Mocha With Linda hosts a weekly meme called Flashback Friday. She’ll post a question every Thursday, and then Friday we can link our answers up on her site. You can visit her site for more Flashbacks.

The question for this week is:

Tell about TV when you were growing up. Did your family have a TV? Was it color or b&w? How many TVs did your family have? Did you have one in your room? Did your family leave the TV on most of the day or turn it on for specific programs? Was the TV on or off when you ate meals as a family? Were there rules about watching TV? What were your favorite shows? Are there any particular memories you have of TV in your younger years?

I can’t remember for sure, but I think we did have a black and white TV at first. I do remember that TV sets were either in monstrously big cabinets or they were little ones with “rabbit ears” — and I remember putting foil on the end of the rabbit ears to get better reception or having someone outside turning the big antennae while someone inside would give directions (“Turn it a little more. There, there! Oh, you missed it. Go back!” SO glad those days are gone!) I also remember there was some kind of tube in the back that my dad had to take out and replace from time to time.

When I was a young child we only had one TV. By the time I was a teen-ager my parents had an additional one in their room. There was never a TV in any of the kids’ bedrooms while I was home — I don’t know if that changed with my sisters over the years. We have three now: one in the family room, one in our bedroom, and one in the kitchen. Still none in the kids’ rooms. 🙂

My mom tended to let the TV just run on in the background all the time. I cannot stand that now. In my younger years it was not on during meal time, but I think in later years it was. I do remember that it was a big deal to occasionally have actual TV dinners on TV trays in the living room sometimes.

When we watched TV as a family when all the kids were little, my parents sat on the couch and my brother and sisters and I sat or lay on our stomachs on the floor on top of some kind of big flat stuffed animal. They may have been made for that purpose in that era, I don’t remember. My parents also let us turn on cartoons on Saturday mornings so they could sleep in. It seems like we had some system for taking turns if there was a cartoon different ones of us wanted to watch on different channels at the same time, but I do remember a lot of fussing about that. My brother always wanted to watch anything with superheroes. My favorite cartoon was Underdog.

There was also one about a little lamb and a big sheepdog and a wolf — the lamb would go “frolicking” in the meadow, and then cry “It’s the wolf,” only it said it in two syllables, like wool-uff, and the sheepdog would come and drive the wolf away in various ways. I have wondered what the name of this one was for years — does it ring a bell with anyone else?

Some of the earliest shows I remember watching were Captain Kangaroo, The Ed Sullivan Show, the Wonderful World of Disney, the Andy Griffith Show, I Love Lucy (in its original run!), The Dick Van Dyke Show, the Twilight Zone, Leave It To Beaver, Andy Griffith, My Three Sons (one of my favorites. Fred McMurray was my image of a dad, even though my dad was nothing like him). My dad liked westerns, so we watched The Rifleman and Gunsmoke and Bonanza (I had a big crush on Little Joe.) He also liked war movies, so we watched a lot of those. By school age years, we watched The Big Valley, Green Ares, Gilligan’s Island, The Addams Family, Dark Shadows, Here Come the Brides (had a humongous crush on Bobby Sherman!), Daniel Boone, Ben Casey, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (had a huge crush on David McCallum!), the Brady Bunch, The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, Family Affair (remember the doll Mrs. Beasley?), Rat Patrol, Lost In Space, Marcus Welby, the MOD Squad, Mr. Ed. It sounds like we watched a lot of TV, but I don’t remember that we did.

And then there were the commercials!

In my teen-age years we watched the Six Million Dollar Man, Barnaby Jones, the Flip Wilson show, the Partridge Family (I had a big crush on David Cassidy!), SWAT, the Waltons, Happy Days.

I remember that TV shows didn’t run all night — I think most programming must have gone off about midnight or so, and if you turned off the TV after that you’d see a test pattern with multiple vertical colored stripes. Actually I can’t remember if it was on all the time or just at the beginning or end of programming. And it seemed like some networks ended their broadcast day with the Pledge of Allegiance and prayer.

Though I agree that too much TV time can intrude on family communication and interaction, I have fond memories of watching TV with both my parents and then later my husband and children.