# Your very first TV memory **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 22, 2012, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598 "2012-04-22T16:32:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598/81 "2012-04-24T00:50:35Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Ding-Dong School, Crusader Rabbit, Engineer John…all sorts of stuff from the late 50s. Mine is Crusader Rabbit. I mean, I saw other things before that, but they were grown-up things and not interesting enough to remember. For the longest time there was no way to see any old CR episodes or clips. Then there was a specialty site and clips on Youtube. I had totally forgotten (or never realized) that the show was only partially animated. I’d also forgotten how repetative it was, due to the shortness of the installments and the recaps. > [@Washoe](#): > > My Mother the Car. Sadly, I’m not kidding. You have my sympathy. Although when I watched it, I was young enough to enjoy it. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598/82 "2012-04-24T02:54:18Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Yeah, first remembered filmed historic event would be interesting too. > > Mine would be the Oliver North trial. For me it wasn’t so much the moon landing per se that made the memory stick, but the excitement of all the grownups around the TV set. After this, it’s a toss-up between Captain Kangaroo, Gilligan’s Island, and Romper Room. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598/83 "2012-04-24T03:35:48Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > TV made me a man. > > It’s not my first TV memory, but it’s the clearest — I was nine years old, watching the Red Skelton show (1963, as I found after just now looking it up), and Jayne Mansfield, wearing a tight black dress, came on and sang “The Glory of Love.” And I got the funniest feeling in my crotch. At the time, I had no idea what it was. I now realize that it was all the proof I need that sexual orientation is innate. Miss Francis wasn’t the only Ding-dong School teacher… ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598/84 "2012-04-24T09:47:00Z")
> [@kbear](#): > > I was born in Canada in 62 so we only had the CBC and CTV. The earliest shows I remember were Romper Room with the lady and the mirror " I see Jimmy and I see Becky"… And the Uncle Bobby show with Bimbo the Birthday Clown When did she ever say Becky? Because I waited and waited and _waited_… ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598/85 "2012-04-24T09:49:19Z")
I watched a baseball game with my father in the early '50s. Huntley and Brinkley newscast. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598/86 "2012-04-24T10:04:21Z")
Anybody remember The Gail Storm show? Beat the Clock? Queen for a Day? ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598/87 "2012-04-24T11:40:44Z")
I remember the first show I watched on colour TV. It was _That’s My Mama_ in what must have been 1976. We had a housefire soon after, so we lost it as soon as we got it. I also have a very early memory of seeing _Monty Python_, as the “Sam Peckinpah’s Salad Days” sketch was in my nightmares repeatedly for about a year afterwards. And I have very clear memories of the TV ritual we used to do every Sunday, where my Dad would get the local Community paper, buy us kids ice creams, and we’d eat them while watching _Country Calendar_, which was a New Zealand show about rural news and events. New Zealand is still a very rural-oriented culture. But I think my earliest actual TV memory is of a _Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special_ from around 1973 (though it would likely have been the episode from Christmas '72 or even earlier). I would’ve been four years old. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598/88 "2012-04-24T12:40:47Z")
I can’t really say which was first. I remember shows like Romper Room and Wonderama. Various Saturday morning cartoon shows. No idea which came first. I do remember watching a moon landing. It could have been any between Apollo 14-17. I also remember watching the Munich Olympics and seeing the guys in ski masks. So I would have been 4-5 years old. ---
**Author:** ![luv2draw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/46a35a/32.png) [@luv2draw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/luv2draw)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598/89 "2012-04-24T12:52:10Z")
> [@Becky2844](#): > > Anybody remember The Gail Storm show? Which one? Margie? (with William Farrell as Dad) Or Oh Susannah? (where she was the cruise director with Zazu Pitts) 😃 😃 ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598/90 "2012-04-24T12:55:55Z")
