Television in the early 1950s

by James K. Sayre

My first memory of seeing a television set was in the late 1940s in Ridgewood, New Jersey. We visited a neighbor who had a new round gray-screened television set. (Many years later, when I was in my teens, I remember that my father had an oscilloscope for his electronics hobby, and it looked like a smaller version of that early television set).

My family didn't get a television set until 1952, when I was ten years old. In retrospect, that was fortunate, so that my young mind was not warped by the so-called "idiot box." What was on television back in the early 1950s? Not much. The Howdy Doody Show, I Love Lucy, the GOP and Democratic political conventions in 1952: I Like Ike. (Compared to the vicious vile Republicans in the 21st century: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, McCain, Rove, et al ad nauseum, President Dwight David Eisenhower was positively genial...). Later, there were the Senate Hearings on the vicious right-wing bully Senate Joe McCarthy, who was finally censured and his power was thereafter broken...

What else was on? Kukla, Fran and Ollie: a great puppet show. Zoo Parade. Of course, back then, before cable TV, Satellite TV, etc. there were three networks, ABC, CBS and NBC and the beginnings of public television.

 

End.

Return to the home page of Bottlebrush Press: The homepage of Bottlebrush Press

This web page was recently created by James K. Sayre.

Contact author James K. Sayre at sayresayre@yahoo.com. Author's Email: sayresayre@yahoo.com

Copyright 2007 by Bottlebrush Press. All Rights Reserved.

Web page last updated on 16 September 2007..