Classic TV

Classic TV - we baby boomers like to believe it all started the same time we did - in the early 1950s. After all, weren't we the ones who created the market in the first place - those Saturday morning cartoons and westerns had to be aimed at somebody! Couples and families were back intact and growing quickly following World War II, establishing an audience hungry for entertainment and new diversions, right down to the commercials! Truth is, while television did "boom" in the early 50s right along with our birth rates, the roots of TV History were actually planted in the late 30s.

Classic television gave us much more than just a new piece of furniture and test patterns. Ultimately, it would give us an ever expanding view of our world and everything in it - both good and bad. We were thrilled and entertained as new technology gave us higher resolution pictures and sharper images to watch our favorite sit-coms, westerns, comedy variety and who-dun-it shows, and of course the first instant replay for sporting events. But we also watched such horrific events as the assassinations of a sitting president; a presidential candidate and a civil rights leader; an increasingly bloody civil war in southeast Asia; campus violence and urban racial strife all over the country. It changed the way we saw our world at the time many of us were becoming teenagers, and left some pretty indelible images that we still remember today.


Classic TV Brought the Family Together

But perhaps most of us remember classic television as an entertainment source for the whole family. Remember gathering around the set on Sunday nights to watch Disney's Wonderful World of Color - even before your family had a color set? Or maybe it was Bonanza or the Ed Sullivan Show! And how about the many shows featuring family values and relationships that we identified with, such as Andy Griffith, Father Knows Best, The Danny Thomas Show, Donna Reed, Dick Van Dyke, My Three Sons, and Leave It To Beaver? All of it came to us over three networks for free - no cable and no satellite dishes, just an antennae on the roof or some rabbit ears on top of the TV!

We all remember these great shows-- find your favorite Old TV Shows and then test your memory with TV Trivia!


  1. Home
    2. ›
  2. Classic TV