First TV show you ever watched (and can recall)

[jamespowers]

Not sure, but Hee Haw was one of the first for sure.

[video=youtube;WJZY__j0Tyk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJZY__j0Tyk[/video]

I remember getting stuck with that over my grandparent's house too.

 

[jamespowers]

EVERY Saturday evening. Right after Lawrence Welk. I don't think my Dad ever missed a single episode.
And on Sunday evenings, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, often followed by Wonderful World of Disney.

Yes, Marlin Perkins. I remember that.
http://youtu.be/sZg2tE3xJDY

 

[Gregg Axley]

EVERY Saturday evening. Right after Lawrence Welk. I don't think my Dad ever missed a single episode.
And on Sunday evenings, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, often followed by Wonderful World of Disney.

That was the same line-up we had.

Mutual of Omaha...
I remember bits and pieces of a joke about Marlin Perkins sipping a martini, while he sent Jim out to wrestle an alligator. It probably was true!

 

[Stearmen]

Any one remember this ancient right of passage ritual? [video=youtube;TZ28YQUR2b4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ28YQUR2b4[/video]

 

[LizzieMaine]

Fake! Real rabbit ears had tinfoil wadded up on the ends.

 

[stevew443]

The first show that I can remember was Winky Dink. Mom got me the special plastic so I could draw on the TV screen. Along with Winky Dink I also remember watching Liberace and the original Dragnet. I could not have been much more than 3 or 4 years old when I drew along with Winky Dink, so that was back about 1955 or 1956.

 

[filfoster]

It does, and I can. I salvaged the set from the dump in my hometown in 1986. The neck of the picture tube had snapped off, but I knew someone who had been a TV repairman, and he had a field behind his house filled with junked sets. He let me poke around out there until I found a 17HP4 picture tube, swapped it in, and got it working well enough to see what else I needed to do. I replaced all the capacitors, put in a new horizontal output tube, and it's been working reliably ever since. About ten years ago I burned up a resistor in the audio circuit, but that was easy enough to fix, and was the only time it's been out of the cabinet since the original restoration.

You are now one of my heroes!

 

[HoosierDaddy]

The first show that I can remember was Winky Dink. Mom got me the special plastic so I could draw on the TV screen. Along with Winky Dink I also remember watching Liberace and the original Dragnet. I could not have been much more than 3 or 4 years old when I drew along with Winky Dink, so that was back about 1955 or 1956.

I watched the same show and drew along in 1953.
HD

[video=youtube;eclOpNdzMEE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eclOpNdzMEE[/video]

 

[rjb1]

Winky Dink?? Plastic film?? We don't need no stinkin' plastic film... I drew right on the TV screen with crayons and got in BIG trouble.

 

[Quetzal]

A PBS special on American history from the end of the Great War to the Assassination of Kennedy (there may have been more, but I can't remember; I only recall blurs of black-and-white and early color footage), or the Antiques Roadshow. Along with, of course, reruns (strangely, they were from the 1970s) of Sesame Street.

No joke.

-Quetzal

 

[cw3pa]

I remember (vaguely) watching the Brooklyn Dodgers with my father. Being raised in Brooklyn dad always pulled for dem bums. Red Barber does predate my memory. The Dodgers always seemed close to winning the pennant, but it would slip away. Oh well, "Wait 'til next year".

 

[vitanola]

You are now one of my heroes!

Pardon me if you think me blasé, but the ability to repair a 1954 television set appears to me to be one of the least remarkable talents exhibited by Miss Maine.

 

[Stearmen]

Fake! Real rabbit ears had tinfoil wadded up on the ends.

Your showing how young you are Lizzie. The tin foil was wrapped so as to form two flags, each dipped in salute to the TV Gods. For that extra special event, some one would hold onto the end of one of the antennas, then hold the other arm straight our from the body. If you leaned forward to try and watch some of the show, every one would simultaneously yell at you! Fun times. The wadded method must have worked better, since, by the mid 60s, that's all you saw. Maybe, that was the true beginning of the decline in society, you only needed one person to watch TV!

 

[Fading Fast]

I think (that's the operative word) it was a black and white Superman movie that, all from memory, was probably an early 1950s effort that tells the whole Krypton exploding, Superman coming to earth, growing up on a farm, etc., story. My mom told me about it the day before it was on and I was excited the night before and all day until it came on. I was probably give or take 4. It was either that or "The Wizard of Oz" as we watched that for probably fifteen straight years when it was an annual event.

 

[Quetzal]

Actually, now that I really think about it, I most likely watched old cartoons from the 1930s and the 1940s (back when the Fleischer Bros. and Tex Avery were in charge of Paramount's and MGM/Termite Terrace's cartoons, respectively). This, in turn, is probably sparked my love for music and animation, and, eventually, to everything else.

-Quetzal

 

[Stearmen]

Actually, now that I really think about it, I most likely watched old cartoons from the 1930s and the 1940s (back when the Fleischer Bros. and Tex Avery were in charge of Paramount's and MGM/Termite Terrace's cartoons, respectively). This, in turn, is probably sparked my love for music and animation, and, eventually, to everything else.

-Quetzal

Now that you mention it, I remember on Saturday mornings watching old Keystone Cop short reals, with funny music and sound affects added. I thought they were the funniest thing ever! It wasn't until I was much older that I found out that these were actually silent films originally.

 

[robrinay]

My earliest tv memory is from some time in the 50's -before we moved house in 59 when I was 6 years old- not a programme but an advert for the Renault Dauphine car. It portrayed a car driving along country roads at night to the words 'Renault Dauphine' sung to music, simple and repetitive. More recently a Psychologist colleague told me the best way to remember a fact is to repeat it 7 times - I never linked the two things till I started writing this answer.

 

[ingineer]

LizzieMaine; :eusa_clap,:eusa_clap
Amazing!! There are few people that can even solder today. Even most of the Hams I know are just appliance operators.

The first time I saw a TV was when my father took me to the corner Tavern so he could watch boxing.
I remember he bought me a “pool na pool” ( the neighborhood was Polish/Slovak) half root beer and half beer to put me to sleep.
A TV in the home was still pretty much of a big expense at that time, but he was the first on the block to buy one. Knowing was father it was probably used. Everyone called it a DuMont.
Looked just like this:

Magic Eye! And Chanel one I think.
I remember Bishop Fulton Sheen, Captain Video, and some sort of Amateur Hour as the first on this set. Most of the time there was static or a test pattern.
The old sets were very easy to fix with the exception of the CRT, and in my teens made some money fixing the neighbors' , sometimes they would give me an old one. At one point my parents told me not to bring another in the house as there was one in every room.
My Uncle Ray (Silent Key) started me out on electronics and ham radio by buying one of these.


Richard

 

[St.Ignatz]

Ikes state of the union address at my grandfathers.
Tom D.

 

[filfoster]

Ikes state of the union address at my grandfathers.
Tom D.

I actually have a memory of this, at my mother's parents farmhouse, for one of his last addresses, this would have been '58 or '59-maybe '60.