Broadcast Television

I would hate to start off any blog post with the phrase “when I was a kid”. But using this historical perspective as I’ve been doing I’ve ended up with two different viewpoints. The first one and the one I dwell on most is how something I’ve learned from history seems so foreign and different from me today. The second viewpoint is how much things are different today from when I was a kid.

When I was a kid, we were subject to the whims of the TV stations as far as when stuff would come on, how often we could watch the same programs, and how many commercials we had to sit through. Things are so drastically different today that the very thought must seem alien to our younger counterparts.

Recently Lorie and I hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house. My parents came over, as did hers. One of the things we wanted to do the night before Thanksgiving was watch a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving together. So we waited, and when 8 o’clock came around we tuned in CBS and sat around watching it, commercials and all, as if it were 1977 without the giant furniture-TV and it’s grainy, flickery picture.

I HAVE the cartoon. It’s right there… on the Apple TV. Without commercials and available any time we please. There’s no need to wait for a special time, and certainly no need to sit through all those needless commercials.

My kids have a wealth of viewing options available to them, as we’ve discussed before. And the methods in which they can view shows are many and varied. They are not constrained by day, time, programming and commercials. And if their show gets cancelled, they can always re-watch the older episodes at any time. Calling them “re-runs” is a misnomer.

In the fall of 1977, we had just moved to Platsburgh, New York, where my father had been stationed at the Air Force Base. While we were growing up, every time we moved one of our tasks in the new house was to re-familiarize with the TV. What channels tuned in what stations? And what did the local television stations have to offer that hadn’t been available at our last post. Our first day in Platsburgh I found an old sixties cartoon about Archie that I never knew existed! Stuff like that.

I found that the local station in Platsburgh, New York, offered a block of televisions shows right after school that was themed around super-heroes. They had a special commercial for it. It started off with Popeye, went to the Adventures of Superman with George Reeves, and ended with the Adam West Batman TV show.








I felt that it was my duty to start watching this block of TV. Even at age eight, when we ALL read comics, I was known as “THE” comic book guy. My obsessions started early and ran deep. And since that’s the way things were, it was my devout responsibility to watch these shows. Even if some of them were in black and white.

It was a tight squeeze with the bus schedule, but the first day that this new understanding about my TV watching destiny was in place, I got home around halfway through the Popeye cartoon. My mother was watching soaps or news or whatever on the main TV while puttering around doing her chores. So I shot upstairs to her bedroom, turned on the tiny black and white set that served as our second TV, and found my shows.

It worked for about forty-five minutes before my Mom noticed I was missing. All was quiet in the house, too quiet for me to actually be home and not be in trouble. My mother’s understanding was NOT that I would get home and lay around on my butt watching TV for hours. There were chores, homework, and active playing to consider. When she finally found me, if memory serves, I do believe voices were raised.

I was devastated at the thought that I couldn’t watch this block of programming. But for me, it was never about laying around on my butt watching TV. It was solidly about fulfilling my responsibility as a fan by becoming familiar with these shows! These shows that weren’t available to watch IN ANY OTHER WAY, AT ANY OTHER TIME, ON ANY OTHER STATION.

The idea is so foreign today that I feel the need to stress it. It’s not like I could watch my show during my allotted time for watching TV. It’s not like I could save the DVD for later. In 1977, being told that you can’t watch TV from 3 P.M. to 4 P.M. meant that you would NEVER see the George Reeves Superman show and the Adam West Batman show.

I got over it. My eight year old, 1977-formed concept of how TV works has been turned on its ear now that it’s 2012 and I’m twenty-four.

Today, when I call for a kid to do a chore and they’re watching TV, they hit pause. Even if what they’re watching is live TV. In fact, it pretty much doesn’t matter what method they’re using to watch any show. They hit pause. They run to me, get their instructions, do their chore, and head back to their show.

In the seventies, I don’t really remember being interrupted a lot when we actually sat down in front of the TV. Maybe I’m mis-remembering, but there could’ve been an unspoken understanding in our culture that you can’t hit pause on a TV show, so please just wait for a commercial.

I’m probably mis-remembering.

I DO remember calling a girl I liked in the eighties while she was watching the annual broadcast of Wizard of Oz. Remember that? Annual broadcast TV showings of Wizard of Oz, Ten Commandments, and Gone with the Wind? It was the only way to keep these classics in the public consciousness. Anyway, she explained to me calmly and clearly several times that this was her favorite movie ever and she looks forward to the broadcast all year. I never got the hint. Not until the next day. She was trying to politely get me off the phone so she could watch her show. She was completely unable to pause it, because that’s not how things worked back then. I STILL beat myself up over that.

I do remember our first beta recorder! Where we could record TV shows and play them back later. It was a miracle technology, and I filled up my first blank beta tape with re-runs of Super Friends. But what killed me about the whole process is when my mother taped all the Christmas specials. And my idiot sisters watched those specials well into February. That’s not how it’s supposed to work! You’re breaking the system! We’re not allowed to watch Christmas specials until the television networks decide it’s time!

I was thinking about benefits and drawbacks to these differing modes of viewing TV. And I don’t think there are any benefits to the way it used to be. You may have some strong nostalgic feelings for it, or miss the idea of the ‘annual’ broadcast of some old movie, and that’s all well and good and your right as a human being. But there’s no benefit in being at the mercy of antiquated tech for your entertainments and amusements.

Oh… unless sports. There’s sports. But who cares about that?

Thanks,
DCD