The strangeness of TV before Cable – heh, you young whippersnappers, I remember when TV was Radio and you didn’t watch it, you listened.
Okay, I’m not that old–but in the 70’s, while in High School, I stayed up late for a PBS drive and watched “Steambath” because it had Bill Bixby and someone else I thought a good actor. Anyway, I knew from nothing about the show. There’s just a bunch of guys sitting around in steam, wearing towels.
I missed it, but it was in the papers and all the geek talk the following days. Locally someone at PBS (locally only I believe) hit the wrong switch during Seasame Street and accidentally fed the Miss Nude World Competition out.
I remember two things: (well, maybe three) God was the Latino Janitor of the steambath, and Valerie Perrine pops out in a towel, drops it and stands in the shower for what seemed like days to me at the time. I never found her overly pretty, but can’t deny she was built like 9 kinds of hell – plus standing under running water and me being like 15 at the time – well, it was fine time to donate to PBS.
Second, also PBS, which I’ve now been watching regularly since “Steambath” so I’m used to the occasional nudity. “I, Claudius” During the Messalina episodes, she spent the better part of the “palace coup” ep in a sheer piece of cloth and nothing else (unless you count the belt)–sent my room mate to the hall to proclaim the virtues of PBS (PBS Got T & A).
Finally, this one is strange because it contains no nudity, but at the time was one of the most obvious sexual references I had seen anywhere, including PBS:
Somtime during the Disco craze there was a syndicated show, just before “Solid Gold” came into our lives. Now this show, and I can’t for the life of me recall its name, featured disco dancewear of the time, which often resulted in 3/4 boobs and dropped boobs, (oops, titty) so, I was a fan (albeit without the sound). That wasn’t much, but once, when they came back from commercial, one of the hosts had been using an early wireless microphone. (who remembers those? Class?) Anyway, the thing was like 2 feet long fat and black. When they came back from commercial, it had been placed, for holding, in this attractive, Zoftig girl’s cleavage, all the way down. The Mc grabbed the head of the mic, and S-L-O-W-L-Y pulled it out as the girl rolled her eyes back and leaned her head back in joyous ecstacy.
Didn’t see that coming, and this was unfortunately in the days just before Beta Max (at school we had reel-to-reel video tape, but nothing at home to document this bit of debauchery).
After the 70’s pretty much nothing on television shocked me. In fact, even the flip by GGW (Girl’s Gone Wild) videos don’t cause me to miss a beat in moving on to the next channel.
Simpler times.
