Earliest TV Shows
My earliest memories of watching television are of baseball games with my dad.
But after that, here are the shows I remembering loving most when I was a kid:
“The Roy Rogers Show” – By the time I was watching TV, The King of the Cowboys was already in reruns on Saturdays. (“Happy trails to you, until we meet again . . . .”) Whenever we played Cowboys, I always insisted on being Roy Rogers — what with Trigger and Bullet and all — while my little brother had to be Gene Autrey.
“The Andy Griffith Show” – I still hear the whistling in my mind. Barney Fife was one of the great comedic characters ever.
“Lassie” – Again, the whistling. A young boy and his collie, constant danger, weekly heroism. What could be better.
“Flipper” – Sandy and Bud were so lucky.
“Daniel Boone” – Fess Parker and that great coonskin cap. (“What a Boone, what a do-er, what a dream-come-a-truer was he.”)
“The Ranger Ed Show.” I doubt this will be on anyone else’s list. It was a local program. But my cousin and I were addicted. We were official members of the Ranger Ed Club. (I still have my badge.) Once he said he’d give a horse away to the viewer who could send in the best name for the horse. My cousin sent in “Ride-A-Lot” . . . and won. That raised the question of what to do when you win a horse and you live in a neighborhood in town. But they found a place to keep him.
No “Bonanza” for us, since it was on Sunday evenings, when we WERE IN CHURCH!
I’m sure there were others that will come back to me as others who are about my age comment — but these are the ones I can remember. (A little later came “Beverly Hillbillies” and “Gilligan’s Island.”)
How about you — earliest TV memories?
Dragnet, Andy Griffith, and Daniel Boone were three I remember. The Lone Ranger was an early one too.
“The Bozo Show” (local to Chicago on WGN before going national)
I also watched a lot of shows in syndication at my Grandma’s house, including: “I Love Lucy”, “The Andy Griffith Show”, “The Munsters”, “The Brady Bunch”, and “Gilligan’s Island”
Some other early favorites: “The Incredible Hulk”, “Courtship of Eddie’s Father”, “Charlie’s Angels”, and “Dukes of Hazzard”!!!
Flipper was definately my favorite. We would all gather in front of the big tv and watch that big sweet dolphin save the day.
Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. Jim was the original croc hunter.
I hate to admit it but Hee Haw was a memorable show for me. I grew up with a black and white TV and just before my dad was sent to serve in Vietnam for a second year he bought the family a color TV. The show was incredibly vivid with all the colors in the clothing and set design.
Mike – if you ever have a chance to go to a Shawn McDonald concert – Go! Awesome! Think MTV unplugged X ten.
For some odd reason, I remember the ’68 Olympics in Mexico City – Tommy Smith holding up a defiant, gloved fist on the podium. And, I was allowed to watch the intro. song/credits to the Mod Squad before my 9 pm bedtime – they were beyond cool.
Voyage to th eBottom of the Sea (loved the Flying Sub, and the omnipresent sonar sound effects), 12 O’Clock High, Time Tunnel, Soupy Sales Show, Batman, Star Trek, Petticoat Junction, Green Acres, Mr. Ed, My Favorite Martian…
I remember coming home from a visit to my grandparents in Tennessee, to discover my father had bought the family’s first color TV. Three generations sat down together to watch Roadrunner.
Two shows whose opening themes would instantly send me scurrying from the room: Twilight Zone, and Outter Limits.
Lost in Space, Star Trek, Bewitched, the last half of Walt Disney (after church on Sunday nights), Popeye, The Flintstones, The Jetsons. I don’t remember what shows were on Friday nights but every Friday night my family (mom & 5 kids)would stay up late, watch TV, eat popcorn and drink kool-ade. Great memories.
I remember my mom washing my hair on Saturday nights and rolling it up in those pink sponge rollers while we watched Lawrence Welk. I would have been about three. I had my favorite singers picked out. A few years later we started going to Sing Song at ACU and I thought, “Hey! It’s like Lawrence Welk… live!”
