I mentioned an old TV set in the previous post, one that was my very own by the time I was roughly thirteen, maybe more like twelve and a half.
It was the early 60s. Most kids didn't have their own televisions then. While you might have had some sort of record player to annoy your parents with by that age, a TV would literally be a luxury, since most families had one set and one set only.
And that one set sure as heck wasn't going in the bedroom of a kid, my firstborn status notwithstanding. How'd I land my own set? You'll see how simple it was a little further down.
So, I had me a set. (Did we ever get an answer to why it's called a "set?")
The closest image I could find to match that set of mine is the one you see here. As I recall, it was a Crosley, not exactly a widely beloved brand, not one you'd find in most homes in Anytown, USA. We also had a Crosley refrigerator, meaning that my folks found at least one Crosley dealer in NE PA. There's this vague memory of that dealer being in Taylor along Main Street. Or was that the back of a truck in an alley in Duryea? Nah, not my parents, never.
Looking at the set above, you can see that the tube itself was surrounded by a rectangular glass frame placed within the cabinetry, which was then a very important component of the American TV set. In fact, I grew up across the street from a mill which made, among other things, television cabinets. Today, the television cabinet has gone the way of the space-hogging console hi-fi, the eight-track, the casette, VHS and/or Beta, and analog anything.
Now, about that rectangular frame. It was illuminated, it lit up, surrounding that fuzzy b&w image with soft white light. It was, you'd have to imagine, no more than a gimmick to sell more Crosleys. Between the lighted frame, the wonderful image one got from rabbit ears, and the shortcomings of the Crosley itself, I wasn't exactly getting that quality viewing experience.
And so it was that the lack of a respectable image resulted in being handed my very own TV. It was a clunker, a junker, my parents didn't want it. It was Goodwill, Salvation Army, or me. Charity begins at home.
Snugged into bed earlier than usual, I'd lay there and watch the fuzzy images bounce around on that big cathode-ray tube and think myself pretty hot stuff.
What did I watch? Shows like...
- Dennis The Menace - The story of a pain in the ass kid who wore some sort of bib overalls that no kid I ever knew saw. Robert Hall didn't carry them. With a slingshot forever dangling from his backside pocket, this punk looked ready to bedevil someone on a second's notice. Dennis spends his time driving his retired neighbor nuts day and night. The neighbor, George Wilson, never figures out he can simply tell Dennis to beat it. Defiant trespass? Some charge certainly would have applied. Dennis also spent time making sure that signature cowlick of his was sticking up and out for best effect.
- Bonanza - The Cartwright men have managed to gain control of what appears to be several million acres of land across Nevada somewhere near Lake Tahoe, shortly before the days when Sinatra and Sammy played there. The three brothers are the sons of three different mothers, making Papa Ben Cartwright thrice-widowed. It also makes the boys half-brothers, a theme I never seem to recall them exploring. Drama, comedy, and romance ensue as the men righteously make sure no strangers, especially bad guys, touch their land or any of their other belongings. The Cartwrights were also pretty good at sticking their noses into the business of others, because of course, they were always right about everything.
- The Danny Thomas Show - Subtitled Make Room for Daddy, this show starred the very likable Danny Thomas as the TV Daddy who always called his TV wife "Irish." She was played by Marjorie Lord (mother of Ann Archer, for trivia buffs). Daddy Danny and Mommy Irish spent all their time suffering three kids and their dumb kid problems, magnified entirely out of any logical belief for the TV audience. Son Rusty, whose smart mouth was tough even for me to take, and I was kid roughly the same age with a smart mouth, needed some sort of stern guidance, which never seemed to come his way despite his really asking for it each week. Daddy Danny was an entertainer and went off to work in some generic night club during each episode before and after which he dealt with his charming family and their weekly crisis. Lots of my friends' fathers worked in night clubs, as did most other Americans. The irrelevance of TV in the 60s was stunning.
- Hazel - A show centered around a bumbling but bighearted live-in maid, something all of us in my blue collar neighborhood could so relate to with each and every passing episode. Employed by a couple of rich snobs, the Baxters (even the name was snobby), Hazel dresses just like a servant and cleans up, picks up, and puts up with these boors, although Mr. Baxter - Hazel always called him Mr. B. - was a kinder gentler, less country club sort than the rather contemptuous Mrs. Baxter, who has her nose shoved up in the air most of the time, to better look down on the help, one might presume. (Yet more trivia; Mrs. Baxter was played by Whitney Blake, mother of Meredith Baxter Birney.)
- Wagon Train - Most memorable was Ward Bond playing wagon-master/confessor/wiseman/hero/lovable big lug bachelor to what might have been hundreds of travelers who spend eight years trying to get from Saint Louis to somewhere in California. When the show's run was done in 1965, I guess that they just settled wherever they happened to be at the time and were happy with that.
- Sing Along With Mitch - An entire hour each week of a theretofore largely unknown musician with a goatee who never stopped smiling. It was a community sing-a-long, only it was on television, and in your living room, and occasionally in my bedroom, until I could get up and change the channel to something, anything, else. Miller conducted The Gang (yes, they were Mitch Miller and The Gang) with a rather odd style while the likewise ever-smiling male and female chorale members, always scrubbed fresh and looking like they had never so much as considered passing gas, sang some of those old sentimental favorites. Favorites if you'd been born prior to mass production of Ford's Model A. Oh, and there was a bouncing ball, that way all at home could, well, follow the bouncing ball and just Sing Along With Mitch. The words corny and smarmy come right to mind.
- My Three Sons - Another father with three boys and no mother in sight. They must have fallen off the turnip truck. Maybe mom ran off with Bub, then Bub changed his mind and came back under the weight of sheer guilt. The whole story of him being their grandfather was a cover. Papa and no mama was a familiar theme in 60s TV, what with The Andy Griffith Show, The Rifleman, Bonanza, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, and to some extent, Family Affair. What precisely was network television trying to tell us? Steve Douglas had a big job in the aerospace industry, making enough money to keep a nice house for the boys and their housekeeper and surrogate mother, who was initially their gramps, then their uncle came home from the merchant marine and helped the fellas grow the hell up. I don't remember a lot of zany or madcap mayhem with this show, it was just a good show, especially the early black&white episodes.
