Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, families used to gather around the television set and watch together.
In 1970, I was 9 years old. We had a black and white TV with the classic rabbit ears. There was no remote control – but there was little need to hit the mute button.
This might seem strange to some of you, but back then, if you wanted to watch a show, you had to be available to watch it. There was no On-Demand, no NetFlix, no DVRs, etc. If your favorite show was on Friday night at 7:00pm, you had to be home to watch it. Period.
For a lot of us, Friday night was TV night. I stumbled upon this advertisement for the new ABC Friday Night Line-up, and it brought back all sorts of memories.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sliOW4rTUkY
A couple of things jumped out at me:
1) This was the very first season of The Partridge Family, and this was a “sneak peak.”
2) Love American Style was usually the point where my parents would turn off the TV because it was a “little racy.”
3) I would be hard pressed to find an evening of network primetime programming that I could comfortably, and morally, watch with my kids.
4) The other “TV NIght” I remember was a few years later, was on CBS Saturday nights. It consisted of Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart and Carol Burnett. Come to find out that even these shows had more innuendo than I realized – it probably just zoomed over my head.
5) Life was sure more innocent then. I don’t recall a lot of mutilated bodies or forensic pathologists on these shows, or overt sexual humor. Compare with this primetime TV nowadays.
Yeah, I’m getting old.
Happy birthday, MMM! May this coming year be one of your best!
I sometimes try to explain to my kids how we had to run home after getting off the school bus so we didn’t miss the beginning of Star Trek, our how we had to check the schedule to make sure we didn’t miss the Charlie Brown Christmas special. But the whole concept of having to align yourself with the broadcast schedule is so foreign to them that they don’t really get it.
I turn on prime time TV for a few minutes every three or four years, and it boggles my mind every time how much lower the standards have gotten since the previous time.
The good news is we do have lots of options these days — if there’s nothing good on TV, we can pull out the DVDs of ’80s shows or search for something good on Netflix or whatever.
(Of course, the downside of modern technology is YouTube constantly available on the iPod Touch from anywhere within the WiFi router range…)
In general, we’ve been pretty lucky — our kids have never developed a real TV addiction. We commonly go for a couple of weeks without ever even turning the box on.
Seven years ago my then 9-year-old daughter and I moved to a small community outside of town – far enough that we didn’t get TV reception. I was too poor [read: too cheap] to pay for cable, so we haven’t had regular TV in our home since then. What a blessing! We read, played games, took walks, raised chickens and played with our dogs. Eventually I sprung for Netflix and it’s been so fun going back and watching TV from my childhood (I’m a year older than you, MMM) while exposing my daughter to all those cultural references! I’m grateful that I did (and still do) firmly resist the urge to buy cable. I do it for myself as much as for my daughter: I accomplish so much more without it (and now we watch General Conference on the internet). A favorite quote: “When I was your age, television was called ‘books'” – the Grandpa from The Princess Bride said it, and now my daughter will be able to use it!
I’m just a few years younger than you are. I really miss good TV. I’ve been without for over a year and just recently got access to basic “over the air” channels again. I watch maybe an hour a week. Tonight I happened to have it on for the “Fall Preview” on one of the major networks. I actually turned it off after 10 minutes. All I’d see was crass wannabe entertainment with lots of blatant sexual humor. Anyhow, that’s for the memories of better TV days. Love you blog.
So does this mean that it’s going to be the OMM blog now?
Happy Birthday! I was nine years old in 1962. We didn’t even have a TV until I was about five years old. I remember watching Ozzie & Harriet, Father Knows Best, The Donna Reed Show, Sky King and Rin Tin Tin. Saturday mornings was The Howdy Doody Show. The shows were pretty tame…even the commercials were watchable…no Victoria’s Secret models anywhere. Now, my EC and I watch BYU, Insp and Hallmark channels. We laugh at all the commercials geared toward oldsters.
Yea, and now we have Miley Cyrus doing pole dancing on prime time television. Here where I live (China) we have Australian programming. They edit out the worst stuff, but still let in a couple of swear words. But it’s still better than American programming. When I move back home, I may consider not getting cable.
We didn’t have a color TV until mid-90’s and by then I was almost gone anyway.