> [@Becky2844](#): > > Anybody remember The Gail Storm show? Beat the Clock? Queen for a Day? All of the above. And it was “Gale Storm”, not “Gail”. Confusing since, as Dave Barry pointed out, you also had “Gale Gordon”, a male sitcom actor. > [@](#): > > Which one? Margie? (with William Farrell as Dad) Or Oh Susannah? (where she was the cruise director with Zazu Pitts) The first one, “My Little Margie”. I never saw the other one. By the way, it always creeped me out when the photograph of Gale and Vern “came to Life” at the end of the episode. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598/91 "2012-04-24T12:57:09Z")
> [@Becky2844](#): > > Queen for a Day? “Would YOU like to be QUEEN For A DAY??” Yup! Presented by Fab detergent, and the ladies in the audience all had pointy glasses and looked like Larson comic characters! ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598/92 "2012-04-24T12:58:33Z")
Either it was watching Felix The Cat, followed by bullfighting, when I lived in San Diego…or it was having my local children’s show preempted by news of the Kennedy assassination. ---
**Author:** ![PapSett](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecc23a/32.png) [@PapSett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PapSett)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598/93 "2012-04-24T13:13:20Z")
I have 2, from about the same time, I don’t knoe which one came first. My mom’s mom died when I was 3 years and 4 months, in 1963, and these were both while she was alive. I remember watching ‘The Wizard of Oz’ at Grandma & Grandpa’s house, and being afraid of the Wicked Witch of the West; I hid behind my Grandma’s chair, peeping out occasionally untill she was off the screen. The other, my older cousin Sherry had spent the night with me, and we were coloring. My mother called to us to let us know Peggy Mitchell was about to come on, followed by Captain Kangaroo. I remember scrambling to pick up the crayons to go watch! We got our first color TV somewhere about 1965-67… the first program we watched was Johnny Quest! ---
**Author:** ![Labdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598/94 "2012-04-24T14:14:52Z")
> [@Sam\_A.Robrin](#): > > Miss Francis wasn’t the only Ding-dong School teacher… I think you may be confusing ["Ding Dong School"](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Horwich)with "[“Romper Room.”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romper_Room) “Romper Room” was franchised and did indeed have various hostesses. Miss Nancy was the one I remember. But I used to watch "Ding Dong School every morning and never saw anyone except Miss Frances. I LOVED Miss Frances! The wiki article seems to bear out Miss Frances as the only host. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598/95 "2012-04-24T14:20:23Z")
My first TV memory is of watching Nixon resign. ---
**Author:** ![eldowan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@eldowan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eldowan)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598/96 "2012-04-24T14:37:16Z")
Marvin Zindler, EYE WITNESS NEWS! and Slime in the Ice Machine ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598/97 "2012-04-24T16:32:22Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > “Would YOU like to be QUEEN For A DAY??” Yup! Presented by Fab detergent, and the ladies in the audience all had pointy glasses and looked like Larson comic characters! Even as a little kid, that show made me sad. Three women with horrible stories (son in wheelchair with polio, another with 9 kids and husband died in car wreck, and another with some horrible disease and no appliances at home) and only one would win and get the new fridge and a month’s supply of beans. The others were sent packing back to their misery. I think my mother stopped watching it when I was home because I would pester her with questions, “…so do the other kids have anything to eat tonight?!” ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598/98 "2012-04-24T18:24:41Z")
The runners-up won something, they didn’t leave completely empty-handed. I wonder how a show like that would go over today. Instead of watching idiots like the Kartrashians, spending their millions out of sheer boredom. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598/99 "2012-04-24T20:37:14Z")
> [@luv2draw](#): > > Which one? Margie? (with William Farrell as Dad) Or Oh Susannah? (where she was the cruise director with Zazu Pitts) 😃 😃 Seems like she was with her dad…on a ship…lol. I don’t know. Here’s one that’ll show who’s from where: The Mulls Singing Convention. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598/100 "2012-04-24T22:05:37Z")
ca 1965ish: Rhomper Room (I think it was w/ Miss Sally at the time). Bozo’s Circus (Chicago version). Ray Rayner (also a Chicago thing). Garfield Goose (ditto). Beany and Cecil. And of course all the Hanna-Barbera cartoons that were run endlessly at that time. ETA: I remember [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KahtXeLgyW8&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL6DD0020838EDDF7D). What an odd cartoon. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-very-first-tv-memory/619598.md?page=6)