I’m happy that I have brought laughter because I have been shown by many the value of it in so many lives, in so many ways. ~Lucille Ball
Do you remember back when most of us had black and white televisions and were lucky to be able to pull in three stations with an antenna on our roof? Or sometimes we had a square little set with rabbit ears on top that you could twist this way or that according to which station you were hoping to tune in. Color television sets were for the richer people and when you did see one, a lot of the shows were sort of pink looking. Of course there was no remote. You had to get up and walk to the television set to change stations or to adjust the volume. If you were lazy, you just watched whatever came on next on the station you were watching. News took up a half hour in the afternoon. There were the early morning news and talk shows, but then they gave away to game shows until the afternoon when soap operas were the thing.
When Laughs Came Easy
Most of the shows in the evenings were a half hour of fun. You had to laugh at Don Knotts as Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show and at the messes Lucy got into on I Love Lucy. There were plenty of shows trying to make you laugh. F Troop. Hogan’s Heroes. The Dick Van Dyke Show. I Dream of Jeanne. The Beverly Hillbillies. I bet there’s hardly a person of a certain age who can’t sing that song. “Shooting at some food and up from the ground came a bubbling pool. Oil, that is. Black gold.” And do you remember how Jethro could cipher? Of course, he sometimes had to take off his shoes so he could count on his toes too if the problem was difficult. LOL. Back then no one worried about political correctness. They were just silly shows. Take that little sea excursion that ended up stranded on Gilligan’s Island. Somehow they could build or come up with everything except a boat.
Along with the comedies we had plenty of Westerns. Those were hour long dramas with some occasional laughs. Matt Dillion and Kitty in Gunsmoke. Davy Crockett. Maverick. The bachelor brothers on Bonanza. It was dangerous being the actress one of those boys fell in love with because before the hour was over, the character often ended up dead. Poor Pa, Lorne Greene, had zero chance of ever getting to be a grandpa.
And how about Petticoat Junction? Those three girls should have taken a trip to Bonanza. We could have had some TV weddings. What I remember best about Petticoat Junction was how they didn’t bother to send the characters off to school or kill them off when one of the actresses decided to quit. They just moved another actress in and let them take over the role. They figured we knew it was all a show and they were all acting anyway. And we did.
Fathers Know Best
Of course, father always knew best. That was true not only in Father Knows Best but in My Three Sons, Leave it to Beaver and Rifleman as well as others. I liked fathers knowing best and mothers too. Somewhere along the way the shows started making the parents out as more than a little nutty and hardly fit to be parents of the really smart, and often smart aleck, children. But you know what? There’s something comforting to a kid when they can see that adults have a few things figured out and can be depended on to help them make sense of the world.
So Many Great Shows
But there were action shows too. Zorro. The Lone Ranger. Superman. Dragnet. Help me out. I know I’m forgetting lots of them. Then we had Carol Burnett. Perry Como. The Ed Sullivan Show. Hee Haw. The Smothers Brothers. So much fun entertainment you could watch with your kids without worrying about what they might see.
It could be I’m romanticizing a little here. After all, I watched Bugs Bunny and now some think those cartoons are too violent for kids. But I knew it was all just silly stuff on television. I never once thought I could pop my sister on the head with a stick and not get in a pile of trouble.
My grandkids are watching some of those old shows now that they are able to stream their television shows. I think they binge watched I Dream of Jeanne.
How about you? What shows do you remember best and which ones made you smile?
(Due to having an editing deadline, I grabbed an old post from 2014 and rewrote it for today. But it’s fun to revisit some old television memories.)
Comments 24
Great shows ! I love this TV era and still enjoy watching reruns of many of these programs . Thought of a few more…Wagon Train, Have Gun Will Travel , and who doesn’t continue to watch Little House On the Prairie ? The oldies are the best !!! Thanks Ann !
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Those are some good one to add, Nancy. I remember watching Wagon Train all the time. It’s an interesting time in television now when so many can just stream the shows they want to watch. We haven’t gotten that modern out here in the country but I know many people have. Commercials are a thing of the past unless you’re watching the SuperBowl. 🙂
I remember watching a lot of the shows mentioned here by everyone, and enjoyed them, especially the variety shows. But I absolutely loved The Andy Williams show the best. When I was still very young, Andy introduced a cute little brown haired boy named Donny. And I fell in love. Wild horses couldn’t keep me away from that show every week. I still love variety shows, but there hasn’t been a good one for some years now. I miss Johnny Carson too…he was a legend!
Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Ann. I hope your weekend is filled with joy.
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Are you talking about Donny Osmond, Lavon? Not sure what Donny you might mean but that was the only one I could think of. Whichever one it was, sounds like you had a crush on him.
By the way, why don’t you update those here who were praying for your daughter-in-law and how she got her new kidney. I pray she is still doing well and her donor cousin too.
