Thursday, May 7, 2015

A Step Back in Time

I really enjoyed many of the posts I read from new and old bloggers during this last A to Z. Unfortunately, even with having my own posts pre-written before the challenge began, I still found that visiting, reading, commenting took up more time that I had.  I would love to have a day to catch-up but I do not see that happening anytime soon.

Several times there was a person or TV show mentioned that took me back to my youth.  That was a very long time ago.

I started thinking about the first TV my parents bought.  It was 1951 and they purchased an Admiral TV that also had a radio and a phonograph.  It was very similar to this one I found online at the Radio Museum website.

My mother always said that having the TV in the home changed me.  I was four at the time they purchased it.  I imagine that going from hearing just voices on a radio to seeing people on a TV must have been very interesting at that point in my life.

Televisions were black and white, there were only the big three broadcast network stations in my youth until Windsor, Canada began broadcasting CKLW - TV in 1954.  No remotes.  No DVR.  No tapes.  No On Demand.  But plenty of summer reruns.  There was no such thing as 'summer series'.

There are so many shows that I remember enjoying.  And so many folks I forgot about until someone mentioned them in the Challenge.

How about you?  Do you remember Art Linkletter, Garry Moore, Kate Smith, Eve Arden, Jane Froman, William Bendix, Bess Myerson, Robert Young, or Ozzie and Harriet Nelson?  Any favorite personalities from your youth?

8 comments:

  1. Of course you are talking American TV so I don't know any of those people. I never did watch much TV even as a kid. I know there were lots of TVs around before my dad bought one. The first thing I remember seeing on TV, not ours, was the Victory in Europe parade. I was only little at the time and we kids kept wanting to get close to the screen and the adults kept telling us to move back it would be better. My dad was in the parade, I think I saw him.

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    1. Obviously American TV. But, I saw all of the old movies on Windsor's CKLW with host, Bill Kennedy.

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  2. Oh my mother would hate the after school time. I came home and would watch Gilligan's Island and Lost In Space. I would watch them over and over and over. I was a TV hound so I loved the Variety shows like Sonny and Cher, Donny and Marie and all the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby specials. Loved the real Roasts with Dean Martin (remember Foster Brooks?). Those Roasts were funny, politically incorrect but not rude or crude. Mary Tyler Moore, To Tell The Truth, Bonanza, Little House on the Prairie...I could go on and on. We also had a black and white TV and got the 3 major American channels but also the Canadian ones. Loved the old movies they would show and I remember how the TV station signed off with the anthem and then that would be it until 5 or 6am

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    1. I remember coming home from school and watching American Bandstand with Dick Clark and having my lunch with Soupy Sales when I was younger. One of the A to Z bloggers wrote about the Twilight Zone. I used to turn on all the lights trying to get to my room after some of their shows.

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  3. Growing up in New York City, I was able to listen to the radio station CKLW (I remember their soundcheck - CKLW, the Motor City! - so well) at night, sometimes. I remember many of the personalities you mention. I remember Art Linkletter's House Party. Garry Moore, who hosted I've Got a Secret for so many years. Alana ramblinwitham.blogspot.com

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    1. I remember on clear evenings being able to listen to Chicago radio stations. When I was a kid, it seemed like a million miles away. I had family in Windsor, so it was like part of Detroit to me. Just had to drive through a tunnel to get there.

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    2. My youth was filled with Grace Kelly and Bruce Willis (my parents had a love of oldies, action and sci fi movies. I guess that love got passed down to me.

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    3. Bruce Willis isn't THAT old, lol. How did I forget Arthur Godfrey and Julius La Rosa?

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