It was either Batman (Adam West) being shoved feet-first into a furnace, or the Beatles cartoon. Possibly Captain Kangaroo. And I remember a commercial for the Santa Fe railroad: “Can’t you hear that whistle down the line/ I figure that it’s Engine 49…” This was in Topeka, circa 1966.
Captain Kangeroo and Romper Room in the early 1960s. And Boomtown with Rex Trailer. I also recall my mother watching Today with Hugh Downs and the WBZ-TV news at noon with Jack Chase and Shelby Scott around the time I was in kindergarten in 1963-64.
Specials I recall were the Wizard of Oz introduced by Danny Kaye and the 1965 broadcast of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. I also have a dim memory of a Peter and the Wolf special with Art Carney and Bil Baird’s puppets, but it must have been a rebroadcast, because IMDb lists November 1958 as the debut date and I was only seven months old then. (My memory of it was in the house we moved into when I was two.)
Rocky & Bullwinkle, followed by Zoobilee Zoo, followed by Mr Rogers, followed by Sesame Street, followed by The Price is Right. 'Twas my morning routine.
We got our first TV in about 1956 or 1957 in Juneau, AK. It was a very large box with a very small screen. I had no idea what it was or what it was supposed to do. My parents hooked up the rabbit ears and turned it on, and there on the screen was Robin Hood! It was snowy and hard to see, but there he was! I was mesmerized and addicted all in one moment.
Biggest TV resentment: Alaska never got the Howdy Doody Show. Everybody I’ve ever known saw it as a child and I can’t relate to any of it. Oh sure, we had Mickey Mouse Club and Annette’s boobs, but no Buffalo Bob, no Clarabelle, and no Peanut Gallery. I believe it has scarred me for life.
I’m sure I watched Romper Room and Sesame Street and Captain Kangaroo before this, but my first real memory was going over to my neighbor’s house before kindergarten every morning and watching Speed Racer. This would be '75.
1956 “A Short Vision”
I was five and a half. Parents and grandparents gathered around the teevee to watch Ed Sullivan; my vague memory is that something unusual was about to air, it was a big deal of some sort. It was an animated film, and all my life I’ve carried two vivid memories: the “melting eyes”; and the last spoken line “…but the moth was destroyed too.”
It was only a year or so ago that I FINALLY learned what it was, and I still find it hard to believe that this amazing little film was broadcast twice, in prime time, on American TV in 1956.
See for yourselves.
Watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkhNED3-mnI
and read about it here: BFI Screenonline: Short Vision, A (1956)
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My first memories were of Lassie in the mid-sixties.
I also recall coming home from morning kindergarten every day to tune into Captain Kangaroo and Roy Rogers (the latter were reruns). The biggie though, was the moon landing when I was six.
Another vote for Romper Room and also Gilligan’s Island in it’s original run plus Nixon on TV to my dismay.
All my memories from that time are not in any kind of chronological order, they are just mentally categorized as being from the same era. But although most of my early TV memories are just of the shows themselves, I do have one that involves the entire setting, one of the first places me and my mom lived, with a tiny color tv at the end of the bed, and us watching The Jungle Book, and me dropping pennies into the ventilation slots on the back. I might have other earlier memories but I wouldn’t be able to tell without doing research. That one was from someplace I lived in before I started school. My next two specifically anchored TV memories are first grade (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, while left alone in our apartment for the first time, dancing and running in circles on the oval scrap rug), and fourth grade, watching The Third Eye series in our apartment in Texas, with a unicorn blanket on the bed in the living room, the whole scene of which I drew a picture of…
My parents didn’t believe in letting kids younger than 3 watch TV, so my first memories are from when I was 3 or 4. Towards the end of Tom Baker’s time as Doctor Who, the local PBS station decided that it would be a good idea to follow Mr. Rogers with Doctor Who. I was terrified of Doctor Who, particularly of some robot on the show.
Baggins, if you’d like to jog your memory, Hulu has 99 Adam-12 episodes.
I was also never “seen” on Romper Room.
Captain Kangaroo with Tom Terrific: “My name is Crabby Appleton, I’m rotten to the core…” Also Bunny Rabbit, Mr. Moose and the ping pong balls. I loved it when they dropped the ping pong balls.
Popeye, Bugs Bunny, Leave It to Beaver, and Dobie Gillis (I had to be allowed to stay up “late” for these last two!)
And an “Abyss” dialogue is more fully explained to me!
For those of you who remember that far back, the voice of Roger Ramjet was played by Gary Owens, the announcer on Laugh-In and original voice of Space Ghost.
I remember a segment of some children’s show (possibly Sesame Street) that showed how crayons were made in a factory. I was probably 2 or 3, so it aired in the late 80s.
I don’t know what my absolutely earliest TV memory is.
Among the earliest are:
Buster Brown (host Andy Devine)
Winky Dink
Some Chicago local kids show hosted by Two-Ton Baker
George Pal Puppetoons on some kids show
Susan’s Show (Chicago local)
Howdy Doody
Queen for a Day
The Liberace Show
The Millionaire
Medic
French Foreign Legion (with Buster Crabbe)
We weren’t allowed to watch tv much but I do remember watching Presto the clown on WDRB 41 out of Louisville. I also vividly remember watching Fright Night on Saturdays. Some of those movies were pretty corny.
I was eight! Good times.
Pow Wow the Indian Boy on Captain Kangaroo. The article says it was picked up by Capt Kangaroo in 1956, and I was born in 1958. No telling when I first saw it - 2 or 3?
Also, there was a local kiddy show called Kiterick(The call letters of the station were KTRK.) I remember being sooo jealous of my best friend Kathy, who got to have her birthday on the show and go on the merry-go-round.