Overture, please:
Time to Graduate to more important things other than “Hokey-smoke, Bullwinkle!”
As I grew and cartoons faded, I staked out my own programs for night time viewing. Instead of hitting the hay when Perry Mason started (I remember that music so well!), I could watch the big TV in the cellar while the old man worked or on the smaller set in my room. It was a smaller screen, but my second-floor reception was great.
As you’d expect, I started with comedies: F Troop, Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, My Mother The Car, Captain Nice, Get Smart (OMG, Barbara Feldon’s voice alone was enough to bargain with Satan for just five minutes…), I Dream of Jeannie (we saw her on our plane 4 years ago), Mr. Terrific, My Three Sons (remember the blonde with short hair?) Bewitched (after Inger Stevens, Elizabeth Montgomery was the prettiest woman on TV), Hogan’s Heroes, and perky-queen Marlo Thomas on That Girl. I never got into westerns, and the ‘country’ shows (Here Come The Brides, Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction) left me cold. I didn’t watch much nighttime scary stuff, so the Outer Limits passed me by. I saw Gidget on and off, but The Flying Nun was just too stupid, as was Gilligan’s Island. I saw more Gilligan’s Island in college when I was either stoned or so fucking hungover I’d watch a test pattern.
I need to briefly mention the 60’s Batman–you have no idea how massive this thing was! Lunchboxes (yes), trading cards, shirts, cups, Halloween costumes, Thermoses, the soundtrack album. I loved Frank Gorshin as a deranged Riddler (that laugh! Only Nicholson’s Joker was that scary), and Julie Newmar……..can’t talk about her, the wife says I’m weird.
Game shows were coming back from the scandals, with stuff like Match Game, To Tell The Truth, and, of course, The Dating Game. And heeeerrrreee they are:
Wait a Minute, that’s a little off…..let’s try this:
Although it may seem shocking today, Jeopardy was not on a major network near me. If I went to the coal regions, one of the UHF channels carried it, and let me tell you, the Art Fleming version was for Einsteins only!
Saturday mornings were spent looking for a program called Discovery. It had a year after it, such as ‘Discovery ’67’. It was an educational show about history, science, other countries, current events, etc whittled down for young minds. If you catch it on youtube, you’ll see it was softened, but you weren’t talked down to. Had a cool theme song, too. I know Bandstand came on after it, but I just wasn’t into watching people dance. The GE College Bowl, with all those crew cut college boys, came next but was way over my skinny head.