# Why this is the Golden Age of television



## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

First, there are more great show available than ever, and all now in HD and most in 5.1.

Second, we are lucky to be living at a moment in time when we have the best drama ever on television, _The Good Wife_, and the best sitcom ever on television, _Modern Family_. Both at the same time.

Third, this moment won't last forever. The TV biz is slowly dying, and may suffer the same fate as the record industry, which is in a complete shambles. Netflix is Napsterizing it.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

You're about 60 years late. The Golden Age of TV was the 1950s.


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## MysteryMan (May 17, 2010)

SayWhat? said:


> You're about 60 years late. The Golden Age of TV was the 1950s.


Touche


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

Hard to think of it as the golden age when we've got junk like Real Housewives, Jersey Shore or Honey Boo Boo. If any of those are cancelled, just replace them with a show that is on. I'm sure there are suitable replacements for the list


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

SayWhat? said:


> You're about 60 years late. The Golden Age of TV was the 1950s.


Please.

If you could wave your little magic wand and go back there, would you?

To black and white, 4:3 aspect ratio, cameras the size of a Buick meaning you don't leave the studio, resolution so fuzzy it hurts your eyes, lights that melt the makeup, mono audio so tinny and noisy you can hardly hear it, no captioning, 3 channels on only part of the day (two in most of the country), no zoom lenses, no Steadicam, no 3D, no 4K, no geostationary satellite technology, and most importantly no DVRs?

I didn't think so. If J. Fred Muggs is your idea of a Golden Age (for those too lazy to google he was an actual chimpanzee that co-hosted the Today show) then don't let the doorknob hit you on your way back there.

Using that logic, the Spanish Inquisition was the Golden Age for the Catholic church.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

dpeters11 said:


> Hard to think of it as the golden age when we've got junk like Real Housewives, Jersey Shore or Honey Boo Boo. If any of those are cancelled, just replace them with a show that is on. I'm sure there are suitable replacements for the list


And what are there, 20 or so different CSI versions on now? Plus all the L&O variations? At least in the 50s there was some creativity.

Shall we go into the Infomercials?

This is more like the Leaden Age.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

TomCat said:


> Please.
> 
> If you could wave your little magic wand and go back there, would you?


I'm trying hard. Recording a lot of Burns & Allen, Jack Benny, (B&W) Dragnet, Racket Squad, Naked City, Sgt. Preston and anything else I can find on the air on the oldies channels. DVDs on the shelf include a collection of 50s cop shows, Wanted: Dead Or Alive and so on.

What special effect they used and stunts they did were real, not CGI. Suspense was done in the script writing, not by splashing blood all over the set and throwing body parts around.

Comedy wasn't 7th Grade 'bathroom humor'.


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## olguy (Jan 9, 2006)

Golden age of television technology - okay. Golden age of program content - not so much. The technology is wasted.


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

I am currently in process of watching the entire 'Twilight Zone' series on Netflix. A show from the old golden age, being played back in the new golden age. Where does that fall? Somewhere in the... well you know.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

And I regularly watch "Lawman", "Matt Dillon", "Have Gun, Will Travel" and others on Encore Westerns.


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## Phil T (Mar 25, 2002)

I cherish the 3 channel Black and White TV of my youth. I was thinking of my dad the other day who died before we had a color TV. What would he think of a flat screen HDTV? He bought a TV chassis only because he could not afford the case and a huge rooftop antenna and rotor to pull in stations from over 100 miles away.

This is the TV/radio/phono combo I remember watching Micky Mouse Club on in the 1950's:

http://file.vintageadbrowser.com/l-3ze6sxcy2iu0jx.jpg


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## fluffybear (Jun 19, 2004)

TomCat said:


> Please.
> 
> If you could wave your little magic wand and go back there, would you?
> 
> ...


I guess if you want to spend your life sitting on your backside and watching TV 24/7, I can understand your position. Technology wise, the 50's and 60's could never compete with the advancements made in the last decade but by the same token, The programming of today will never compete with the programming of TV's first 50 years.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

SayWhat? said:


> And what are there, 20 or so different CSI versions on now? Plus all the L&O variations? At least in the 50s there was some creativity.
> 
> Shall we go into the Infomercials?
> 
> This is more like the Leaden Age.