My Mom would buy a small treat for us 6 kids to share on Friday night TV nights…best times!
And I LOVE your conference countdown! Need one of those for every room in my house. (yeah I’m a dork) : ) So excited.
And…good choice on the cake…Happy Birthday!
I’m a lot older than you ( I was 9 in 1957) and I know I’m dating myself, but I’m sure at least a few of your readers also remember shows like Ozzie & Harriet, Roy Rogers, The Lone Ranger Father Knows Best, Leave it to Beaver, Dragnet, Name that Tune, Dinah Shore, etc., and Saturday morning cartoons that weren’t ads for toys. We never had to turn the tv off because nothing was ever racy or even slightly suggestive.
I don’t like most of what’s on these days either. I find myself watching cooking & home improvement shows, BYUTV, Smithsonian, Nat Geo and the like.
Dozens of channels and still nothing to watch.
Oh the memories! One of my favorite shows form back in the day was the Carol Burnett show.
Happy Birthday!!
Oh the memories!
Happy Birthday!!
HaPpY bIrThDaY!!!
So funny. Great minds must think alike. We, my office co workers and I) had a tedious task today, so we played Name That Tune, with theme songs using youtube from our favorite television shows. Some of these were on the promo that you shared.
Those were the days!
Couldn’t agree with you more MMM, tv is not what it used to be. And we are all getting old with you, I remember watching on tv the last moon mission return to Earth, the first Space Shuttle launch, and I even attended in person the first taping of Lavern and Shirley. Sadly, I watch very little tv anymore because I don’t have the patience to sit through the commercials, and no I am not going to spend extra money for a dvr. Wow, I just sounded like a grumpy old man.
Too true…Too True. But I do enjoy some of the current shows. But then again, I have no kids.
PS….LOVE the General Conference count down! Sweet!
I still can’t see it. Is it hiding somewhere or do I need to look at the website via my PC instead of my tablet?
Happy, Happy Birthday MMM!!! What a fun day!!!! Don’t worry, the older you get, the (hopefully) wiser you get too….it just means more people don’t listen to you…. 🙂 But since you hide behind your identity mask, maybe the important people still will????
At least your readers are! Happy birthday!
Who said it was his birthday?
Uh….he did!
Where? He said he is getting old, but I can’t see anywhere on the blog or facebook where he says it’s his birthday.
Oh, up in the word bubble at the top. Gotcha.
Took me a few minutes to see the birthday header, too! 🙂
I’m from a different generation, but I’m surprised at how much innuendo there was in old 80’s PG movies that I wanted to show my kids. At least Granite Flats got renewed for Season 2. Have you seen that show yet, MMM?
My kids have been asking when it will be back on again. I’m so glad to see it will be back, they’ll be so excited!! I do hope it gets put on a different night though. We are a no TV on Sunday family. Granite Flats followed Conference (brilliant scheduling on BYUTV’s part) last season and got my kids completely hooked. We let them watch that ONE show on Sunday, but would love to see it on another night. Can’t wait to tell it’ll be back!
Maria – you can watch the episodes online here – http://www.byutv.org/show/0aea4804-47dc-470f-b80a-35c8f23d0f27/
Mariah – you can watch the episodes online here – http://www.byutv.org/show/0aea4804-47dc-470f-b80a-35c8f23d0f27/
We just watched it on the computer, it was also repeated another night on BYUtv, so you don’t have to watch it on Sunday.
Back then PG was alot different. There was no PG13 it was just pg for all of them (some of which I’m surprised weren’t rated R.)
I wish they would have used something other than PG for the new rating system. It just causes confusion and the occasional awkward moment where you realize the “PG” movie you’re watching is worse than you expected because it was made before the pg-13 rating was introduces in 1984.
Love American Style wasn’t allowed at our house either. Now sleep overs at my Aunt’s? Different story.
And don’t forget THe Wonderful WOrld of Walt Disney on Sunday nights! Ahhh…the memories!
There is a reason they call it “oldies but goodies”. I am of the same generation, and I miss those old shows. I have been watching all the seasons of Bewitched on netflix. Great writing and much sweeter than I remember. I guess I am old too.