As a youngster I wasn’t allowed to watch much television at all. PBS was almost always ok but I wasn’t allowed much else. No cartoons like Tom and Jerry at all. I was told they were too violent when I was old enough to ask why.
I was also not allowed to watch Diff’rent Strokes, Gimme a Break, or Three’s Company when I got a little older. My dad told me that I couldn’t watch the first 2 because he thought that the way black people were portrayed was disgusting. And I couldn’t watch the last because pretending to be gay wasn’t a premise to be laughed at.
I do think he meant well. Anyone else denied watching certain tv shows as a kid?
My mother was convinced that Benny Hill was a dirty old man (and that’s a point I have to concede) and shouldn’t have ever been shown as early as it was on our local PBS station (usually 7PM). We had to sneak-watch.
Well, when I was growing up in the 1970s, our family television broke in 1976, and my parents elected to neither repair nor replace it. The reasoning (probably from my mom) was that, “We just stare at the TV and don’t talk!” Which, in hindsight, was complete bullshit. When we were watching TV, we were at least all in the same room together. With the TV gone, we all headed off in different directions, doing our own things, and hardly spoke to each other at all.
But that’s not relevant to the OP.
There were two TV shows I wasn’t allowed to watch. One was reruns of “Bewitched”. My mom had become an evangelical Christian, and didn’t think I should be watching shows about witchcraft. The other was “Speed Racer”, because it was “too violent”.
That is one of the arguments I have with how my father was when I was a kid. My dad had been a high school football player, spent four years as a US Marine, and was a police officer during my growing up years. But he always backed down to my mom’s child-rearing ideas in the name of “displaying a unified parental front”. So he always deferred to Mom when it came to what I watched, what music I listened to, etc. Yes, my big, macho dad let my mom turn me into a pussy.
My parents were totally against pro wrestling. They wouldn’t have had a problem with actual wrestling or boxing or any other such sport (this was before MMA) but pro wrestling was a definite no.
Not that there was ever much wrestling or boxing or the like on outside the Olympics anyway.
Easier for me to list what I could watch than what I couldn’t.
I was allowed to watch pretty much anything on WTTW (our local PBS station) but I wasn’t allowed to watch TV for very many hours in the week. We didn’t have a number, but Mom would often arbitrarily decide that I’d watched “enough” and shoo me off. So I learned to save my viewing time for the things I really liked: The Electric Company and 3-2-1 Contact.
When home sick from school, my mom was usually working, so I was home alone and would binge on Gilligan’s Island, I Dream of Jeanie and other “trash” my mom wouldn’t let me watch. To this day, Gilligan’s Island brings the taste of Campbell’s Chicken and Stars soup to mind.
Otherwise, I could watch MAS*H with my folks, but not alone, which as a parent now, I totally agree with. It’s a great show, but there are some subjects and themes which require explanation and perspective, particularly alcohol use and the attitudes towards women.
Also, my dad would sneak me out of bed to watch Star Trek (TOS) reruns while my mom was in the shower. Amazing how her showers always lasted exactly 28 minutes. I later learned she was in on it, of course. But I still recall that show fondly as my special time with my dad “getting away with something” my mom wouldn’t approve of. He moved out when I was 6, so I was really rather small and probably didn’t understand most of what I was watching, but that really wasn’t the point.
I presume my mother didn’t want my brother and I poking each other in the eyes and dragging each other around the room by the nose. Waste of her time, though. I had seen enough to not be interested in the least and even her ban didn’t make Curly, Moe and Whathisname appealing to my 6 year old self.
You Can’t Do That On Television, I think my mom just didn’t like how gross it was…and of course we watched it all the time.
She also made me go to bed right when The Alfred Hitchcock Hour started, I got to watch the opened theme part, which I liked, but then it was bedtime. She said it was too scary (for my age). On the one hand, she was probably right, on the other hand, she was probably just grouping it together with The Twilight Zone. Many many years later (as in a few years ago) I watched most of The Alfred Hitchcock Hours. I’d say that 90% of them aren’t scary, they’re just little mini mysteries. Probably over a kids head and it was probably my bedtime, but they weren’t scary.
Oh and we were supposed to ask before we watched anything on Showtime. The first time she caught me and a friend watching Total Recall (because my brother ran and told on us) she had that station removed. Didn’t matter, we had just watched it and the friends house a few days earlier.
Soap operas (if home from school). Too iffy on the morals. I didn’t mind, I thought they were boring. Sometimes, Love Boat or Fantasy Island when they had too much jiggly boobies.
I was going to guess that you were about my age (I reveled in The Electric Company as a kid), but 3-2-1 Contact was something my “baby” sister watched (she was 11 years younger than me). I watched The Electric Company daily in the 1970s.
Oh man, I loved the hell out of both of those shows as a kid!
I guess it just wasn’t on when I was watching TV as a kid, but I discovered MASH when I was in college (1984). What a great show that was!
ST:TOS was one of the few shows my family watched together in the 1970s. Along with Gunsmoke and The Courtship of Eddie’s Father.
Same. My Mother thought that Benny Hill was the dregs of filth, and it was utterly verboten in our house. I think my Dad secretly wanted to watch it too, but he wouldn’t cross her.
Back before the Earth’s crust cooled, there were 3 commercial stations & PBS. (And UHF–mostly full of soccer games in Spanish.) And there was one TV.
I don’t recall being “forbidden” to watch anything. We generally watched what Mom & Grandma wanted, but we got votes, too. So, kid shows after school & on weekends. At night, sitcoms, westerns & variety shows. Crime shows? Dragnet for sure. In the summer, we watched the Tonight show, with the fan going–just before we got AC. There were some arty & intelligent things on Sunday during the day; always Masterpiece Theater on Sunday night. Outer Limits & Twilight Zone could be scary, but we weren’t toddlers by then.
Same here. I grew up sitting in front of the TV in the evenings; during the day, I was down at the railroad tracks reliving episodes of Combat!, The Gallant Men, and Rat Patrol. (I actually cruised around the neighborhood on my new bicycle for that last one.) Twelve O’Clock High was harder to do, but I had a little battery-powered flight simulator at home that actually reproduced bomb runs quite well.
Occasionally, I would do bits from Batman or (much earlier) The Adventures of Superman. When Time Tunnel debuted in September 1966, I was in Seventh Heaven! :o
The only thing I remember not being allowed to watch was Steve Allen’s old talk/variety show, and then just because it was on late on weeknights. This really pissed me off because even at the age of six I loved Steve Allen; his comedy would have me rolling on the floor with laughter! I used to lay awake at night listening to my mother and brother watching the show in the next room and trying to catch as much of it as I could.
Now that I think about it, the same situation applied with Amos ‘n’ Andy, which came on WTCN around midnight when I was in fifth or sixth grade. By then I had seen every episode so many times I could visualize what what happening on screen while listening to the dialogue through my bedroom door.
Neither my mother or my father ever had a problem with me staying up until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning to watch crappy 1950s gladiator and pirate movies (and then Laurel & Hardy) on WCCO Saturday nights. I guess I was very fortunate in that!
I later learned she was in on it, of course. But I still recall that show fondly as my special time with my dad “getting away with something” my mom wouldn’t approve of. He moved out when I was 6, so I was really rather small and probably didn’t understand most of what I was watching, but that really wasn’t the point.
