My family was one of the first on the block to get a TV.  In the Fall of 1950, my Uncle Herb, (a tinkerer/inventor who had a jukebox/TV repair service), lugged a huge, wooden box, full of tubes and wires, with four small knobs, a large tuning dial, a fluted speaker grille and a six-inch round screen on the front, up the stairs to our second story flat on Northlawn in Detroit, (back when it was still a city).  It was placed in a previously cleared corner of our living room where, two hours later, after much tube-tapping, swearing, adjustments to the horizontal and vertical holds, more swearing, endless fiddling and re-fiddling with the rabbit ears, and a final bout of swearing accompanied by a kick or two to one side than the other, we all gathered ‘round to begin a life of staring in mesmerized rapture.  Over the next few weeks, several neighbors were invited in to share an episode of Howdy Doody or Your Show of Shows or WXYZ Weather with Sonny Eliot, (actually, Marvin Schlossberg who went to Thirkell Elementary School with my Mom), always preceded by the same tuning routine as above.

Those early days of TV were amazing.  Sure, it was all new and magical, even though the content was mostly corny, and it was often technologically amateurish, but…we loved it.  The earliest advertising, which was minimal, held to the traditions of radio, where announcers let you know that what you were watching was “brought to you by…”, and those products were integrated into the shows where the new stars of the small screen swore that they shaved with or smoked or drove or ate the brands of the companies bringing them to you.  Even when the first made-for-TV ads appeared, (someone must have realized that it just wouldn’t be right to have Tonto smoking Camels or driving the latest Chevy), we stayed tuned and enthusiastically sang along to Ipana’s, Brusha, Brusha, Brusha, or Alka Seltzer’s, Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz, because, oh….what a relief it was!

TV, today, bears little resemblance to those nostalgic days sixty plus years ago except for when I ask Natasha, (well, I had to call my 3D Samsung Smart TV something, didn’t I?), to show me an old episode of My Little Margie, I Remember Mama or The Stu Erwin Show.  And the commercials, (my fancy-schmancy DVR does not let me automatically skip over them…yet), although produced at greater cost than much programming, are mostly annoying, intrusive and, (is it just me?), often confusing as to what exactly I’m supposed to run right out and buy.  Oh…and I’m watching cable, so why are there commercials at all?  And what’s up with Time-Warner dropping Show Time?  Do we need to have Dexter pay Glenn Britt or Jeffrey Bewkes a visit?  Why did Boston Blackie go off the air?  Has anyone seen my remote?  Natasha…Natasha!!!