TV Time

 Growing up we only had one TV and until the mid 60’s it was in black and white. We only received six channels and on a good day maybe seven, there was ABC, CBS and NBC along with channel 11 and 5 which were local stations out of New York City and the NET station, which was a precursor to PBS. There was no remote control or vhs or dvr, so if you missed a show you missed it. Among the kids it was first come first serve also known as I am bigger than you so I get the TV. In our family you could only watch an hour of TV at night. To be honest most of the time in the summer time we would be outside playing late until the evening when my mother would call us in. By the time we got inside it was time for a bath and then bed. There were some shows I remember growing up that either came on before school or on Saturday morning. The first one was Romper Room which came on during lunch time and you would watch it before you went to kindergarten or coming home. Early in the morning before school there was Captain Kangaroo. Then on Saturday morning you had comedies like the Three Stooges or the Little Rascals and action adventures like My Friend Flicka. Slowly those shows got replaced by cartoons. My favorite cartoon when I was really little was Mighty Mouse, a super mouse who would protect the town of Mouseville from various villains including Oil Can Harry a Cat. I also loved watching Richochet Rabbit and Droop-along on the Magilla Gorilla Show. And if you grew up at that time who can forget the Huckleberry Hound Show, with Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear and Pixie and Dixie All these shows were simple and you knew who was going to win and loose. The animations was crude and simple, but they all had great theme songs and whenever I hear one on Youtube I have to smile remembering a time when everything was much simpler.