My Fifties TV

 

Recently, on my fabulous Facebook Group, Polls R Us, I started a series of polls to select the group's favorite TV comedy of all time (not a part of yet?  check with me to get your invite!).

I surprised the lot of 'em when I made the first round about favorite TV comedies from the 1940s. Boy, talk about before your time!  Those in the group who may have been around in the 40s most likely didn't have a television.

The next round focused on the 1950s.  Even though the number of those who watched these shows when first aired is still small, a larger group was familiar with them thanks to stations like TBS and their afternoon reruns of classic sitcoms.

I was born in 1955, but many of the nominated shows I did not see until later reruns. For me, that included shows like I Love Lucy, Leave It to Beaver, and Father Knows Best.

We did have a television when I was little, and we lived in Charlotte, Michigan.  We pulled in one channel that I think combined NBC and CBS programming.

This is what I remember watching before we moved to Bridgeport in 1961 (where we went from one channel to a whopping THREE channels!): 

Captain Kangaroo - even though we lived right next door to the school, I was last to arrive because my Mother had such hard pulling me away from this delightful children's programming.  I thought Mr. Green Jeans might be related to my father since my mother kept calling my father "Gene."

The Adventures of Superman -  they put this on late Sunday afternoon.  And to this day, Superman is still my favorite superhero.

Lassie - oh, Timmy.  Oh, Lassie.  We did not have a dog until I was 8, so Lassie was the world to me.

Walt Disney - not yet the Wonderful World of Color, and if it was, we wouldn't know it until about 1968 when we got our first color TV.  Like a mini-movie every week.

We were sent to bed, but sometimes we sneak behind the corner of the room and catch glimpses of The Ed Sullivan Show.

I remember hearing the shrill opening notes to Perry Mason and trembling in fear.

That's my best memories of fifties television watched in the fifties.

Crap.  My eleventy minutes is long since up.

Stay tuned!

T. M. Strait