Size Matters…
Leave it to the creative juices of MaryB aka ShortyPJs to come up with this idea. She found that Wikipedia has a database of TV schedules going back to the very early days when there were only three networks, three channels. Yes, you heard me right, young TiVo heads, only 3, T-H-R-E-E, as in ah-1-anna-2-anna-3. A bit of Lawrence Welk humor there, boys and girls, and no, I am not going to ’splain who Lawrence Welk is. If you don’t know and you wanna, Google it yourownself.
So, I decided to dare a peek at what was on during prime time (we did not call it that back then) when I graduated from high school a few centuries ago. Looking back and checking the schedules for 1960 felt like peering through a dense fog, trying to make out the details of a comforting, vaguely familiar landmass out on the horizon. The upheavals and changes we have been through as individuals and as a people, are frightening enough, but made even more so by the continuing downward spiral in which our world seems to be caught. Having no idea how soon we will crash or whether we will survive at all, makes the journey so perilously scary.
Here is what we were watching on Sunday nights, in the 7:00 to 11:00 PM EST time slots, in the Spring of 1960…
ABC
Colt .45 (A pistol, cowboy style, not the beer…)
Maverick
The Lawman
The Rebel (Was that Steve McQueen?)
The Alaskans (I don’t remember this one at all. Not even the name…)
Dick Clark’s World of Talent (Yep, the same one that we know now…)
CBS
Lassie (Timmy, where are you?)
Dennis the Menace
The Ed Sullivan Show (A really, really big shew…)
General Electric Theatre
Alfred Hitchcock Presents (Goooot evenink…)
The Jack Benny Show (Well, reallllly, Rochester…)
The George Gobel Show (A yuck a minute…)
What’s My Line?
NBC
Riverboat
Sunday Showcase
The Dinah Shore Chevy Show
The Loretta Young Show
On Sunday evenings, my family gathered around the large piece of furniture with the little rounded black and white picture tube and watched the CBS affiliate out of Memphis or Nashville, depending on which one had the best reception on the antenna mounted atop a 75 ft. tower with a rotor to make it point whichever way we wanted. No such thing as cable or satellite then, so everybody had one of these unsightly towers anchored against the side of the house. A man’s success was in part measured by the type and height of his TV antenna mast. Size really did matter…
Looking over the weekly schedule, I was amazed, because I had forgotten, at how many bang-bang shoot-em-up Westerns were on TV back then. For several years of it’s long reign, Gunsmoke (Mister Dillon…) on Saturday night was the highest rated show for the season. Saturday night also brought us Have Gun Will Travel (a chess-playing gun-slinger named Palladin?), Bonanza, and a few other great Western shows. No one complained about guns and violence in those shows because (1) we were a bit more civilized, tolerant, educated and understanding in those days, (2) you never actually saw anyone get shot or bleed, and (3) all of the shows had a point, a lesson in morals and/or ethics. If Pa Cartright said it was wrong, then it was by-god wrong. Period. Nobody questioned, picketed, called in the ACLU, or filed a lawsuit.
The variety shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show and The Judy Garland Show were pure entertainment. Sullivan’s stage was where we got our first national glimpse of Elvis and a bit later, The Beatles. One night Judy Garland introduced a new raw talent, a young Jewish girl from Brooklyn, with a big mouth, a bigger nose, and an even bigger voice. She wanted to be a singer. I remember telling whoever I was with, “Remember that name and that voice ’cause we’re gonna hear from her for a long time.” The kid’s name was Barbra Streisand.
While TV in the early days may not have been intellectually stimulating, what it offered on those three original network channels was far superior to the dreck that is pumped out today. If not for CNN, C-Span, Discovery, and the local PBS station, I would probably forego a telly altogether. Oh, wait, there’s my addiction to football … got to have my ESPN and FoxSN!
8 Comments so far
Whoa, that takes me back, Winston! Bonanza; yup, we had that over here, along with many of the others. My favourite of the Westerns was The Virginian; I think I liked the off-beat, slightly subversive idea of the good guy dressed in black. And of course I had my toy six-shooter and we played cowboys and indians. Guess who were the bad guys… how un-PC can you get, but we took it all as gospel truth in our innocence.
My favourite out of the “The {insert celebrity name here} Show” genre were The Dick Van Dyke show, The Mary Tyler-Moore Show and The Danny Kaye Show. Three wonderful entertainers; we just don’t seem to get their brand of truly warm-hearted homour any more. Great to see D.V.D. still going strong, and looking a lot younger than the bank manager he played in Mary Poppins.
There was a long-running weekly series as I was growing up called “All Our Yesterdays” - it charted the course of the second world war, with a week-by-week newsreel of the events a quarter of a century previously. I find it hard to believe now that I was born only 10 years after that war ended; I mean, 10 years is nothing, just the blink of an eye, and already that time seems like ancient history.
I’m afraid we played at war games too; the bizarre thing was that my best friend at junior school was Japanese, and he naturally took the role of his nationality in our games. We thought nothing of it; it was just a kids game As you say, the TV and movies of the time never showed any real gore or suffering; it was all cardboard cut-out stuff.
Hmmm… that sent me off on a long tangent didn’t it…
We watched a lot of westerns in our house….my dad loved them…Bonanza was my favorite. The variety shows were big with us too…Ed Sullivan and Dinah Shore in particular….I really loved those. Dennis the Menace and Lassie..yep, all on our tv schedule. We were big on the drama shows too….General Electric Theatre, Alfred Hitchcock, The Twilight Zone…so many. You’ve certainly touched off a wave of nostalgia with this one Winston…thanks.
Great memories and I loved the shows back then– most especially the westerns not that any remotely resembled the real west. One of the first things I ever saw was Omnibus which had diverse programming and there were some half hour dramas that gave a start to writers, directors, and later big movie stars. Basically the first programs often grew out of radio where we earlier had gathered around to listen to things like the Shadow with the lights low or off. When we first got TV, there was only one channel; so no arguing over what to watch either
Nick Adams was “The Rebel.” He was also in “Hell is for Heroes” with Steve McQueen. Steve McQueen was “The Bounty Hunter.”
The only westerns I liked were Maverick (yum!) and Have Gun Will Travel. My mother loved Gunsmoke, and since I could abide Chester and Miss Kitty, I hung in for that, too. Couldn’t wait for Alfred Hitchcock Presents (that leg o’ lamb one still kills me!).
My favourite (I was in the UK at the time) was
the kiddies SF program “Doctor Who”, 405-line scan (360i), in black & white (1963–1967), mono sound
Daleks forever!
Hi Stu, do you know the Doctor is back now, in his tenth (I think) reincarnation? Still a great series, but very different to the original. I’ve seen all but one series, from 1963 onwards - an all-time favourite.
Hi Andy,
sadly, ’tis not here in Germany and I cannot get BFBS TV down in our valley
Stu
PS: Dr.Who and the Daleks are also Dubya’s fave TV show. Whence his obsession with “Annihilate! Exterminate!” and his inability to negotiate stairs.