1950s TV test pattern. |
Earlier today I was watching PBS and found out that Jack
Kerouac spent 63 days by himself in the 1950s on a mountain top in the Cascade
Mountains in Washington State trying to find himself. The mountain was called
Desolation Mountain. TV can be fascinating.
On the other hand, years ago I was living in North
Vancouver and watched every weekly episode of Rich Man, Poor Man. Unfortunately
the power went out in the last program and I never really found out how the
whole thing ended.
Growing up in Montreal, TV came along when I was about 6
or 7 years of age, around 1954. For those that grew up in the same era as I
did, we had a lot on our plates at that tender age. School, hearing stories
about WW2 and The Great Depression, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, finding
out about the atomic bomb, a new music called rock and roll, and this box with
a window that sat in the corner of our living rooms that we talked about every
following day out in the school yard. “Did you see……?”
You know you are getting old if you have any memories of
what life was like before television. In the early 1950s there was a family
tradition in our house for a number of years of having sandwiches on Sunday
night and listening to several radio programs. Programs like Our Miss Brooks
(Gosh Mr. Boynton!”), Amos And Andy.
(“Holy mackerel there Andy!”), and Burns And Allen (Say goodnight Gracie.”).
Here are some of my memories of television in the 1950s
as a kid growing up in Montreal.
In 1953 I was six years old and hadn’t a clue what
television set was. A guy down the block had one with a very small screen. It
was maybe 14 inches across. We spent a few minutes watching kind of jerky and
feint images of a spaceship. A year later in 1954 almost every family in the
neighbourhood had a console model television. Some of TV makes back then were
Philco, RCA, Admiral, Zenith, Marconi, Motorola, and Fleetwood.
Time well wasted. |
One of the interesting things about early TV is that
adults were just about as naïve as children were about this new medium that we
were being exposed to. There was an overall excitement about having moving
pictures come directly into your living room. In the beginning TV was a finicky
devise. Tin foil and steel wool were sometimes attached to the antennas that
sat on top of the TV to get better reception. What we called “rabbit ears”.
There didn’t seem to be a lot of science about getting good reception. It was
like banging the side of a pinball game or rubbing the top of a one armed
bandit slot machine.
Canadian
TV
The first TV station in Montreal was CBMT which was
English and part of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). A few months
later it was followed by CBFT, a French language TV station also part of the
CBC.
In the beginning there was nothing on the tube until
about 5 p.m. If you turned on the TV during the day all you got was a test
pattern with an Indian head on it.
There were at least two programs that were shown on both
English and French TV in Montreal at the time. One was about a large French
Canadian family called The Plouffe Family and the other was a puppet show
called Papineau and Capucine. The two puppet characters that I remember were a
bear that didn’t talk but made sounds like….”menamanuh, menamanuh” and Pow Pow who was a convict with a striped
rimless hat and striped clothes. I once had a Pow Pow puppet as a toy but it
fell apart when I started chewing on its rubber head. The bear on Papineau and
Capucine was probably the first impression I ever heard around grade school of
a character we had seen on TV. Over the coming years there would be many more.
At 7:00 p.m. during the week there was a news program
that came from the CBC in Toronto. It was called Tabloid. Dick MacDougal and
Elaine Grand did the interviews, Gil Christie read the news and Percy Saltzman
did the weather and when he was finished he would toss his stick of chalk in
the air and say….”and that’s the weather.”
I think it was 1954 when we got our first TV. It was only
a year or so later when people started putting antennas on their roofs to get
some American TV stations, WPTZ in Plattsburg, New York (NBC), WCAX in
Burlington, Vermont (CBS), and WMTW in Poland Springs, Maine (ABC) which at one
time was owned by late night talk show host Jack Paar.
Comparatively, Canadian TV, which really meant the CBC because there was no competing Canadian TV network, seemed rather sedate and American TV was much brasher. Watching hockey or the news was OK but programs like the intellectual Fighting Words with Nathan Cohen could put kids and some adults to sleep. Kids and adults wanted American pizzazz. If it meant having some contraption up on the roof, so be it.
Percy Saltzman |
Comparatively, Canadian TV, which really meant the CBC because there was no competing Canadian TV network, seemed rather sedate and American TV was much brasher. Watching hockey or the news was OK but programs like the intellectual Fighting Words with Nathan Cohen could put kids and some adults to sleep. Kids and adults wanted American pizzazz. If it meant having some contraption up on the roof, so be it.
