

Our television in 1960


Inside the television


(Yes, kids, doctors in those days came to your house to treat you.)


Horizontal Hold gone wrong.
Vertical Hold gone wrong.



I don’t recall feeling that I was 187 channels short, nor did I find it inconvenient that you had to watch what was on TV when it was on. The world made sense then: when something was happening, you watched it. When it was over, it was something that had happened, and you couldn’t see it again. (Unless it was one of the perennial Christmas favorites, like The Wizard of Oz, or Peter Pan, starring Mary Martin as Peter, or Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, or A Charlie Brown Christmas—none of which can be shown these days because they are not PC.) In short, the concept of recording a show to watch later was unimaginable.

I also don’t recall there ever being a show we wanted to watch on one channel while another show we also wanted to watch was airing on a different channel. I assume this must have happened, but it has not made an impression, so I guess we just dealt with it.



The favored chair was The Grey Chair, followed by the couch and The Green Chair and we developed a system wherein we “called” our right to whatever seat we wanted.


That person could then sit in the Grey Chair until they moved out of it. Then it was up for grabs. So, we revised the system and set a time limit. From then on, if someone who was sitting in the Grey Chair wanted to go into the kitchen for something, they would say, “I call the Grey Chair for 30 seconds” and then they had to the count of 30 to get back into their seat.

In looking back, I think it is admirable that we developed this method instead of defaulting to the normal childhood system of “might makes right.”

End of ASIDE

We did have a rudimentary channel changer, however. We called it “our little brother” and it went something like this:

“Hey Marc, come in here a minute.”

Marc, toddling in from the other room, “What?”



“Hey Marc, come in here a minute.”

Marc, from the other room, “Fuck you!”

Me, “I’m telling mom!”




Because of our limited viewing options, and the abundance of interesting things to do outside, we didn’t watch a lot of television, especially when compared with the children of today. Saturday morning was the time for cartoons. That was it. You got up early—but not too early, or all you’d see was the Test Pattern—and sat in front of the TV with your Frosted Flakes to watch Tom and Jerry, Popeye, Bugs Bunny and any number of other classic cartoons that can’t be shown today due to our modern sensibilities.

The television also went off at night. After the late news, the stations would play the National Anthem and then sign off. From then on, until about 6 in the morning, there was nothing on the TV at all.

After the 11 o’clock news, you’d see this…
…then you’d see this for a while…
…then there would be nothing but this.


Captain Kangaroo—with his side-kicks Mr. Greenjeans, Grandfather Clock, Mr. Moose, Bunny Rabbit and Dancing Bear—was an educational entertainment show. It was mercifully light on the education and good fun to watch. Within the show format were several cartoon sequences, including Tom Terrific with his Thinking Cap and sidekick Manfred the Wonder Dog, and Pow Wow the Indian Boy.

Pow-Wow wouldn’t fly today due to its
stereotypical portrayal of Native Americans
Likewise, the original Tom and Jerry cartoons,
featuring a housemaid seemingly based on
Mammy from Gone with the Wind,
which can’t be shown anymore, either.



“I see Bobby, and Susan, and Joey, and Annabelle…”

But enough of this stroll down amnesia lane. These idle, idyll days didn’t last long. In 1967, when I was 12, we got a color TV. We thought that made us ultra-modern, even though the color was far from realistic. The technology improved rapidly, however, and fifteen years later, cable TV, HBO and 24-hour television became available.



Yes, they really were that big.
Note: this is not my dad; it’s just
a random picture nicked off the web

I have no idea when flat screen televisions arrived on the scene. We got one in 2008, but we were luddites—they had been around for a long time by then.

To my grandchildren’s generation, flat screens are normal, as are iPads and mobile phones. And the idea that you can’t watch whatever you want, whenever you want, on whatever device you want to watch it on, is as hard for them to conceive as the idea of more than three channels was for me.
