Fun at any age

[Kurt (Indiana)]

Most teardroppers are seasoned (by their parents) campers. We camped as kids because it was an entertaining and very affordable thing to do for most families.

The thread about Red Buttons got me thinking. What is the earliest memory you have of TV.

I can honestly say that I remember watching "The Lone Ranger" on our oval TV screen prior to 1951.

What's your earliest memory of TV??

[madjack]

My uncle got out of the service in the early 50's, came home and openned one of the first radio and TELEVISION shops in the area...we bought our first TV(used) from him in 1958.....
madjack

[Kurt (Indiana)]

My uncle got out of the service in the early 50's, came home and openned one of the first radio and TELEVISION shops in the area...we bought our first TV(used) from him in 1958.....
madjack

The good old days of "High Tech" were really something. My parents owned a "Channel Master" (6506) transitor radio in the mid to late Fifties and I still remember it. I've been able to find a couple of them on EBAY in great shape for little money.
Great for the Teardrop and for th "Oldies stations" on AM. My kids thing I'm nuts, but hey! it's history!!!

[Juneaudave]

Being a youngster...my earliest remembrances of TV are of President Kennedy's death, my Grandma Minnie religously watching "As the World Turns", and Grandpa and Pap watching the SL Cardinals play on weekends. Those days, the kids didn't sit around watching TV except for Saturday morning cartoons.

A TV milestone in my early youth, was being invited to a neighbors house to watch (OMG) the Macy's Parade in color. It was about 10 years later that my folks got a for real RCA color TV with a remote that mechanically swapped channels. Pap was in hog heaven...and death to the kid that touched the remote or turned on the TV before dinner dishes were washed and put away.

[Leon]

I remember our first remote had a long cable that plugged into the back of the set. We stuck it under the rug so we wouldn't trip on it.

[Chris C]

Not certain exactly when, but I remember seeing a little tiny rounded screen that was flat on the top and bottom around 1949. Families from all over gathered at this house (the home of my aunt's soon to be husband's parent's) to watch this "new-fangled" thing called television.

[Kurt (Indiana)]

Not certain exactly when, but I remember seeing a little tiny rounded screen that was flat on the top and bottom around 1949. Families from all over gathered at this house (the home of my aunt's soon to be husband's parent's) to watch this "new-fangled" thing called television.

Chris, my Mom was the "high tech" one in the family. We didn't have much extra money but we had a TV and several radios.

I too remember peole were always inviting themselves over to see the TV.

Leon wrote: I remember our first remote had a long cable that plugged into the back of the set. We stuck it under the rug so we wouldn't trip on it.

We had an Admiral TV with a cordless remote in the late 50's. It was funny when my Dad came home and threw his keys on the table. The channels would change by themselves. We finially realized that the brass keys were sending the same signal as the (tuning fork style) remote. We were al ready to take the TV back when my Mom figured it out.

Of course we only got 3 or four channels so the remote was just a gadget

[angib]

In the mid-50s my parents got their first TV - a beautiful wooden cabinet about 4ft high whose double doors were opened to reveal a black/white (OK, dark grey/ light grey) screen maybe 9" across - honestly, the speaker below it was bigger! All of two channels were available. I too watched The Lone Ranger at home, and got a terrible crick in my neck from lying on the floor, since the tiny screen was near the top of the 4ft cabinet!

I was still quite young when all us kids were allowed to stay up in order to see our father appear on a current affairs prog (like 20/20, I think) - I would not go to bed afterwards, but insisted on waiting around the back of this huge cabinet for my father (not a big man) to come out, so I could tell him he'd been on TV.........

Andrew

[Chris C]

Ah-h-h-h-h, the innocence of childhood!

[len19070]

My earliest memory was of watching a locally produced western "Action in the Afternoon" That aired in Philadelphia, on channel 10. in about 1953.

It was filmed just off of the stations parking lot live. If an airplane went over and there was a gunfight going on..you heard an air plane, if a truck blew its horn While the Sheriff was talking to the Blacksmith..you heard a horn. Very Hokey plots.

Does anyone remember when Marlin Perkins did a show "Live From Lincoln Park"? Before Wild Kingdom. I remember watching that show, also filmed live, and seeing Ole Marlin getting bit by a venomous snake, Passing out on live TV. All while he was telling us kids NEVER TO PLAY WITH SNAKES!

Or, on Wild Kingdom when Marlin got snatched off of his horse by a Black Mamba. I think Frank took over after that episode and Marlins new phrase was;

As Frank crawls into the Lion den, or as Frank attempts to remove the Badgers young;

We watch from the safety of the Jeep.

Happy Trails

Len

[edevans]

I think it was 1952 or 53 a furniture store , in Grand Prairie Texas, selling tvs had one in the window facing the parking area and on Saturday night they would show wrestling matches . People would gather to watch and if they were lucky would buy a tv. We got a little 12 inch screen black and white set that worked for several years.

[Larry Messaros]

In the mid-50s my parents got their first TV - a beautiful wooden cabinet about 4ft high whose double doors were opened to reveal a black/white (OK, dark grey/ light grey) screen maybe 9" across - honestly, the speaker below it was bigger! All of two channels were available. I too watched The Lone Ranger at home, and got a terrible crick in my neck from lying on the floor, since the tiny screen was near the top of the 4ft cabinet!

I was still quite young when all us kids were allowed to stay up in order to see our father appear on a current affairs prog (like 20/20, I think) - I would not go to bed afterwards, but insisted on waiting around the back of this huge cabinet for my father (not a big man) to come out, so I could tell him he'd been on TV.........

Andrew

Wow Andrew,

It sounds exactly like our TV except the screen was a little bigger. I think ours was from the early '60's. Only 2 channels and I would watch Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Dressup, and the Friendly Giant.

My Dad was never important enough to be on TV though.

[Gage]

My parents got thier first TV (a Hoffman) in 1947 or 1948. Like Andrew said, it was in a large cabinet (well bigger than me). it had a small screen with a large piece of glass in front of it to make the picture big. The screen for the speaker was much larger and like that I think there were only two or three channels.

<snip>
I think ours was from the early '60's. Only 2 channels and I would watch Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Dressup, and the Friendly Giant.
My Dad was never important enough to be on TV though.

Only two channels? Where did you live? Let's see, in the late 50's in Los Angeles we had channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13. That was CBS, NBC, KTLA, ABC, KHJ, KTTV and KCOP. KTLA, KHJ, KTTV AND KCOP were local channels at the time.

Have a good day.

[asianflava]

Some of the earliest TV shows I remember were when I was 5 years old. We lived in Beckley, WV at the time. Those shows were "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "Mutual of Omaha's Wild" Kingdom (Jim Fowler). Oddly enough, I don't remember watching TV at home but rather at my uncle's.

When we moved to Shenandoah, VA we got a color Motorola console TV. We also had the big antenna on the outside with the rotator knob on top of the TV. Where we lived, you needed an outside antenna is you wanted to watch TV, all the stations were so far away. A year or so later, as an experiment, my mom got us cable TV IN OUR ROOM! Back then (for us anyway) cable just meant better reception because there were the same number of stations.

I just got to thinking, we got that Motorola in the mid 70's my parents have only had 4 TVs in the family room since then.

[traveler]

The first Tv set that my family had was a Sylvania with a bubble in front of a 5" screen and the station was KTTV channel 11. I can remember Howdy Dowdy, but there most likely other ones earlier than that.