Though weren't a lot of shows in the 50s more a continuation or redoing of radio shows? And I think we probably could replace todays reality shows with the game shows of the 50s, though I admit I don't know how many were actually rigged other than Twenty One and Dotto.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

^ Quite a few of them were, such as Dragnet, The Lone Ranger, maybe Jack Benny ......


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## MysteryMan (May 17, 2010)

olguy said:


> Golden age of television technology - okay. Golden age of program content - not so much. The technology is wasted.


+1......Hollywood has given up on content and prefers the cookie cutter approach and franchising.


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## fluffybear (Jun 19, 2004)

dpeters11 said:


> Though weren't a lot of shows in the 50s more a continuation or redoing of radio shows? And I think we probably could replace todays reality shows with the game shows of the 50s, though I admit I don't know how many were actually rigged other than Twenty One and Dotto.





SayWhat? said:


> ^ Quite a few of them were, such as Dragnet, The Lone Ranger, maybe Jack Benny ......


Old Time Radio to TV


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## Drucifer (Feb 12, 2009)

If you can remember watching the DuMont Network, then you can remember the Golden Age. 

All of the 60's mention programs in the above posts are not from the Golden Age.


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## Reaper (Jul 31, 2008)

There are a lot of choices now and that's a good thing, but there is an enormous amount of crap out there too. There are less than half a dozen shows that I watch.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

The Wikipedia entry on the Golden Age of Television is pretty good. But you have to be careful using that "Golden Age" term as it is so subjective. For instance in the Wikipedia entry it says: 


> By the early 1960s, about 90% of American households had a television set. At that point sitcoms and dramas dropped out of radio and became wholly the domain of television, as did Westerns like _The Lone Range_r and _Gunsmoke_. At the same time, shows such as _Playhouse 90_ ended their run.


 In other words, what made the age "Golden" ceased as popular fare took over.

The Wikipedia entry also notes:


> In more recent years, the rise of a large amount of critically acclaimed TV dramas has led many to speculate that a new golden age has already begun. Said to have begun roughly around the launch of the _The Sopranos_, _The Shield_ and _The Wire_, and continuing with current shows like _Breaking Bad_, _Mad Men, Dexter, Boardwalk Empire, The Good Wife, Homeland, Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones, True Blood, The Walking Dead_ and more have helped to further develop the respect and popularity of acclaimed TV dramas.


I have some problems with this list of the new "Golden Age" shows. Only three of them, "Mad Men", "The Good Wife", and "Downton Abbey", do not rely on violence.

And that really stands out because the prior paragraphs read as follows:


> As filmed series, such as _Alfred Hitchc0ck Presents_ and _The Twilight Zone_, began to dominate during the mid-1950s and early 1960s, the period of live TV dramas was viewed as the Golden Age. Although producer David Susskind, in a 1960s roundtable discussion with leading 1950s TV dramatists, defined TV's Golden Age as 1938 to 1954, the final shows of _Playhouse 90_ in 1961 and the departure of leading director John Frankenheimer brought the era to an end.
> 
> As a new medium, television introduced many innovative programming concepts, and prime time television drama showcased both original and classic productions, including the first telecasts of Walt Disney's programs, as well as the first telecasts of Mary Martin in _Peter Pan_, MGM's classic _The Wizard of Oz_ and Rodgers and Hammerstein's _Cinderella_. Critics and viewers looked forward to new teleplays by Paddy Chayefsky, Horton Foote, Tad Mosel, Reginald Rose, Rod Serling, WIlliam Templeton, Gore Vidal and others.
> 
> Most of these programs were produced as installments of live dramatic anthologies, such as _The Philco Television Playhouse_, _Kraft Television Theatre_ and _Playhouse 90_. Live, abridged versions of plays like _Cyrano de Bergerac_, with members of the cast of the 1946 Broadway revival recreating their roles, were regularly shown during this period.


For those of us who do remember watching a snowy picture from the DuMont Network on a greenish-screen Hoffman television set hooked to a 40' antenna attached to a "pipe" sitting on a newfangled device called a rotor, it is tempting to consider that the "Golden Age."