Some of the Variety shows. Johnny Cash, Glen Campbell, Barbara Mandrell, Lawrence Welk. Mission Impossible, Barnaby Jones, Mannix, Jake & the Fat Man, Simon & Simon, Mary Tyler Moore, Rhoda. On Saturdays, cartoons, then The Grand Ole Opry, Porter Waggoner Show & others like that. 🙂
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Those variety shows were very popular for a while, Lisa. I liked the Smothers Brothers and Carol Burnett. Of course, many of the skits on her show live on in YouTube videos and they can still make you laugh.
I remember a lot of the ones you mention, but not Jake & the Fat Man or Simon & Simon. I miss watching those kinds of shows now where you can get interested for a whole season. I know some of those dramas are still on, but that’s not the kind of thing my husband likes to watch. So he watches and controls the remote. I read or write. I like reading better anyway.
I would love to watch Howdy Doody, Hawkins Falls, and music shows. I watched Arthur Godfrey, Patti Page (I saw her live about 8 years ago almost went to visit her farm in New Hampshire, but too soon she passed away. Always loved Lawrence welk but that was much later. Dinah Shore, Miss America with Bess Myerson, and loved The Bob Crosby show with the Mondernaires, with Alan Copeland, (loved that guy). Perry Como, the Ed Sullivan Showand other shower were I Remember Mamawith Peggy Wood especially the Christmas show where a man and woman stopped at their house and hid in the barn with the animals and Dagmar would come out to the barn and hear them talking pretending to be the animals )she believed the animals would talk at midnight). Later on I got hooked on As the World Turns and watched until
The very last show. I have since got hooked on Days of our Lives and met several of the actors at a special luncheon in California. Got to talk Charles Shawnessy, Drake Hogystin (still on the show). Daughter and I had lunch with Matthew Ashford back in the early 80’s. So many memories. Life was so much different then. I remember so many times with other I was able to meet some of the actors at events. Later in my life I spent a lot of time going to Country music concerts with my son who was in a motorized wheelchair. He Loved it and so many singers would stop and talk to him. He really loved it all.
Those are my memories. Thank you for all of yours!
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Great memories, Joan. I hope they brought you some smiles as you thought about them. You have walked with the famous, it seems. I watched a soap opera when I first got married long ago. I think it was As the World Turns. I can still remember the opening music. But then when my little boy was around two he got worried about one or another of the characters when something bad was happening on the show. I said no more and quit watching the shows. I had to stick to game shows then while I was doing my ironing because that was when I was watching. But I liked game shows. 🙂
I never watched I Remember Mama, but the show you mention had to be fun. I did watch Perry Como. He was the one who sang “we get letters. We get lots of letters.” I liked that part. I still like question and answer times when I’m giving talks. So maybe that’s where that started.
Thanks for sharing your memories.
My favorites were Ozzie and Harriet, I had a crush on Ricky. And I loved The Donna Reed show, 77 Sunset Strip, Hawaiian Eye and Route 66. Dr. Kildare was popular in Jr. high, as well as Ben Casey. For comedy there was Red Skelton and Jackie Gleeson. We got to go see a Jackie Gleeson show when hubby was stationed in Florida. Then don’t forget Ed Sullivan.
Wow are we dredging up the memories!
Kids shows: Sky King, Buster Brown, Howdy Doody, Fraizier Thomas, Kukla, Fran and Ollie, Bozo, Miss Francis, Romper Room, Davy and Goliath. I’d better stop.
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You’ve come up with some I remember and some I don’t. I was always a little entranced by those dancers at the beginning of the Jackie Gleason show, but not too crazy about the rest of the show. A lot of his humor would be very politically incorrect these days. Back then, people weren’t so ready to read something into everything, I guess. Ed Sullivan had some great acts on his show. Do you remember how sometimes he’d have circus type acts like somebody spinning plates? I could only imagine how many plates might get broken doing that!
I watched Sky King and I remember the horse shows, Flicka and Fury, wasn’t it? You are so right, Paula. We could walk down these memory lanes for a while coming up with shows we remember.
Thank you for a trip into the days of innocent TV. Last night I watched a Tyler Perry drama on Netflix and wondered why oh why did I sit through this seeing mean and evilness way beyond what was shown when we were children. Truly there was evil being done when we were young but we didn’t need to see it on TV. We just knew the police would stop the truly evil stuff. I don’t know if it is better to know or not. I’m leaning toward knowing so we can prepare ourselves for certain situations. But I think it should be done on the news and perhaps not made into a movie that is so intense. The shows you mentioned that we watched help us to get relieve from stress with laughter and silliness. Some poking fun at our humanness made us all feel , well, normal. I think the television industry should look at the influence the industry has on our culture and human mental health. And they need to take appropriate action to make our lives better and help to relief stress instead of creating more. Well off the soapbox and down on the floor watching my favorite I Love Lucy. She’s a close call with Andy. Lucy was the only one who could make me hide behind my eyes at her antics from pure embarrassment for her. But I always laughed and understood her goofyness. Since my father was mostly gone or drunk when he was at home I loved Andy because he gave me an idea of how nice it would be to have a father like him. Since these shows seems to have affected us greatly, I wonder what shows are affecting young children and teens today.
