TV memories

[boppy]

When I was a kid around the age of 7, my parents would let me watch the Friday night horror movie of the week. That was back in the era when horror movies were goofy and didn't contain nudity or obscene language. To this day I remember a move involving a toy horse that was somehow implicated in appearing at the scenes of people's deaths. The toy horse would magically grow 20 times its size and somehow result in the death of the person it was in the room with. Great flick! I'd love to watch it today, but I've never been able to find it.

That sounds like the "Dark Vengeance" episode of Circle of Fear. I watched that one when I was a kid too. Creeped me out back then...

 

[Chester P Squier]

One of my favorite shows from when I was young was the now largely-forgotten western Stories of the Century. A different outlaw each week. Jim Davis, who many years later played Jock Ewing on Dallas, was in on the capture of every one of the outlaws, it seems. Or maybe I've just forgotten it. But I loved what show when I was in the lower elementary grades.

 

[teleman1]

Sky King! Brought to you by NABISCO!. I was showing a townhome where the rear yard backed up to a small airport in Carefree, AZ. As a Realtor, you get to see many unique things in folks home. I see a picture with a photo in the frame. Taking a close look it is of an actor and it read his name and in captions, SKY KING.

Every city had its kiddy show hosts. In Sacramento, it was Captain Delta. In LA it was Sheriff John>>Put another candle on your birthday cake, we are gonna bake a birthday cake, put another candle on your birthday cake your another year old today. Heard it everyday cause everyday was some kids birthday. Tons of cartoons, Astro Boy, Fireball 500, The Jetsons & Supercar.

 

[teleman1]

Also in Los Angeles, we had the Million dollar movie. They would show it every eve at the same time. It was a primitive VCR with no controls. My Dad would let me watch Godzilla till he couldn't take it any more, then I went back to being THE REMOTE CONTROL and antennae adjustor. Godzilla inspired me to put on my Cowboy boots and pretend I was the Monster. SO I walked in the garage where my train set up was and destroy the tracks just like my hero, Godzilla. My Dad took me to a drive in theatre and I got very depressed seeing King Kong defeat Godzilla. Which reminds me, I saw a Hard Days night after it was out for awhile, I must have been 9 or 10, at a Drive in multi complex. I left the car and sat next to a speaker box, alone, at an adjacent, movie screen.

 

[Papanate]

One thing I remember about TV was the news. It seemed so straightforward and concise compared to the 24 hours broadcasts we have now. Walter Cronkite would sit at a desk and alternatively read from a stack of papers then look at the screen. In a half hour we were finished. How did we ever get by without 23.5 hours of pundits and experts telling us what the news really meant?

I actually get by without 24 hours of news every day.

 

[NoTeleBob]

I grew up in the 'burbs. Far from the transmitting towers and blocked by hills. We could get the usual 3 major networks and PBS fairly well, most of the time. Mainstream networks didn't have much for kids in those days except early Saturday and Sunday mornings when we got some cartoons. PBS was all documentary kind of stuff.

At some point UHF came on line! We had a new station that came in - most of the time. Then they added a second UHF station which came in "sometimes". The UHF stations carried all the old rerun shows from the 60's so I got to watch a lot of those. They also had movies a kid might want to watch.

But it was kind of bland, for sure.

 

[String Tree]

My dad put an antenna up a large fir tree by the house. We got channel 2(ABC) and 6(CBS) from Portland, Oregon plus the PBS channel from Corvallis, Oregon. We lived back in the hills by my uncle's lumber mill near Corvallis.

Never saw any of the NBC programming growing up until we moved out into the central Willamette Valley. Reruns of shows like Bonanza were new to me.

When we got sent home from school because of the Kennedy assassination. There was nothing on tv but the Kennedy coverage. But did get to see Oswald shot on live tv.

Nothing from Eugene?

 

[SPUDCASTER]

Nothing from Eugene?

When we moved to Junction City we did. Outside of Corvallis we just got the Portland stations and the PBS out of Corvallis.

Probably the way the antenna was situated when we were back in the hills.

 

[Dave W]

My first memories- also about 1954- are of going next door to watch through Douglas Bruce Knox Spaghetti's window; they were the first with a TV . I remember Pinky ("Hi ho, It's me, My name is Pinky Lee") dancing around in a checkered suit with a giant tootsie roll- I believe he was canned for showing up drunk and cussing out a bunch of kids or something of the sort. Then there was Howdy Doody, with Clarabelle the clown chasing all and sundry about with his seltzer bottle, Faarfel the wooden dog singing about Nestle's chocolate etc. Wow, those product placements really stick. Peter Cottontail, hoppin' down the bunny trail, Sgt. Garcia ("Zorro") going to inspect the winery, et al.
A wonderful time to be alive.

No, Pinky Lee wasn't fired. He collapsed on stage during a show -- not sure about the diagnosis, rumored to be a heart attack. Never returned to his show, although later he did return to TV briefly as a kid show host.

 

[Dave W]

When we got our first TV in 1952, Houston had only one channel: KPRC, the NBC affiliate. Within 2 or 3 years, we got CBS and ABC channels, and KUHT at U. of Houston, the country's first public TV station.

 

[Blackmore Fan]

That sounds like the "Dark Vengeance" episode of Circle of Fear. I watched that one when I was a kid too. Creeped me out back then...

You found it! Thank you! I had spent so long wondering what the heck that was! I watched the ending--its exactly what I remembered!

 

[oldunc]

No, Pinky Lee wasn't fired. He collapsed on stage during a show -- not sure about the diagnosis, rumored to be a heart attack. Never returned to his show, although later he did return to TV briefly as a kid show host.

Thanks- I guess that was some other kid show host. My apologies to Pinky for the mistake.

 

[Fiesta Red]

I was born in 1970.

Mom decided we didn’t need to watch TV more than an hour or two per week, so I was really, really choosy about what I watched. I don’t have firsthand knowledge of stuff like “Land of the Lost” because I didn’t think it was worth my 1-2 hours.

She loosened that up a little by 1980, but by that time I didn’t want to watch it that much.

Somehow I survived.

 

[thunderbyrd]

I was born in 1970.

Mom decided we didn’t need to watch TV more than an hour or two per week, so I was really, really choosy about what I watched. I don’t have firsthand knowledge of stuff like “Land of the Lost” because I didn’t think it was worth my 1-2 hours.

She loosened that up a little by 1980, but by that time I didn’t want to watch it that much.

Somehow I survived.

Your Mom was right!