But if a broadcast network next week started running live, abridged versions of plays like _Cyrano de Bergerac_, with members of a Broadway revival cast, the following week it would be filing for bankruptcy because no gold would be forthcoming.

Each era of television had its "Golden" programming that we remember. The advantage the networks had in the so-called "Golden Age" is that they could experiment and everything that aired last night didn't have to make a profit.

The non-violent shows list in the "new" Golden Age is ironic:

"Mad Men" is known as AMC's loss leader subsidized by the network's more violent "The Walking Dead."
"Downton Abbey" is part of the "Masterpiece Classic" series on PBS which is a broadcast "Made Possible by Viewers Like You," some other folks who have made really large donations, and the BBC which has its work funded principally by an annual television license fee, which is charged to all British households and businesses using any type of equipment to receive live television broadcasts.
"The Good Wife" is on TV-by-the-Numbers Bubble Watch as "on the bubble" because its ratings may not be high enough to earn it a renewal.
In other words, the reality for TV in the U.S. today is quality dramatic violence attracts gold. Quality non-violent drama programming does not. That determines what is on TV. And that prevents me from ever thinking that this should ever be considered The Golden Age of Television. But there is still some "Golden" programming.


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## mreposter (Jul 29, 2006)

Every age has it's gems. For me shows like Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere from the 80s are classics that helped bring compelling writing and complex character development back to television.

Others might point to more recent fare like The Closer, Battlestar Galactica, or the short-lived Pushing Daisies as significant series. Some might even point to the first few seasons of the Real World on MTV as groundbreaking.

Whatever your preferences, there have long been lots of great shows to choose from. Ignore the bad stuff and enjoy the good. The nice thing about TV today is that we have so much access to new and old - so no matter when your favorites were on the air, you can probably find them somewhere.


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## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

phrelin- Very nice summary. Treatise, perhaps!


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

This just about sums it all up...


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## lparsons21 (Mar 4, 2006)

Lots of nostalgia in this thread.

I was around in those early days of TV and remember the great big TVs with tiny, often round, screens with very poor quality.

And for all those great shows that we remember, there was plenty of drek to go around. Starting with the test patterns that all of the very few channels showed more than they did actual programming and the Les Paul and Mary Ford loops they seemed to run for huge amounts of time.

Today it is easy to say it is all drek because there are just so damned many channels. But as in the past, there is drek, there are jewels and there are the ho-hums.


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## trainman (Jan 9, 2008)

dpeters11 said:


> And I think we probably could replace todays reality shows with the game shows of the 50s, though I admit I don't know how many were actually rigged other than Twenty One and Dotto.


NBC tried a revival of "Twenty One" a few years ago, with Maury Povich as host, and it turns out it's not as entertaining without the rigging.


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## fluffybear (Jun 19, 2004)

trainman said:


> *NBC* tried a revival of "Twenty One" a few years ago, *with Maury Povich as host*, and it turns out it's not as entertaining without the rigging.


Enough said!


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## Drucifer (Feb 12, 2009)

Nick said:


> This just about sums it all up...
> 
> . . . .


Where's the B&W?


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## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

trainman said:


> NBC tried a revival of "Twenty One" a few years ago, with Maury Povich as host, and it turns out it's not as entertaining without the rigging.


.... or with Mr. Povich....:lol:


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

SayWhat? said:


> You're about 60 years late. The Golden Age of TV was the 1950s.


Your opinion, not mine. Not many of those shows pass the test of time. Watch them now and you'll see what I mean. Yeah, there were some that are still in reruns, like the _Twilight Zone_, but other than that show, I don't remember any others that are still watchable. I tried watching _Gunsmoke _and I couldn't take it. Same with _Bonanza _(was that a 60's program?).

I gotta agree with Tom on this. I think today's programs are much better than anything produced in the '50s.

Rich

*@Laxguy*: See that last sentence in the first paragraph of my reply? That looks correct with the question mark in parenthesis and the period after the parenthesis. Wouldn't that apply to question marks too?


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

dpeters11 said:


> Though weren't a lot of shows in the 50s more a continuation or redoing of radio shows? And I think we probably could replace todays reality shows with the game shows of the 50s, though I admit I don't know how many were actually rigged other than Twenty One and Dotto.


Some were continuations of radio programs. _The Lone Ranger_ comes to mind. I think a lot of the daily soap operas migrated to TV too.

