You’re traveling through another dimension
I grew up with television.
Not literally.
But when TV was coming of age, I, too, was enjoying (and sometimes suffering from) a growth spurt of my own in the late 1950s and early ’60s.
So, the other day, when I was clicking around on YouTube, I found it interesting when I came upon some videos that presented collections of brief snippets of old TV shows.
It’s good stuff for those of us who enjoy nostalgia.
There was one video highlighting the 1960 weekly schedule for NBC. It showed nightly programs that I don’t remember – “The Man from Interpol” and “The Shirley Temple Show.”
By then, Ms. Temple had become a grizzled old lady of 32. Not the cute-as-a-kitten child star of the 1930s. I think I may have been doing something else in the evenings when she hosted that show.
There were also shows I do remember, but I didn’t watch. “Wagon Train” and “National Velvet” were among those.
There were lots of shows that I do fondly remember from that era like “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and “Bachelor Father.”
On ABC about that time, there was “Maverick” (Brett, Bart, and cousin Beau), “The Rifleman,” (Chuck Connors) “The Steve Allen Show,” “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,” “The Real McCoys,” “My Three Sons,” “The Untouchables,” and the family favorite – “Ben Casey,” which always opened with the actor Sam Jaffe as Dr. David Zorba at a chalkboard uttering the words, “Man, woman, birth, death, infinity.”
Jaffe’s deadpan delivery was so convincing, I’m sure many people thought he was a real doctor.
Each of those videos has the complete weekly network schedules for shows from more than 60 years ago.
“You’re traveling through another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind.” What kid of the 1950s could tune away from Rod Serling’s weekly alert that we were about to enter … “The Twilight Zone?”
What separates those earlier days of television and today’s is how many more programs there are today.
Back then, there were only three national TV networks sharing most of the nation’s TV viewers.
So, the final episode of “The Fugitive” in 1967 drew 78 million viewers. (Only two other programs, “Cheers” in 1993 and “M*A*S*H” in 1983, have had more viewers for their final episodes.)
By the time Dr. Richard Kimble finally caught up with that elusive one-armed man, nearly half the country saw it.
There simply weren’t as many choices as there are today.
In my home, we’ve had Verizon FIOS for more than a decade. That means we have access to hundreds of channels – plus more movies and live sports than we’ll ever be able to watch. We also stream Netflix, Prime Video, Apple TV+, MAX, Showtime Anytime, Peacock, and the aforementioned YouTube.
We’ve gotten “hooked” from time to time on a few series (“The Crown,” “Downton Abbey,” “Money Heist,” and House of Cards among them).
We also make good use of our DVR. That means we rarely miss a Pittsburgh Pirates game or “Jeopardy,” “60 Minutes,” or the 11 o’clock news on Channel 4.
Yet, with all of those movies and TV shows we have available to us, there are still times when my wife and I have to perform deep searches to find a show or series we might want to watch together.
Why?
I have no idea why.
It’s just that way.
Sort of that old thing about “Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink” thing.
I’m sure there are times when you may feel like us.
When you’d settle on a nice anthology series like “Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond,” but there aren’t many readily available to you within the vast sea of choices we have today.
Could it be we’ve become jaded by the glut of entertainment we’ve been fed over the years?
The production values of those old shows weren’t nearly as sophisticated as what we have in today’s shows.
Maybe we’re running out of fresh ideas to entertain each other.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and 50-year TV news and newspaper veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.