Roger, I had to check to see if you were the same Roger Brown who was my banquet date at Camp WaMaVa and you are. So good to hear your voice.
Romper Room, Bewitched, Red Skelton
I loved Little House on the Prairie (the books too). Still love watching when I have the chance.
Gumby
“It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day in the neighborhood…”
Mr. Rogers all the way. I was also a big Reading Rainbow fan.
Being a girl & all, my two sisters & I loved “Gidget”(the one with Sally Field–great clothes that we LONGED to have, but alas no money at the Lawyer household), “That Girl” with Marlo Thomas–same reason as mentioned above, “Dr Kildare”—swooned over Richard Chamberlain(way long before he came out) One show featured a nun in the story, & I asked my mom at bedtime prayers if it was possible for me to become one. I was only about 6, but still remember the look on her face trying not to laugh! We loved Gunsmoke because Daddy did. Also, Mom & Dad loved Lawrence Welk, so us three little girls watched it too, & longed again to be the Lennon Sisters minus one.
I grew up watching Gunsmoke and Have Gun Will Travel on Saturday nights. Every Saturday night, without exception, my family would trek across town to an uncle’s house for supper, or prepare at our house while every one came there. We would cook out or have potluck and everyone would sit around TV (B&W, of course) and watch these two shows.
Have Gun Will Travel starred Richard Boone as Paladin. He was a “fast gun for hire” and went around sovling people’s problems. Pretty classy show and I loved the theme song played at the end of the show. The writers of the song were Pat Boone, Jimmy Western and Richard Boone, who helped. Jimmy Western sang the song.
When at one uncle’s house, the kids would all go to my cousin’s room and read funny books. He had a box in the corner of his room filled with them and we would all sit around and read. (The cousin, by the way, is Toby Christian and Ryan’s Christian’s father!)
Special and fun times these memories bring to me.
Julie email me when you get a chance. roger@denbigh.org
I remember thinking it was really funny that there was a show called “The Bald Ones.” Of course, it was “The Bold Ones.” Didn’t realize at the time that the joke would eventually be on me.
A few years later, The Brady Bunch, still in production at the time, (Friday nights at 7:00) was a high point of my week. Then, I’d usually drink enough Coke to stay awake for The Midnight Special. That was the best.
Captain Kangaroo!
Oh my! I was almost an adult before television came to Abilene. Some of my favorites were the Ed Sullivan show, Dinah Shore’s show, and the one hosted by Loretta Young. My fun times as a kid were listening to the radio…Let’s Pretend, Sky King, One Man’s Family, Inner Sanctum, The Shadow, etc.! Most old folks will tell you we enjoyed radio dramas more than TV dramas. We had to use our imagination to picture the characters and scenes. Wow! What an imagination I had!
We watched Andy Griffith on Monday nights and The Red Skelton Show on Tuesday nights. Then there was….”Out of the Western sky comes…..Sky King!!”
Just a bit more. We, too, watched baseball games. Between every inning there was a beer commercial. Since these were the days before remote controls, we had to get up and turn the sound down during the commercials. Ah, what memories!
One show that has not been mentioned that we watched as a kid was Hawii 5 0. My dad was big on detective shows like that and Dragnet.
I still remember the old Micky Mouse Club and having a crush on Annette. Then at night, Red Skelton and all the game shows such as Truth or Consequences, I’ve Got a Secret and What’s My Line.
Hawaii Five-O (“book em’ Danno” was the coolest TV line ever)
Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans
Hee Haw (“gloom, despair and agony on me, OH!!!”)
The Rifleman
I wonder what this conversation will look like in 30 or 40 years with our children. “Oh man, I remember back in the good ole’ days when shows were decent, like Nip/Tuck, The Girls Next Door, Blade, Wild On. Man, they just don’t make em’ like that anymore.”
Gunsmoke, Rawhide, The Fugitive. Besides Andy Griffith (and I agree that Don Knotts was the best), the early Leave It To Beaver’s were great comedy. Wally absolutely cracks me up!