Hockey Night In Canada was the glue that attached
Canadians to the CBC more than anything else. On snowy winter Saturday nights
we would hear Foster Hewitt in Toronto welcome us with “Hello Canada!” from
high atop the gondola at Maple Leaf Gardens. In Montreal it was Danny Gallivan
doing the play by play. In between periods was called the Hot Stove Club or
something close to that. These segments often involved old timers with their
many facial scars offering opinions. Esso was the sponsor of HNIC and Murray
Westgate, a genial type, wished us “Happy Motoring” after pitching the Esso
products.
Your Pet, Juliette, a songstress from Vancouver, followed the hockey game and for many of us the sight of her on the tube meant bedtime. We went to sleep with names in our heads like Rocket Richard, Ken Mosdell, Floyd Curry, Butch Bouchard, Gerry McNeil, Dickie Moore, Dick Duff, Frank Mahovolich, Jean Beliveau, Tim Horton, George Armstrong, Lou Fontinato, Andy Bathgate, and the great Gordie Howe.
Another Canadian TV institution started back then was
Front Page Challenge with Fred Davis as host. Pierre Berton and the blustering
Gordon Sinclair were regular panelists. Years later Sinclair would ask Canadian
Olympic swimmer, Elaine Tanner, how she managed to swim on days that she was
having her period. Mr. Sinclair could be a tacky old codger.
The CBC made a number of attempts at emulating American
television in the 1950s. With the success of Davy Crockett in the US we were
offered a TV series about the Canadian explorer and fur trader, Pierre Radisson.
He was a “coureur des bois” or “runner of the woods.” The same guy they named
those hotels after.
Your Pet, Juliette, a songstress from Vancouver, followed the hockey game and for many of us the sight of her on the tube meant bedtime. We went to sleep with names in our heads like Rocket Richard, Ken Mosdell, Floyd Curry, Butch Bouchard, Gerry McNeil, Dickie Moore, Dick Duff, Frank Mahovolich, Jean Beliveau, Tim Horton, George Armstrong, Lou Fontinato, Andy Bathgate, and the great Gordie Howe.
Juliette |
Front Page Challenge |
Three other series that ran on CBC in the 50s were
produced in cooperation with American or British television concerns. One was
reworked version of the classic Wallace Beery, Marie Dressler 1933 movie
Tugboat Annie. Another was a program about two long distance truckers called
Cannonball. The younger of the two drivers, an actor named William Campbell,
was married to a gal named Judith (Exner) in real life at the time. She later
became one of John Kennedy’s mistresses. The Last Of The Mohicans was another
series that was made in Canada with cooperation from the CBC but with American
financing and distribution. Lon Chaney Jr. played Chingachgook. It wasn’t half
bad for its time.
The CBC had its own version of Howdy Doody. The host in
Canada was Timber Tom and in the US it was Buffalo Bob. Both versions had Clarabell
The Clown and the Peanut Gallery but we alone had Captain Scuttlebutt. Robert
Goulet and William Shatner played characters on the Canadian version at one
time or other.
Other after school Canadian kid’s TV programs were Maggie
Muggins (most boys wouldn’t be caught dead watching it), Chez Helene, Papinot
and Capucine, Uncle Chichimus, and of course The Friendly Giant
and his pals Rusty and Jerome. People of my age all remember the draw bridge
and the little chairs we were offered to sit in by Mr. Friendly.
Some other CBC TV show back then were Fighting Words with
Nathan Cohen, Mr. Fix-it with Peter Woodhall, Folio, Profile, and Close-Up.
There were also some country shows like Country Calender, Holiday Ranch and
Country Hoe Down. The latter had a mustachioed fiddler named King Ganom who
would turn around in a circle while he played.
The Friendly Giant |
Rock and roll started to take shape in the mid-1950s but
seeing it on the CBC throughout the decade was a very rare sight. Instead we
were offered Cross Canada Hit Parade with singers like Wally Coster, Joyce
Hahn, Robert Goulet, and Shirley Harmer who almost always sung the tamer tunes
of the times. “How much is that doggy in the window?”
Notable other Canadian TV personalities who appeared on the CBC in the
50s include Alex Barris, Jack Crelely, J. Frank Willis, Austin Willis, Denny
Vaughan, Jack Duffy, Vanda King, Bill Walker, Frank Heron, Frank Selke Jr.,
George Murray, Toby Tarnow, Toby Robbins, Joan Fairfax, Sylvia Murphy, Loaraine
McAllister, Billy O’Connor, Vic Obeck, Joyce Davidson (didn’t like the queen),
John O’Leary, Rex Loring, and Larry Henderson, Jimmy Tapp.
