed like the most interesting option.
That was me as well. When we first got cable and TBS in the early 80s, they showed the Andy Griffith Show. My dad was beside himself as he hadn’t seen these episodes since he was a kid when they were first run.
I think the show is above average, but seeing the joy on my dad’s face while watching those gave me a general interest in old TV shows to see what they were like for my parents growing up.
BTW, I was born in 1976 and was told that 76 was the last year for GEN X. I’m not sure there is such a hard and fast rule, though…
Born in '75, and up until I was eight or nine, we had a black and white TV, so I never had to “get used” to black and white shows and movies. They were all black and white to me.