We could replace the reality shows with just about anything and I'd be happy. I do watch parts of _Dancing With The Stars_ if it's on in another room. That's the best one I've seen and I get bored watching that.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

SayWhat? said:


> ^ Quite a few of them were, such as Dragnet, The Lone Ranger, maybe Jack Benny ......


Was _Dragnet _on radio? Jack Benny was and so was the ventriloquist, I can't remember his name.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

fluffybear said:


> Old Time Radio to TV


I didn't realize so many shows were on radio before TV. _Dragnet _question answered. Great link.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Drucifer said:


> If you can remember watching the DuMont Network, then you can remember the Golden Age.
> 
> All of the 60's mention programs in the above posts are not from the Golden Age.


I think we had a DuMont TV. Seemed like my father went thru a whole lot of TVs from '48 and all thru the '50s.

Rich


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## lparsons21 (Mar 4, 2006)

That is a great link! Just reading that list brought back some very fond memories of listening to the radio when I was a kid!


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## yosoyellobo (Nov 1, 2006)

Rich said:


> Was _Dragnet _on radio? Jack Benny was and so was the ventriloquist, I can't remember his name.
> 
> Rich


Edgar Bergen.


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## lparsons21 (Mar 4, 2006)

Here's a link to the wiki on one of the first scifi shows back in the day. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Video_and_His_Video_Rangers

Good writeup about this show, and also mentions the many others that were done in those very early years.

I had that ring for many, many years and can remember this show as being a 'must see' for me and my family at the time, along with Tom Corbett.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Laxguy said:


> phrelin- Very nice summary. Treatise, perhaps!


I didn't get the lack of violent shows in the '50s. Looking back, _The Lone Ranger_ had a lot of very violent fight scenes as did all the westerns. At the time, I thought it was plausible for two guys to take on twenty guys and win. As I grew older, I found out the hard way that what I saw on TV had little to do with reality. Disappointed, I was, and bruised and battered....:lol:

Rich


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## lparsons21 (Mar 4, 2006)

yosoyellobo said:


> Edgar Bergen.


And I think his dummy was Charlie McCarthy, or am I misremembering?


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

lparsons21 said:


> That is a great link! Just reading that list brought back some very fond memories of listening to the radio when I was a kid!


I remember all the grown ups putting on finery and gathering in our home to watch the radio. Kinda creepy. They would all just sit and stare at the radio.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

yosoyellobo said:


> Edgar Bergen.


Thanx, he was also Candice Bergen's father. The puppet he used was Charlie McCarthy.

Rich


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## yosoyellobo (Nov 1, 2006)

lparsons21 said:


> And I think his dummy was Charlie McCarthy, or am I misremembering?


Nothing wrong with your memory.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

lparsons21 said:


> Here's a link to the wiki on one of the first scifi shows back in the day.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Video_and_His_Video_Rangers
> 
> Good writeup about this show, and also mentions the many others that were done in those very early years.
> ...


The guy who played Captain Video really wrecked his career by playing that part. I remember reading how hard it was for him to get a job after the show ran it's course. First case of stereotyping I ever heard of.

_Tom Corbett, Space Cadet_ was a good show too. The books were better, but that's usually the case.

Rich


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

Rich said:


> I didn't get the lack of violent shows in the '50s. Looking back, _The Lone Ranger_ had a lot of very violent fight scenes as did all the westerns.


Not necessarily less violent, but less graphic. Westerns and cop shows had a lot of shooting, but didn't show blood splattering and body parts flying. I remember a statement somewhere that at one time they could show the shot fired and the subject down, but couldn't show the moment of impact.

The one thing I find unbelievable in Lawman is some of the women. I don't imagine too many female saloonkeepers in the old west looked like Lily Merrill (Peggy Castle).


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

SayWhat? said:


> Not necessarily less violent, but less graphic. Westerns and cop shows had a lot of shooting, but didn't show blood splattering and body parts flying. I remember a statement somewhere that at one time they could show the shot fired and the subject down, but couldn't show the moment of impact.


It was the fights that got me. I really thought that was real.



> The one thing I find unbelievable in Lawman is some of the women. I don't imagine too many female saloonkeepers in the old west looked like Lily Merrill (Peggy Castle).


