I remember our family’s old black and white television set from the mid to late 1950’s. What a technological marvel it was–even more so when we got a color set in the mid to late 60’s, as I recall. In those days a massive TV with a heavy 25-inch CRT was set in a fine wood cabinet, and was a furniture center piece in the living room.
Sometimes we would get away with rabbit ears antennas, but the roofs throughout the neighborhood displayed large TV antennas to pick up Los Angeles stations from 60 miles distant, for example.
I am amused sometimes when I reflect on some of the TV shows I watched growing up, such as “Mr. Ed” (starring a talking horse) or “My Favorite Martian”. I was a more regular viewer of “Batman and Robin”, with its “POW” and “BAM” graphics during fight scenes, and sign off of “same bat-time, same bat-channel”. My younger brothers used to dress up in Batman and Robin costumes and act out fights. I can still sing the full two verses from the opening of “Beverly Hillbillies”. (“Now listen to my story ’bout a man named “Jed”, poor mountaineer barely kept his family fed…”)
Other shows I watched regularly were more engaging and spawned future editions, such as “Star Trek” and “Mission Impossible”. I still can’t believe “Star Trek” lasted only three seasons with Captain Kirk, Spock, Dr. McCoy, Sulu, and Scotty. (“Shoot me, Klingon!”)
There were innumerable westerns, with gunfights between good guys and bad guys (you always knew clearly which was which), such as Gunsmoke and The Rifleman. (Chuck Connors from The Rifleman also played professional baseball and basketball.) And a few WWII shows such as “Combat” (Germans were the bad guys.)
Suzanne wrote a great blog post about 60’s commercials (link). So many were ads for cigarettes and beer, and many were amusing or had addictive phrases or jingles–“Silly millimeter longer”, or “From the land of sky blue waters”. (If you are from the 60’s you know what I’m talking about.)
