Did You Grow Up Without a TV Remote?

[blue metalflake]

I grew up without TV - slow to reach rural Ireland!

 

[KyAnne]

Yes I did. Really didn't need one. We only had one local station, Channel 6 and couldn't afford an outside antenna. The days of black and white.

 

[knopflerfan]

Yes, and my Dad didn't get the family a color TV until I was 13. Still had to use rabbit ears. NBC, ABC, and CBS - plus two UHF channels. Good times.

 

[Harry Styron]

.

No remote. No cable.
Sometimes a 20inch console that got carted to a TV repair place twice and after the second fix failed it just became a TV stand for the 13 inch B&W.

Late 70s there was not much on television Friday evenings for kids other than The Dukes of Hazard or Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser. My younger brother who must have been eight or nine at the time made an arrangement with our father. Every other week it was one or the other show. On the off weeks our father headed over to grandma's to watch WSW. Of course it would have paid early dividends to watch WSW more often





.

I was a devoted fan of Wall Street Week in the 1980s. During that time, I dropped a dollar bill, and my 3-yr old son grabbed it and pointed to George Washington’s image and said, “Hey, it’s Louis Rukeyser!”

 

[StoneH]

Disney

If a Disney cartoon movie came on . . . it was like winning the lottery!

 

[TokyoPortrait]

Hi.

Yes. Also, one channel and in black and white. We didn’t get that second channel until I was almost a teenager.

Spoke to the operator too, when you wanted to make a telephone call.

Pax/
Dean

 

[Alter]

Haha, growing up.. I used to BE the remote

 

[bluescaster72]

Kinda late to this party , but yes I pretty much did . First tv I remember in our house was a black and white console on legs. Usually hooked to an antenna . Finally got a color set in 1982 Dial knobs no remote I don't think I dealt with a remote till the early 90's and upgraded to a 25 inch set .

 

[gimmeatele]

Yes, and as youngest was always the one to go change channels!

 

[Bob M]

No remote for us, but with a total of 5 channels (3 VHF 2 UHF) you didn’t really need it. In the late ‘60s my Dad bought a RCA Color Trac console. Rotating antenna on the roof. I think he paid well over a grand (1968 dollars!) for it. What an upgrade!

 

[Skub]

I left home in 1980 and there was no television in the house. We were married almost 4 years before we bought one ourselves.

I'm not anti tv,just I grew up without one and never really got the habit,even today.

Computers,now there's another thing.

 

[zimbo]

Sony Trinitron was the Cadillac of TV's back in the day. No remote.

 

[claes]

I use my remote as a "shamepillow"...I'm a sensetive guy. As a kid without a remote i had to have a "fearpillow" close at hand.

 

[rdjones]

We never even had a colour set until adulthood.
Dad had final say over which shows we watched, anyway.
Thankfully he was tolerant of Ed Sullivan, The Monkees, Laugh In and the Smothers Bros.
He certainly would not have suffered channel 'surfing'.
Nevertheless, we didn't miss many of the iconic TV moments.

My first remote was for the VCR, which could select the channels from its in-built tuner.
Eventually channels were selected on the cable box, once again bypassing the need for a TV-specfic remote for other than the volume control.
Since the DVD(VCR) and cable remotes can be set to control TV volume I've spent precious little time using a dedicated TV remote.

 

[stantheman]

Remote Control You Say???
I was the Remote Control!!!

And the only time I wasn't was when The
N.Y. GIANTS were doing one of their
Awesome Goal Line Stands.
4 and done...and I mean DONE.

When NY had Tittle - that was NFL.

 

[Tonetele]

We got our first B&W TV when I was 11 ( 1967).
A colour TV in the seventies.
I still watch little TV . Some Netflix of choice.

 

[Wound_Up]

My first TV was B&W with the circular channel selector and a uhf/vhf channel selector under that. I still remember it like I just watched it yesterday and that was the early to mid 80s. I must have been 4 or 5 years old.

 

[Tele T]

I grew up in a coal camp in southern W.Va in the 1950's no running water, or TV

 

[P Thought]

I was in the seventh grade before we even got a teevee, which I am sure is the only reason I can read, because after we got one I would watch anything, no matter which of our two channels it was on. But it was a long time after that--I don't remember just when--that I graduated to color, and even longer before there was a remote control.

It's an intellectual wasteland. I'd dump the teevee completely, but Mrs. Thought won't go for that.

 

[greenhornet]

No remote. Around 7 channels: 4, 5, 7, 9, 20,-- nbc, local, abc, cbs, local; 26, 50 -something channels were pbs. I believe I was the last generation that grew up w/o 600 channels. If you told us in 1979 that one could watch Gilligans Island 24/7 we would have been horrified. Why?! Why on God's earth would anyone waste their life in such a manner?

I remember when a friend of mine's parents bought a house in NC in the early 90s and had a satellite installed. A HUGE satellite. They loved to watch it move...