I thought Miss Kitty on _Gunsmoke _was appropriate at the time, but that show does not seem to stand the test of time very well and that was one of my very favorite shows.

Rich


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

Rich said:


> The guy who played Captain Video really wrecked his career by playing that part. I remember reading how hard it was for him to get a job after the show ran it's course. *First case of stereotyping I ever heard of.*
> 
> Rich


Do you mean 'typecasting'?


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

Rich said:


> I remember all the grown ups putting on finery and gathering in our home to watch the radio. Kinda creepy. They would all just sit and stare at the radio.
> 
> Rich


There was a lot more going on than that. Listeners, using their own respective imaginations, were busy creating imagery on the screens of their minds, of the action and descriptions they were hearing on the radio -- or, at least, I was. Too bad tv has diminished the need for that ability.

We gathered, yes, but I don't recall anyone donning their "finery" for the event. As I recall, it was a _'come as you are'_ happening.


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## trainman (Jan 9, 2008)

Rich said:


> Thanx, he was also Candice Bergen's father. The puppet he used was Charlie McCarthy.


Charlie McCarthy is the character Edgar Bergen is most associated with, but he had a couple of others, most notably Mortimer Snerd.

Candice Bergen has claimed that, when she was growing up, Charlie McCarthy had a bigger "bedroom" than she did.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Nick said:


> Do you mean 'typecasting'?


Meant stereotyped. From dictionary.com:_ to characterize or regard as a stereotype: The actor has been stereotyped as a villain._

I should have used "typecasting", would have been clearer, but all I could think of at the time was "stereotyping", which, while not wrong, is not as clear as typecasting.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Nick said:


> There was a lot more going on than that. Listeners, using their own respective imaginations, were busy creating imagery on the screens of their minds, of the action and descriptions they were hearing on the radio -- or, at least, I was. Too bad tv has diminished the need for that ability.


I know. I was doing the same thing.



> We gathered, yes, but I don't recall anyone donning their "finery" for the event. As I recall, it was a _'come as you are'_ happening.


I lived for the first 6 years of my life in Newark, NJ, in a German neighborhood which kinda had a dress code for gatherings. Suits, vests and ties for the men, dresses and hats for the women. Obviously, a different cultural experience.

Newark was like a mini NYC at that time. No problems walking the streets at night. Nice place to go to the movies and stuff like that. I even have a picture of my grandfather and great uncle and I on a fishing boat and both of them had only taken their suit jackets off. Both were fishing in dress slacks, white dress shirts and ties.

Then, my father bought a house in a small town on Raritan Bay in NJ. What a difference! Nobody visited anybody in the manner they did in Newark. Everybody was buying TVs and stayed home to watch them. Took me a while to adapt.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

trainman said:


> Charlie McCarthy is the character Edgar Bergen is most associated with, but he had a couple of others, most notably Mortimer Snerd.


Ah! I thought it was Mortimer Snerd. Could not remember the name.



> Candice Bergen has claimed that, when she was growing up, Charlie McCarthy had a bigger "bedroom" than she did.


I read some of the things she said about growing up and it sounded like a rivalry between her and the puppets.

Rich


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## mreposter (Jul 29, 2006)

I don't know if this is a classic, but it sure is ancient 

Jack Lord's Stoney Burke coming to DVD

Jack Lord played some sort of rodeo cowboy, but the show lasted one season and featured 32 episodes.


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## Maruuk (Dec 5, 2007)

The thing that made it a golden age for me was the LIVE theater presentations (at least for us lucky East-coasters) from great American playwrights featuring actors like James Dean and Paul Newman. Kraft Playhouse, Playhouse 90, I Remember Mama--all LIVE--and on Sunday, LIVE broadcasts from NYC featuring Leonard Bernstein.

Thing about the live stuff was, there were lots of screwups, actors forgot their lines, boom shadows got into frame, bad switching happened, lighting goofs, bangs and booms happened off-screen, etc. But that made it all the better!

Jeez, we sure did kill a heap o Native Americans on TV back then. I think we're still living that down today!


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

SayWhat? said:


> You're about 60 years late. The Golden Age of TV was the 1950s.


