The older I get the more fondly I think of old television shows. Not that they were all that good - most of them were pretty bad! But I like to watch them anyway!
I've even tried to figure out the earliest old television show that I remember. As far as I can tell it was "I'm Dickens, He's Fenster" and I was 5 years old. I was a little late for really classic tv shows. I was too young to notice the really Golden Age of Television. Lucky for everyone in my age bracket a lot of these shows have been saved.
Wikipedia, that marvelous mishmash of information, claims that the Golden Age of Television lasted from 1949 to 1970. I like to think of it in terms of the really old television shows that were experimental and open to new ideas because at that point it just hadn't been done before. So we had live dramas - The Philco Television Playhouse, Kraft Television Theatre and Playhouse 90. Not all of the programs back then were original. Many of the old television shows were imported directly from the radio. Cast, writers, concept and all. They arrived on TV fully developed and already popular. All they needed to do was adapt to the medium.
As a grown up (chronologically speaking), I'm fascinated by the television shows that I used to watch. From the surreal Romper Room with that crazy woman and her magic mirror to the talking horse Mr. Ed to Peter Gunn and Twilight Zone. I love them. I love them when they are good and I love them even more when they are bad! Why else would I make one of my friends sing the theme song to My Mother the Car over and over again. That's one reason that my new favorite site is Mark Little's MyThemes.tv.
What a fabulous website! I must have stayed up until 2 am one night playing the themes of old television shows! And site has opening and closing credits for a lot of these shows. I find myself not being satisfied watching a short clip of Topo Gigio on YouTube. I want to see the whole episode of the Ed Sullivan Show. Plate spinners and rock Bands, comics and sweet little mice playing the violin.
I'm obsessed with the classic old television shows of my youth! Maybe it's a midlife crisis gone sideways but I find it creeping into my design work. I watch TVland and Nick-at-Nite. Always hoping to see Maynard G. Krebs "getting all misty". Lucky for me a lot of them are available on DVD or can be downloaded from movie/tv/game/music websites that have huge amount of content. After along frustrating search (during which I finally learned the words to the My Mother the Car theme song - "a 1928 Porter that's my mother dear"), I finally found a movie downloads website that runs fast enough to satisfy my Ernie Kovacs and the Adventures of Spin & Marty - "Way out West on the Triple R". So I think that I will be OK, but I just can't get those theme songs out of my mind!
2 comments:
Boy was that a walk down memory lane. I watched the Ed Sullivan Show for years but somehow missed the Topo Gigio segment.
And you are right, many weren't very good by today's standards, and yet they keep drawing us back in time, to a different comfort zone.
Thanks for the reconnect to past movie and theme song memories!
I agreed. Some old tv series are good and others are pretty bad in production and animation. But It is good to remember this films and now we can watch it on DVD movie.
Good Post!
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