Friday, November 27, 2009

TV Memories

In 1953 my father brought home a TV. I have a feeling he did not ask my mother first. Years later he told me that he had a good crop that year, so he and his landlord each bought a TV.



Everyone's lives changed with TV. One of my favorite shows was Sky King. The idea of a cowboy who rode horses AND flew an airplane was exciting.



In the mid 196Os he bought a color TV -- again, from the local hardware store. In small rural towns, the hardware store was the only place you could buy a TV.



Watching programs in color was incredible. We had a hard time imagining it could ever get better than that. Of course not all shows were in color, but if you saw this NBC peacock, you knew the following program would be presented in "living color."



In the early 1970s, the first color TV was replaced with a bigger console model. I remember my father thinking All in the Family was scandalous and did not like us to watch that awful show!



Some time after I left home he got a TV with a remote control. But the TV was still a big console model.

Today we have high definition LCD TVs. I think it can't get better than this!



But I suppose TV will get better in the years to come. It is all quite amazing to me. Yet to be honest, watching Sky King in black and white was pretty exciting, too. The innocence and simplicity of it all was quite attractive. Back in those days HD stood for "high drama."

Thanks for stopping by.

7 comments:

Hilary said...

I love your posts about old TV shows.. and now about old TV. I loved Sky King too and of course I watched All in the Family because it was controversial and incredibly funny. A ground-breaker for sit-coms. Thanks for the nostalgic tug, Russell.

"Out of the clear blue of the western sky comes Sky King."

Ahh.. "those were the days" ;)

Anonymous said...

Ahhh, the good old days. I think my parents bought us one of the sets in your photos. How funny. We just ordered a new one today as our second TV so Hubby and I can quit arguing about what to watch. LOL

Di
The Blue Ridge Gal

Anonymous said...

I can remember life before TV. Imagine that!

Pop and Ice said...

I remember the console TVs AND stereos. I remember thinking our Living Room looked so posh with the console electronics and orange crushed velvet chairs and a white patterned crushed velvet couch. Orange, people! God knows what the carpet was. Thank God I can't remember!

Jo said...

That console looks exactly like the one we had. Back then, TVs were actually furniture.

The TV sets have improved, but sadly the content has gone to the dogs. Oh, wait, that's an insult to dogs. The content of TV is so bad, who can stand to watch it anymore?

Marge said...

I loved Sky King and his niece Penny. I loved Fury, the story of a horse and the boy who loved him. I loved The Lone Ranger and Tonto. And I loved Gunsmoke! Every Sunday night was The Wonderful World of Disney and then the big fight in our family to decide between Steve Allen and Ed Sullivan, variety shows scheduled opposite each other.

Your posts always bring me back to my childhood in Iowa! Don't you wish we could watch those TV shows again?

Small City Scenes said...

Wow the memory train travels on. We got our first TV in 1955 or there abouts. My Father had graduated from Dr. school (sadly he died shortly afterwards) and we got a television. I don't recall that they were called TVs until much later. I loved all those half hour kid shows but I still like 'The Shadow' on the radio.
We didn't get a color TV until the 70s--we were so outdated and my kids friends ALL had color why couldn't we. thanks for the walk down memory lane. MB