A couple of army vets, comedians Johnny Wayne and Frank
Shuster, were a staple at the CBC for decades starting in the 1950s. They held
the record for the most guest appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show in the US at
58. They were kind of funny I guess for the times.Wayne & Shuster |
American
TV
The choice between watching Canadian TV and American TV
was a bit like choosing between a piano recital and a rock concert. Most
Canadians preferred the hoopla and the more in your face approach of TV from
the US. The personalities on American television seemed warmer and more
exciting.
Oddly enough, one of the more droll American television
personalities, Ed Sullivan, became an institution in Canadian homes every
Sunday night at 8 p.m. with his variety show that was initially called The
Toast Of The Town. Ed trotted out an eclectic mix of performers including
jugglers, acrobats, animal acts, opera singers, Broadway belters, ballet
dancers, animal acts, comedians, and rock and rollers. He would often ask
someone famous in the audience to stand up and take a bow.
A lot of people around my age can remember the first time
we saw so and so on Ed Sullivan. Here are 2 acts that I remember…..The first
was a guy named Mr. Pastry. He had white hair and a white bushy mustache and
wore a cutaway tuxedo. He gulped glasses of champagne while playing musical
chairs by himself. He appeared to become drunker and drunker and the music got
faster and faster. If you don’t know the act…google it on Youtube. The second
was a Yiddish comedian named Myron Cohen…..A man is out walking with his son
when his son spots two dogs having sex. “Daddy what are those dogs doing?” “Pay
no attention my son.” “But daddy what are they doing?” This goes on for a bit
and finally the father tells the son….”It seems like one of the dogs is very
sick and the other one is pushing him to the hospital.” Ba-boom! Rim shot.
One of the neat things about early TV in the 50s is that
we got to see a lot of ex Vaudevillians who were nearing the ends of their
careers. People like Ed Wynn, Eddy Cantor, and Jimmy Durante. TV was a heck of
an opportunity for some to restart their careers. People like Jack Benny,
Jackie Gleason, Burns and Allen, Red Skelton, Dinah Shore, Phil Silvers, Jane
Wyman, Loretta Young, Eve Arden, just to name a few who had had previous careers in the movies or on radio.
Sarcasm was almost nonexistent in comedy on TV back then. Risque jokes simply were not allowed. Telling a dirty joke on live TV could very well end a career. Instead what was delivered to us was zaniness which included comedians like Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Ernie Kovacs, or the cast of characters on The Steve Allen Show (which ran in the same time slot as Ed Sullivan) that included Bill Dana, Don Knotts, Louis Nye, and Tom Poston. We always felt comfortable with the laid back George Gobel.
Here is a brief list of some of the more notable things
that happened on American TV in the 1950s, in no particular order.
#1 The first time we saw Elvis on the tube on The Steve Allen Show, on Ed Sullivan, on The Dorsey Brothers Show. Steve Allen had no use for rock and roll and kind of mocked Elvis with a hound dog on the set.
Mr. Pastry |
Sarcasm was almost nonexistent in comedy on TV back then. Risque jokes simply were not allowed. Telling a dirty joke on live TV could very well end a career. Instead what was delivered to us was zaniness which included comedians like Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Ernie Kovacs, or the cast of characters on The Steve Allen Show (which ran in the same time slot as Ed Sullivan) that included Bill Dana, Don Knotts, Louis Nye, and Tom Poston. We always felt comfortable with the laid back George Gobel.
Lonesome George Gobel |
#1 The first time we saw Elvis on the tube on The Steve Allen Show, on Ed Sullivan, on The Dorsey Brothers Show. Steve Allen had no use for rock and roll and kind of mocked Elvis with a hound dog on the set.
#2 The fixed quiz shows. Charles Van Doren was caught
cheating with the prepared answers on The $64,000.00 Question.
#3 Peter Pan with Mary Martin (Larry Hagman’s mother).
Many parents insisted we watch it and we liked seeing her fly about the stage
suspended by skinny wires. We kind of forgot that Peter Pan wasn’t a woman.
#4 Watching the stiff Jack Webb on Dragnet and “just the
facts ma’am” and the hammer hitting the plaque that said Mark VII at the end of
the show.