The Saturday N.F.L highlights show, with the signature music for each game and the voice of the announcer. Made every game seem like the most important game ever played. Also, the Sunday afternoon college football highlight show with either Keith Jackson or Chris Schenkel doing the narration. These were usually the only highlights we could get of games. The college show would do a Pac-8game of the week, Big-8, Southwest conference,SEC,and of course, whoever Notre Dame was playing.
I tell my son all the time how lucky he and his friends are to have ESPN and other news outlets that show every highlight available, and he just looks at me like I am from the stone ages!
I hate to say it but Pee-Wee Herman was one of the first shows I remember as a kid. Also, Transformers and Punky Brewster. What a list!
Dukes of Hazard, Gunsmoke, and Houston Astro games
From 1958 – 1962 we (my Dad) were stationed in Germany. I remember seeing T.V. while we were in Germany but at the time there wasn’t an “Armed Forces T.V. Station” so it was in German.
I remember the day we moved into base housing when we returned stateside at Ft. Stewart, GA. My dad bought a black and white T.V. and when he had adjusted the rabbit ears, the first show I saw in English was “The Flintstones.”
“Wilma!”
Bugs Bunny, Road Runner & friends on Saturday mornings. Where are they now?
Sky King. Wanted to be a pilot for years.
I think I liked it better when there was the baseball game of the week, rather than several to choose from each day. Too much of a good thing.
All right. You’re jogging my memories. How could I have omitted “Sky King” reruns and “Gunsmoke”? “Batman” came a bit later, but of course that was a staple.
Buzz – Annette? Ha!
Charlie – No kiddin’. This is all pre-ESPN. I think someday Chris will list “Baseball Tonight.”
Dukes of Hazzard, The Incredible Hulk, Wonder Woman, The A-Team, and of course, Miami Vice. I also remember after school coming home and watching He-Man. Saturday morings watching: H&R Puff and Stuff, Bananna Splits, Smurfs, Pac-Man, Super Friends, and Looney Tunes.
When we got a VCR (I was 12), we finally got to watch the Wonderful World of Disney. When I got to be a “big kid,” I got to stay up late and watch the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. I knew I had arrived at adult-hood when I got to watch the 10 o’clock news and then Johnny’s monologue every night!
I was out of college and teaching b/4 my parents bought a TV…at a garage sale for $3.00! However, our radio gave us a vivid imagination…Fibber McGee’s closet that always dumped everything out when it was opened, Molly McGee calling out “McGee” and providing the voices for more than her own character, Don McNiel’s Breakfast Table (I remember as a pre-schooler marching around our breakfast table when they sang the song), One Man’s Family…and, listening to George Bailey on early Herald of Truth programs, my dad on the local radio station, and, of course, Paul Harvey who still can paint word pictures in vivid colors!
My first tv memories both occurred when I was about 7
Watching Nixon walk on to the airplane after he resigned (don’t know why this stands out but it does)
Watching Hank Aaron’s 715 fly out of Fulton County Stadium.
As for TV show memories. Growing up, my parents did Weight Watcher’s and Monday night was weigh in night. After weigh in, gain or lose, they would get pizza and we would watch the Monday night line up on NBC. Little House, and Alf are the two shows I associate with that memory.
I remember watching many Saturday football games in the TV section of my parent’s Western Auto store in Auburn and later Opelika. It was cool to have multiple sets showing the games. They would only let me have the sound up on one though.
I also remember that Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere where the first “grown up” shows I got to watch with my dad who loved them both.
I also remember watching You Can’t Do That On Television and Nick Rocks because we didn’t have MTV yet.
I was 9 when Laugh In started. I remember Goldie Hawn and her body painting and Tiny Tim “Tiptoe Through the Tulips”
Bozo the Clown, Mickey Mouse Club, Captain Kangaroo. Sesame Street, Electric Company, Mr. Rogers. Mom watched some soaps during the day while I was at home with her before kindergarten. After dinner it was the evening news on channel 2 in Detroit with Joe Glover and Sonny Elliot. Later channel 7 with Bill Bonds. Walter Cronkite. The Muppet Show, Lawrence Welk, Carol Burnett and Tim Conway. Charlie Brown holiday specials. Sports was Tigers and Lions and Wolverines, oh my! And of course the Wings and Hockey Night in Canada on CBC 9.