Thank you again for an enjoyable simple clean hearted read. I am reading the English Fairacre series of small village life through the heart of the school teacher. I ran right to it after watching Netflix last night.
God bless your little corner of Kentucky. I wish I could go on your morning walks with you. When I walk my puppy today down to the horse farm I will imagine I am really in the country and think of you and the blessing you are.
Karen in NC
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We could have some fun walking and talking, Karen, but today you would have gotten muddy. This time of the year it can be a mess out in the pasture fields where the cows have been walking and being fed.
I could crawl up on that soapbox with you. I do think it’s important what we feed into our minds, and there are plenty of shows on television that I’d rather not let find a place in my memory. I have some unsettling scenes from things I have watched in the past that I can’t forget. I guess that’s true with books one reads too, but it’s easier to gloss over the truly horrific scenes in a book without picturing it all while you read. But it’s great to have simple entertainment and books to read that don’t take you down terrible paths with gruesome scenes. I’ve quit reading some very popular authors because they were too good at writing those scenes. LOL.
As to what our children today might remember, who knows? Maybe they will remember some of the same shows we do since they are able to stream those old reruns now. I know some of my grandkids are big fans of some of those shows. But their parents have been careful about what they let them watch at a young age. Oh, and I used to get embarrassed by Lucy’s antic sometimes too. But she knew what made a show.
Father Knows Best is my all time favorite. I love to watch the reruns now. When I was a young girl, I watched the Flintstones and Gilligan’s Island. The Dick Van Dyke show and That Girl were favorites, too.
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I remember watching Father Knows Best, and he always did. The Flintstones were cute too. Yabba Dabba Doo. Funny how some things just stick in your head forever and then I can’t remember somebody’s name that I went to school with. LOL. I mean I can still see Mary Tyler Moore throwing her hat up in the air. Or was that That Girl? Maybe I don’t remember as well as I thought I did.
My favorites were Maw and Paw Kettle and John Wayne. Still have some old VCR tapes of the Kettles. When I was young we couldn’t afford a TV so we all went to a neighbors house till my dad saved up enough to get our own. It’s great that we can still watch some of these shows. I love the Waltons and follow them on Facebook. I guess this shows our age but those sure were the good old days.
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I don’t think I ever saw Maw and Paw Kettle, Marjorie, but I have heard to them. And who doesn’t remember all the John Wayne movies. I guess my favorites in the Westerns though was Maverick. Laved James Garner.
I grew up in the 1980’s watching most of the shows you mentioned in re-runs and loved them and our kids have seen a lot of them now through streaming them or on the Antenna tv channel. We still have an antenna and sometimes my husband is outside turning it manually because our rotor stopped working. We live in an area filled with trees, so it doesn’t matter how high we go, it doesn’t always pull in the channels and watching through the internet is how we end up seeing most things. Like your grandkids, our kids like many of the older shows and know the theme songs too. Not too many good new shows on tv these days and reruns seem the best way to watch. 🙂
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Those reruns of old shows are the best, Hope. When my grandkids were younger they used to love to see the Addams Family and The Munsters better than the more modern cartoons. It’s been a long time since we’ve had an antenna, but I wonder sometimes if that wasn’t the best way to go. I don’t watch much television these days because my husband likes different shows than I do. And I’d rather read when I have free time anyway.
Since my family didn’t buy a television until I was in high school, the first show I remember seeing was “The Howdy Doody Show”, which I saw occasionally at my neighbors’ house. That was a special event for me.
Finally when my older sisters had married and left home and I was starting to have my dates come to my house, my parents bought a television so that we would have something to do at the house.
My parents knew that we children would be more likely to do our homework, read, and play games with one another without a tv in the house. They were so wise!
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I remember the Howdy Doody show, Suzanne. I think that was the show where kids could put their hands in a jar and try to pick up a lot of coins. I used to wonder how much money I could get out of that jar. 🙂 These days parents would have a hard time taking away everything that might interfere with homework. I’d say phones were worse then televisions these days.
As a child I loved Saturday morning cartoons. No school, sleep in and cartoons, what more could a kid ask for? Heckle and Jeckle, Chilly Willy, Popeye and so so many more.
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I don’t know of anyone who enjoyed those Saturday morning cartoons more than my youngest son. He’d beat all of us up and be watching before breakfast. Then when he got to be a teenager, he wanted to sleep the morning away. LOL. My husband liked Leghorn Longhorn or whatever that old roosters name was.
What an incredible inspiration to tune into Petticoat Junction. I love these oldies.
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I always thought Petticoat Junction was fun, Debra. Didn’t they take showers under the water tank for the train or am I remembering that wrong?