+1


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

SayWhat? said:


> I'm trying hard. Recording a lot of Burns & Allen, Jack Benny, (B&W) Dragnet, Racket Squad, Naked City, Sgt. Preston and anything else I can find on the air on the oldies channels. DVDs on the shelf include a collection of 50s cop shows, Wanted: Dead Or Alive and so on.
> 
> What special effect they used and stunts they did were real, not CGI. Suspense was done in the script writing, not by splashing blood all over the set and throwing body parts around.
> 
> Comedy wasn't 7th Grade 'bathroom humor'.


You must have METV in your DMA. We had it & AntennaTV, on two stations but they took them off.


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

phrelin said:


> The Wikipedia entry on the Golden Age of Television is pretty good. But you have to be careful using that "Golden Age" term as it is so subjective. For instance in the Wikipedia entry it says:
> In other words, what made the age "Golden" ceased as popular fare took over.
> 
> The Wikipedia entry also notes: I have some problems with this list of the new "Golden Age" shows. Only three of them, "Mad Men", "The Good Wife", and "Downton Abbey", do not rely on violence.
> ...


We had a Hoffman TV that my mother won on Queen for a Day. It had a remote control with one button.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Paul Secic said:


> We had a Hoffman TV that my mother won on Queen for a Day. It had a remote control with one button.


Wow, that is interesting. Did she win it on the Mutual Radio Network show or after the show moved to TV running from 1956 to 1964?


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

phrelin said:


> Wow, that is interesting. Did she win it on the Mutual Radio Network show or after the show moved to TV running from 1956 to 1964?


No she was on the TV version in 1957.


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## Maruuk (Dec 5, 2007)

We had a 23" Stromberg-Carlson. My buddy next door had a 12" Capehart, big mass of dark wood and doors that opened to reveal the screen. TVs were furniture.

Even a 1-button remote control was super advanced! The first channel-changing remotes were all mechanical. Made huge clunking noises.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

Maruuk said:


> The first channel-changing remotes were all mechanical. Made huge clunking noises.


That's because some of them struck a tuning fork.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

Paul Secic said:


> You must have METV in your DMA. We had it & AntennaTV, on two stations but they took them off.


Well, right now, I have all three; MeTV, Antenna and RTV but none of them are really full time. The stations preempt quite a bit for other programming.

But like I've mentioned before, I also have TCT Family that runs a lot of older B&W stuff among their bible thumping.


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## Maruuk (Dec 5, 2007)

First remotes were wired. Then the Zenith ultrasonic unit re-invented the genre. Now I've got 5 remotes with hundreds of buttons.


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

Maruuk said:


> The thing that made it a golden age for me was the LIVE theater presentations (at least for us lucky East-coasters) from great American playwrights featuring actors like James Dean and Paul Newman. Kraft Playhouse, Playhouse 90, I Remember Mama--all LIVE--and on Sunday, LIVE broadcasts from NYC featuring Leonard Bernstein.
> 
> Thing about the live stuff was, there were lots of screwups, actors forgot their lines, boom shadows got into frame, bad switching happened, lighting goofs, bangs and booms happened off-screen, etc. But that made it all the better!
> 
> Jeez, we sure did kill a heap o Native Americans on TV back then. I think we're still living that down today!


In the 80's Showtime had taped Broadway Plays once a month. Quite good!


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## Phil T (Mar 25, 2002)

Maruuk said:


> First remotes were wired. Then the Zenith ultrasonic unit re-invented the genre. Now I've got 5 remotes with hundreds of buttons.


I had many blisters on my thumb from punching that Zenith remote. I also remember the day I discovered if you dropped a pocked full of change on the coffee table it would change the channels also!!


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## HinterXGames (Dec 20, 2012)

The 80's was big for me. Especially cartoons. I think they pretty much began to go downhill then. I also remember Dallas being a family affair


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## Maruuk (Dec 5, 2007)

You had to have experienced tiny, blurry, tube-driven TVs with 3 channels that went off the air at 7pm to truly appreciate HDTV. Folks used to argue over who was gonna get up and change the channel. Hell, I can't wait for 4K now! Not so much for films, which look killer in 1080p now. But for sports, where I can still see a lot of room for improvement in resolution. I want sports to literally look like you're there. 1080i still fails at that--probably because D* compresses the sports channels signal so much. Somebody claimed we get no more than 1440 vertical, not 1920. Football lineups are just not that sharp. 4K would KILL for sports.