#5 Jackie Gleason threatening his wife Alice in their
dingy apartment…”One of these days Alice…pow right in the kisser!” That
wouldn’t fly today.
#6 Lucille Ball stomping grapes or things getting out of
control on the conveyor belt with chocolates or cakes or whatever it was that was on it.
Mary Martin as Peter Pan |
Jack Webb as Joe Friday on Dragnet |
Jackie Gleason on The Honeymooners |
#7 Trying to figure out how Davey Crockett was still
alive for two more programs after he was killed at the Alamo. The Indian chief
who said “Ongothcha!” and Mike Fink, king of the river. I have to confess that
I wore my Davey Crockett pants with the plastic fringes to grade school a few
times.
#8 Feeling very uncomfortable when Ralph Edwards surprised
some star on This Is Your Life when the unsuspecting victim had their whole
family dragged out onto the set and there wasn’t always warm hugs.
Fess Parker as Davy Crockett |
#9 Falling in love with Dinah Shore. Could anyone not
like her?
#10 Realizing many years later just how bright a man
Edward R. Murrow was.
Dinah Shore |
Here is a brief listing of some of the stuff we watched
on American TV back in the day. But first….a pause for station identification.
US Kids
Programs
Captain Kangaroo with Mr. Greenjeans and Tom Terrific and
his dog Mighty Manfred. Sky King. My Friend Flicka. Fury. The Cisco Kid. Dennis
The Menace. Lassie. Rin Tin Tin…”Yo Rinnie!” Robin Hood. Jungle Jim. The Mickey
Mouse Club…”Annette!” “Bobby!”. Superman. The Lone Ranger…”Kemosabe”. Wild Bill
Hickcok…”Wait for me Wild Bill!”. Leave It To Beaver…with creepy eddy Haskell
Hoppalong Cassidy…that was one old cowboy. Mighty Mouse Playhouse…”Here I come
to save the day!”. Heckle And Jeckle. Pinky Lee. Soupy Sales. Rocky Jones. Roy
Rogers…with Pat Brady and his Jeep Nelleybelle. Casey Jones. Kukla, Fran, and Ollie.
US Westerns
The Lone Ranger & Tonto |
Rip Masters, Rusty & Rin Tin Tin |
Gunsmoke. Maverick. Cheyenne. Wyatt Earp. Have Gun Will
Travel…Wire Paladin San Francisco. Rawhide. The Man From Blackhawk. Bat
Masterson…he wore a cane and derby hat. The Rebel. The Rifleman…played 1st
base for The Montreal Royals in the early 50s. Wanted Dead Or Alive. Death
Valley Days…with Ronald Reagan. Wagon Train. Yancy Derringer.
US Daytime
Quiz Shows
The Price Is Right. Queen For A Day… poor women telling
their stories of misery for a year’s supply of laundry soap. Treasure Hunt. Concentration.
Beat The Clock. Who Do You Trust…with Johnny Carson. Truth Or Consequences.
Kids Say The Darndest Things.
US Nighttime
Quiz Shows
The $64,000.00 Question. Twenty-One, You Bet Your Life
with Groucho Marx…”Say the magic word and win a hundred dollars.” What’s My
Line? I’ve Got A Secret. To tell The Truth. Name That Tune.Tic-Tac-Dough.
US Variety
Shows
Groucho Marx on You Bet Your Life |
Perry Como. Dinah Shore…”See the USA in your Chevrolet!”
Steve Allen. Gary Moore. George Gobel. Tennesee Ernie Ford. Mitch Miller.
Arthur Godfrey. Your Show Of Shows with Sid Caesar.
1950’s
TV Forgotten Names?
Arnold Stang, Gabby Hayes, Dorothy Kilgallen, Bennett
Cerf, Hal March, Buster Crabbe, Zazu Pitts, Oscar Levant, Arlene Francis, John
Daley, Jack Lescoulie, Duncan Renaldo, Frank Lovejoy, Spring Byington, Howard
Duff, Gale Storm, Ann Sothern, Rod Cameron, Bud Collyer, Gardner MacKay, Jimmy
Dean, Molly Bee, Dennis Day, Clint Walker, Hal March, Nick Adams, Walter
Winchell, Jan Murray, Hal March, John Cameron Swayze, Jock Mahoney, Bill
Cullen, Jack Bailey, Dave Garroway.
