This topic has been addressed before, I’m sure. But rather than going to try to find an example thread, I figured another thread can’t hurt anything of importance.
In my case, we didn’t have our own TV until 1955. So the shows I remember as “first” or nearly so were seen on other people’s sets.
I do remember Your Hit Parade being among the first. Probably 1952 – give or take a year.
How about you?
(If you want to link to another similar thread, please do.)
The first TV show I ever saw was in about 1958 or so. Juneau had one station and it didn’t start broadcasting until around 5 pm or so. My parents brought home a console TV with rabbit ears, The first show I saw was Robin Hood; I was mesmerized, and it hooked me on TV forever.
The Bozo Show, circa 1972.
My clearest early visual memory of TV is probably the ID Card used by the afternoon cartoon show Fun-O-Rama - a drawing of a kite with a face on it, with a tail that spelled out F-U-N-O-R-A-M-A in a series of rhombuses.
The moon landings.
I can relate to the getting hooked thing, but I was already hooked on radio dramas long before that. So adapting my tastes to TV took a while. I was still tuning in radio dramas at least three years (possibly longer) after we had TV.
(It might make for even more memory tickling to decide what my earliest radio memory would be.)
What a first memory of TV!
It wasn’t mine, I was fourteen when Neil Armstrong stepped out of the LEM. But I was so excited, so keyed up, that my brain would simply not process the images the eyes were taking in. I never took my eyes from the screen, but all I “saw” were blobs of gray, black and white swirling around. Later on of course, with repeated showings, I saw it.
But I did go outside, look up at the moon, and think “There are people up there!”
Captain Video and his Video Rangers.
It was about then that I decided I wanted to a) be an astronaut and b) be a scientist.
Failed at ‘a’, succeeded at ‘b’.
Mine was angry parents…
There was a kids’ show (Ding Dong School?) and one of the features of the show was coloring a picture on the screen. You see - your parents were supposed to send in (or go to some local shop) and get a clear plastic film that would stick to the screen (probably held by static electricity) and then you would use your crayons to draw on the plastic film as they put a picture on the screen for you to trace.
We didn’t have the plastic film, but I did have crayons…
Mom and Dad were not pleased.
Also, people are amazed when I tell them I can remember watching Casablanca on TV as a kid with the neighbor girl while our parents were playing cards in the next room. I was mesmerized and that has become my favorite film of all time - but I can still see myself as a little kid, lying flat on my stomach in front of the TV and watching that movie.
The first TV thing I remember was probably news coverage of the RFK assassination, when I was about two and a half. We were visiting my paternal grandparents at the time, and all of the adults were very interested in the story.
After that, the moon landing and Hurricane Camille stick out in my mind.
My memory wasn’t a TV show, but the TV set. The first one I can remember was the 13" black and white set in our rec room. It predated UHF, and needed an external tuner box to pick up UHF stations, like the current DTV boxes.
Do you possibly remember Winky Dink?
We didn’t even own a TV at the time. My parents had to rent a little black and white TV (and a stand) from the 7-11.
Waaaaaaaay back in the 50’s:
Mine is from June 2nd, 1953. We didn’t have a TV, but our next-door neighbours did, and we spent the day there watching the coronation.
(And if you’re worried about my location: I lived in England at the time. There was no TV in Australia in 1953.)
I don’t remember watching TV at all in the first two houses I lived at, which moved out of when I was five. My first memory of TV was watching Sesame Street with my little brother at around 5 and thinking the educational parts of it were too young for me (and this was before it was firmly oriented toward preschoolers.)
Ding-Dong School, Crusader Rabbit, Engineer John…all sorts of stuff from the late 50s.
Can’t remember the first TV show ever for me. Might have been Dobie Gillis because Tuesday Weld has left an indelible memory for me! I do have a distinct memory of my very first color TV show. It was The Adventures of Superman! Color TV was not ubiquitous yet. I was at a department store and walked by the row of new TV sets. I stopped and stood there agape at seeing the Man of Steel in color!
Mine is an audio memory. The jingle which has that line “I’m gonna wash that gray right outta my hair!”
The first I remember were reruns of The Buccaneers and Rescue 8, which set it at 1958. I did see the original Davy Crockett (and had a coonskin cap), but don’t remember it except from reruns.
I also remember watching The Mickey Mouse Club and do remember The Adventures of Spin and Marty. The original was probably too early for me to remember, but I may be recalling the third series from 1957.
My first TV memories I can date reliably are watching CNN to see how the situation in Iraq was developing and wondering if Operation Desert Shield was going to turn into a ground campaign that would involve my dad being sent over. It did and he was; I was six when the war ended, to turn seven the following month.