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## Maruuk (Dec 5, 2007)

Paul Secic said:


> In the 80's Showtime had taped Broadway Plays once a month. Quite good!


All that stopped because they were concerned about killing the box office for live shows on Broadway. That's why you can almost NEVER see a Broadway musical on TV or even on Blu-Ray. They need to force you to fly to NY and fork over the megabux for tickets. That's why I watch the Tonys every year. It's the only glimpse you can get of what's going on in legitimate theater.


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## lugnutathome (Apr 13, 2009)

When our Boxer scratched his neck all the license tags on the collar would ring out and channels would flip all over.

Don "can't find the remote? grab the dog collar" Bolton



Phil T said:


> I had many blisters on my thumb from punching that Zenith remote. I also remember the day I discovered if you dropped a pocked full of change on the coffee table it would change the channels also!!


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## Maruuk (Dec 5, 2007)




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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

In 1961, my young wife, pregnant with our first child, was having problems, so her doctor confined her to bed for the duration.

We had an Admiral b/w tv with a motorized channel tuner, so I fashioned a wired remote control with a _Prince Albert_ pocket tin and three 25' lengths of zip wire. I mounted a vol. control, off/on sw and a momentary-contact sw in the lid of the tobacco tin.

She could control on/off, volume, and change channels from the bed. My 19 year old pregnant child bride thought I was a freakin' genius!

Maybe I was, maybe I wasn't... :shrug:


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## lwilli201 (Dec 22, 2006)

I was in junior high when we got our first TV (around 1953). I do not remember anyone complaining about the bad PQ or that it was in B&W. I guess the most memorable live show was "Requiem for a Heavyweight" with Jack Palance.


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## Maruuk (Dec 5, 2007)

They say that folks hacking their own remotes led to stimulate development of them.

"Requiem" was incredible! Palance and Serling, what a combo!


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## HinterXGames (Dec 20, 2012)

Just wanted to share a show, that is rare. One that bridged a gap of both generations spoken of in this thread. (and one I watched as a kid). Mr. Wizard.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

Nick said:


> so I fashioned a wired remote control with a _Prince Albert_ pocket tin and


And how long did you have Prince Albert in a can before you let him out?


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## HinterXGames (Dec 20, 2012)

SayWhat? said:


> And how long did you have Prince Albert in a can before you let him out?


:eek2:


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## Maruuk (Dec 5, 2007)

Mr. Wizard and Science Fiction Theater hosted by Truman Bradley!


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## TXD16 (Oct 30, 2008)

Fridays nights of (in order): The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, Room 222, The Odd Couple, and Love, American Style will always be the most Golden of TV Ages to me. The '70s were really a great time to grow up as a kid in California.


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## Maruuk (Dec 5, 2007)

I'd call that the Lead Age except that Saturday night's The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Bob Newhart and the newly emerging SNL (preceded on Friday night by the Midnight Special) owned the same period. Perhaps that makes it the Bronze Age of Television.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Maruuk said:


> I'd call that the Lead Age except that Saturday night's The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Bob Newhart and the newly emerging SNL (preceded on Friday night by the Midnight Special) owned the same period. Perhaps that makes it the Bronze Age of Television.


I'll agree with this post. But wasn't that in the '70s?

Rich


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## Maruuk (Dec 5, 2007)

Rich said:


> I'll agree with this post. But wasn't that in the '70s?
> 
> Rich


Right, same as The Brady Bunch, etc. Just pointing out it wasn't ALL bad.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Maruuk said:


> Right, same as The Brady Bunch, etc. Just pointing out it wasn't ALL bad.


That was probably the last time there was a good lineup on Saturday nights. Always had a battle with my second wife who always wanted to spend Saturday nights nightclubbing. I usually lost...:nono2:

Rich


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## Maruuk (Dec 5, 2007)

You mean discoing, don't you?:lol:


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Maruuk said:


> You mean discoing, don't you?:lol:


Yeah, forgot about that. Didn't see that much of it here. In the City I did. Avoided those places, I did... :lol:

Rich


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