US Religious
Programs
Lamp Unto My Feet…a moment of this day for devotion. Oral
Roberts. Billy Graham. Life Is Worth Living with Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. This
Is The Life. (I watched all of these programs but none of it had any effect.)
US Sports
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen |
All-Star Bowling. Gillette Cavalcade of Sports (Boxing…Gene
Fulmer, Carmen Bassilio, Sugar Ray Robinson). Wrestling. (Little Beaver,
Haystack Calhoun, Sky High Lee). NFL Football. (I used to go over to a friend’s house to watch NFL football on
Sundays sometimes. His dad was a big fan. Back then muddy players and butt
crack were not uncommon.) The World Series.
US Highbrow And Political Shows
GE College Bowl….Ohio State…The political theory of possessive
individualism for 10 points. Person To Person. See It Now. Hallmark Hall Of
Fame. Studio One. The Ed Sullivan Show. US Steel Hour. Playhouse 90. Face The Nation. Meet The Press.
US Situation
Comedies
Father Knows Best. Our Miss Brooks. Colonel Humphrey J.
Flack. December Bride. Burns And Allen. Life With Riley. Duffy’s Tavern. I Love
Lucy. Bachelor Father. Dear Phoebe. Dobie Gillis. Life With Elizabeth…with
Betty White. Strike It Rich…with Phil Silvers. Ozzie and Harriet. Amos And
Andy…”holy mackerel there…” The Donna Reed Show. Mr. Peepers. Oh! Suzanna. Love
That Bob. Make Room For Daddy. My Favorite Secretary.
US Cop
Shows
Phil Silvers in Strike It Rich |
M Squad…with Lee Marvin. Highway Patrol… 10-4…with
Broderick Crawford. Dragnet…”We were working bunko out of….” The Line-up.
Manhunt. Naked City…there are 8 million stories... Manhunt. The Untouchables.
US Private
Eye Shows
Richard Diamond. Peter Gunn. 77 Sunset Strip...Kookie lend me your comb. The Thin
Man. Meet McGraw. Hawaian Eye. Johnny Staccato. Mr. Lucky.
US Misc.
The Medic. The Vise. Cannonball. Liberace…and his brother
George. The Millionaire….my name is Michael Anthony. Soldiers Of Fortune.
Adventures In Paradise. Whirlybirds. Tales Of The Bengal Lancers. Sea Hunt. The
Twilight Zone. American Bandstand. (Rate the record between 35 and 98%.) Perry Mason. Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Liberace.Riverboat.This Is Your Life.
Movies
Rod Serling...The Twilight Zone |
In the early stages of broadcast TV stations were
desperate for content. An obvious source, at the time, was to dig up old movies
including shorts. As kids, we discovered The Little Rascals, The Bowery Boys,
and Laurel and Hardy. In some summers Kraft Theatre showed a number of the
classics of black and white movies. Things like Key Largo, The Petrified
Forest, Treasure Island, Goodbye Mr. Chips, and Great Expectations. I used to
watch them with my mother who seemed to know all the character actors. I was
hooked for life on old black and white. I remember the beginning of Kraft
Theatre when a wooden camera with a wooden guy sitting on it would slowly
rotate at the beginning of the program and of course all the wonderful things
you could do with Velveeta cheese in the commercials.
10
1950’s US TV Commercials
#2 Brylcreem…a little dab will do you!
#3 I want my Maypo!
#4 Shaefer is the one beer to have…when you’re having
more than one. (Before MADD.)
#5 Prudential Insurance. The rock of Gibtralter.
Maypo Cereal. |
#5 Prudential Insurance. The rock of Gibtralter.
#6 Brusha. Brusha. Brusha. I use new Ipana. Its dandy for
your teeth.
#7 Timex. It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.
#8 See the USA in your Chevrolet.
#9 Halo everybody Halo!
#10 N-E-S-T-L-E-S…Nestles make the very best choc…..lat.
And who can forget all the doctors who told us that one
brand of cigarettes was smoother on the throat than others.
It was a great time for television. It wasn’t always
seamless. Sometimes you would see the camera boom or something would crash
somewhere off camera or programs would get cut off because they had run too
long. Everything was fresh. There was so much to see. We were taking a journey.
“You’re travelling through another dimension, a dimension
not only of sight but of mind. A journey into a wonderous land whose boundaries
are that of imagination. There is a signpost up ahead-your next stop, the
Twilight Zone!”
LIke a trip down memory lane Colin. I like it. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteAndy
Thanks Andy.
ReplyDelete