Remember the days before 24/7 programming, when they’d show a flag and play the national anthem every morning to get the day started?
Three shows:
“Looney Tunes” on Saturday mornings. I agree with the above poster: where are they now???
“HeeHaw”. This was required watching in my house.
One you will have only heard of if you grew up in Memphis, but EVERYBODY watched: “Magicland with Dick Williams”. This was just a guy with a local magic show, and he ended every broadcast with his “spocklike” four-finger trick (split them outward in pairs into a Mr. Spock “live long and prosper” greeting, and then keep the middle two together while the index and pinkie split outward…try it…it’s not that easy to do 70 times in a row…with both hands…). Anyway, Dick Williams is in the Guinness Book for the longest running television magic show. He was on the air in Memphis for about 30 years.
My 3rd example is somewhat sad, because it seems like local tv is just dead, except for the news. It doesn’t matter where you are, if you turn on the tv, you get the same thing.
Lost in Space, Star Trek, Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants, Twilight Zone, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Rifleman, Big Valley, The Lone Ranger, Andy Griffith.
I guess the very earliest shows I remember, though, would be Bugs Bunny/Road Runner and Romper Room (local, I think).
Mike,
Now I really feel old reading all of these shows. So old that I can remember when MTV started (all music, no commercials!), and when ESPN started (reruns of college football games on Monday and Tuesday).
My parents hated MTV. It was all that we would watch when we came home for summer during college. To get back at them, my sister gave my dad an “I Want My MTV” T-shirt for Christmas. Still has it. Never worn it!
Mike,
Do you remember watching the old Saturday Game of the Week with Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese? Listening to ol’ Diz butcher the English language? As I recall it was pretty much the only baseball on TV until the World Series,which was still played in the daytime.We begged our school teacher to turn on the old protable TV’s to watch the daytime Series games,inlcuding those classic Cardinals-Tigers games in 68.
By the way,Andy Griffith for me.I think Barney Fife is the greatest TV character of all time.
Tim, Sky King always made me want to be a pilot, too. That reminded me of another show… Sea Hunt.
I remember lots of Saturday afternoons, sitting with my great-grandfather (a veteran of BOTH World Wars), watching a documentary-type series about US submarines in WWII, called “The Silent Service.”
When that show was over, he’d either try to find a baseball game on TV (Cardinals was the closest pro team) or we’d walk up the road and I’d watch him and his best friend play dominoes.
I get the feeling that Romper Room was one of those shows that was done locally in a lot of different areas.
“I see Timmy, and Suzy, and…”
Saved by the Bell
I Love Lucy
Andy Griffith Show
MTV Summer Party
That lady who had a lamb as a sock puppet
“That lady who had a lamb as a sock puppet ”
And the Childrens World Film Festival with Kookla, Fran, and Ollie…
ftwskies stole mine: Hockey Night In Canada, eh? There was nothing else worth watching then for me. Except I had to go to bed after the first period. Also, our TV’s horizontal hold used to let go every time the camera moved too close to the crowd and it would flip until my dad pounded on top of the TV!
I do have memories of coming home from school and watching “old” movies (30′s and 40′s) with my mother. One station in Canada played them every afternoon. I think I knew who Ingrid Bergman was before anyone that was my age… crush on her!
As a very young kid, it was Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers. A little later, it was Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley. But TV wasn’t great until Michael J. Fox and Family Ties. And I’ve been watching my Dallas Cowboys since before I could say “football.”
Mike,
Bonanza– (I think we got home from church before you did.
77 Sunset Strip–
Perry Mason–
The Untouchables–
Andy Griffin–By far, Barney Fife was my favorite character of all.