Page 5 of 8 FirstFirst ... 34567 ... LastLast
Results 41 to 50 of 78

Thread: Memories of TV when a child

  1. #41
    Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    West TN
    I grew up in a very rural area. We only had two stations regularly. ABC and PBS. If the weather was right, we could occasionally see NBC/CBS if the weather was right although it would be a fuzzy and often came in/out.

    I could go to my Grandma's house that was up on a hill and her aerial could pick up CBS out of Paducah (I think.) I would walk across the field and up the hill and spend Saturday night with her and watch Amazing Stories and Twilight Zone and then go to church with her in the morning. Those were probably my most favorite "Prime Time" shows. On Saturday mornings we watched Looney Tunes, Ghostbusters, Pacman, Smurfs and Ewoks and some kind of a show with bears and berries that my brother liked. Pretty much anything on ABC. If we were lucky we could catch the Hanna Barbara series on some of the other stations. I loved Thundarr the Barbarian and the Herculoids and Spaceghost. Except Scooby Doo. I hated Scooby Doo.

    When my Dad was home he would want to watch the Memphis wrestling (Jerry "The King" Lawler) et al, he would laugh a lot. I personally hated it but we only had the one TV.

    A lot of Saturdays we were doing things so we didn't watch every weekend. We were either fishing or hunting or looking for Indian artifacts or going to local historical parks (there is a Civil War battlefield in nearly every cardinal direction). It always made my school educational trips a little boring because we had usually gone there at least 4 times before we ever got there on a school trip. I usually got to be a "tour guide" for my friends though since I had already been there.

    Now, when I was a little older, we got "Satellite"!

    This was before all the "scrambling". So we had all the stations. We watched Disney East and (again on West) and Robotech and Voltron (the cat one) and Galaxy Rangers on WGN. I really enjoyed those.

    "Satellite" also had the stations that were way on the "east" side. *wink* The only bad thing is the traverse motor didn't have the "umph" to overcome gravity and get it back to the "ok" channels. Being a budding engineer, I worked out a system of putting a weight on the traverse switch in the living room and then use a broom to push the dish over so the motor could start pulling and the run like crazy to get back up to the house before it ran off the track the other way.

    My Dad used to like to "surf" the news feeds. All the stuff that was being beamed that would later be cut and edited. Those news anchors used to do some very funny things. Much farting, off color jokes and other such.

    Now that could backfire. One day I was doing it and there was a newsfeed out of Eastern Europe, IIRC. It was a very beautiful and very pale woman with her eyes closed. Since I had a thing for very pale women even then, I was transfixed. It was zoomed in on her face. It zoomed out and she was missing everything just below her shoulders. I was a live feed of a mortar attack on a village market. I didn't look anything like the movies. It is still burned into my mind over 30 year later.

  2. #42
    Quote Originally Posted by HeavyDuty View Post
    Prime time, one of my earliest memories is being pissed that I was sent to bed the night a brand new show premiered - The FBI..
    Quote Originally Posted by MistWolf View Post
    Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
    These are two I was going to mention.
    Later in life I was stunned to learn that submarines couldn't have huge picture windows and how improbable it would be to shoot down an aircraft with a single shot from a S&W Model 10.

    ETA: My grandfather had one of the early remote controls that mechanically turned the dial, AND the motorized antenna control that twisted the antenna up on the pole. How could either of those things ever have been a thing, and how could somebody that remembers how cool that was considered to be (me...) even still be alive?!?!?
    Last edited by mmc45414; 11-23-2020 at 03:37 PM.

  3. #43
    Site Supporter
    Join Date
    Apr 2013
    Location
    Reno NV area
    Quote Originally Posted by blues View Post
    Just like our friend the antelope, we need the protection only Mutual of Omaha can provide...
    I used to love watching Stan get sent out to do the dirty work while Marlin sat back (with a drink in hand?) and provided the color commentary.

  4. #44
    Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2020
    Location
    Middle Tennessee
    Quote Originally Posted by trailrunner View Post
    I remember those! I grew up in San Diego, and Los Angeles was a strange land far, far away. My only image of Los Angeles was Cal, so I thought everyone up there was weird like that.

    (Now I've got that stupid jingle stuck in my head.)
    Well, you were right!!

  5. #45
    Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2020
    Location
    Middle Tennessee
    Quote Originally Posted by mmc45414 View Post
    These are two I was going to mention.
    Later in life I was stunned to learn that submarines couldn't have huge picture windows and how improbable it would be to shoot down an aircraft with a single shot from a S&W Model 10.

    ETA: My grandfather had one of the early remote controls that mechanically turned the dial, AND the motorized antenna control that twisted the antenna up on the pole. How could either of those things ever have been a thing, and how could somebody that remembers how cool that was considered to be (me...) even still be alive?!?!?
    Ding, ding! The remote was just a tuning fork in a box. Push the button and it would send a sound to the TV. You had to reach into the dial with a screwdriver and turn the contactor(s) where you wanted the dial to stop. The sound signal would make the dial turn until it got to the next contactor. I remember it clearly ... !

  6. #46
    Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Location
    northern Virginia
    Quote Originally Posted by mmc45414 View Post
    ETA: My grandfather had one of the early remote controls that mechanically turned the dial, AND the motorized antenna control that twisted the antenna up on the pole. How could either of those things ever have been a thing, and how could somebody that remembers how cool that was considered to be (me...) even still be alive?!?!?
    We had one of those motorized antenna rotators too. The roof would shake when we'd move the antenna. I remember putting stickers on the controller to designate the best position for the three or four channels that were available. We wondered -- what would they ever think of next?

  7. #47
    Revolvers Revolvers 1911s Stephanie B's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2014
    Location
    East 860 by South 413
    A friend, years ago, grew up on the family farm in Aroostock County, ME. They had to go to bed at 8PM every night. The only exception was if they watched Hockey Night (all they got were Canadian stations). So, by default, she really knew that game.

    I used to love Mannix. A few years ago, I watched some of the episodes on MeTV. By today's standards, they were very slow-paced and pretty corny. Mannix, using a snubbie Colt, shot some gun who was moving at about 150 yards. He could also take a beating that would put a normal person into either a coma or a grave and be up and running around in the next act.
    If we have to march off into the next world, let us walk there on the bodies of our enemies.

  8. #48
    Quote Originally Posted by NukeRef View Post
    Ding, ding! The remote was just a tuning fork in a box. Push the button and it would send a sound to the TV.
    Quote Originally Posted by trailrunner View Post
    We had one of those motorized antenna rotators too.
    But I wouldn't want anybody to think I experienced a pampered upbringing surrounded by all of the most modern convieniances, the only way I knew this stuff existed was the weekly visit to the grandparents. We didn't have any of that shit at home, at home I was the remote control!

  9. #49
    As a young American male, it was western, war, and cop tv, with the really rather violent Warner cartoons for seasoning.

    A reader of Heinlein, Norton, and Howard since I could see over the library counter, I always thought tv and movie SF To be lame. Until 1966. By then, I was attending Georgia Tech. Spaceships and exotic humanoid females at an engineering school, stand by!
    Code Name: JET STREAM

  10. #50
    Site Supporter
    Join Date
    Sep 2017
    Location
    South Louisiana
    @Jim Watson - So now you're the rambling wreck?

User Tag List

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •