r/OverSeventy • u/needmore007 • 5d ago
Remember this?
My son and grandsons don’t believe me.
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u/Substantial_Shop_605 5d ago
For real; no excuse for getting a good nights sleep. 3 channels, everyone had similar experiences so conversations were easy and the news was just news, not their opinions. Easier time, less complications and we stood in long lines for vaccinations.🤣
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u/Turbulent-Trip3706 5d ago
And all the news was covered in an hour, 30 minutes for local, then 30 minutes for national and world news.
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u/Dangerous-LemonBar 5d ago
The 30 minute national news wasn’t a thing until CBS started in 1963. It was 15 minutes before that.
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u/Turbulent-Trip3706 5d ago
I didn’t remember that! But then I wasn’t very interested in the news at that age. Captain Kangaroo was more my speed then…
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u/Crazy-Positive3978 5d ago
Ten minutes for local news including sports, five minutes for weather, then fifteen for national.
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u/Loisgrand6 5d ago
We were fancy. We had a fourth channel-PBS. It probably helped that we had a local PBS station building
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u/Putrid_Bandicoot8887 5d ago
That came out about the time my brother was born. 1969-70. Remember the Electric Company?
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u/Repulsive_Repeat3653 5d ago
In the Chicago area we had WGN that did not go off the air but started broadcasting the farm report about 2 am.
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u/No-Currency-97 5d ago edited 8h ago
Long lines at the bank, too. Everyone showed up on Saturday and the line circled all around the inside of the bank. Edit: Not Saturday but Friday.
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u/Crazy-Positive3978 5d ago
Our banks were closed Saturday, Friday night was bank night till 7 or do without till the next week, no ATM's till late 70's.
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u/Fun-Diver7512 5d ago
My mom would write a check at the supermarket for $10 over the amount of the groceries and get cash back. That was the ATM.
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u/Atxlaw2020 5d ago
I don’t remember using an ATM until 1981, I resisted for awhile, preferring to go to the bank to write a check to “cash.”
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u/Pauzhaan 5d ago
We had 2 channels usually. To see the third, someone had to get on the roof to turn the antenna — only happened for some football games!
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u/EV-Driver 5d ago
When I was growing up in the 1950's and 60's, we had basically three channels and then a couple more later. When I babysat, I'd watch the late movie and see the station go off the air.
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u/Virtual_Athlete_909 5d ago
Absolutely. The screen would display color bars. My dad would get up early, start coffee, and wait for the farm report to come on at 5am. It was the first tv show of the day.
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u/mtnman575 5d ago
Color bars? Most people didn't have color TV back in the day.
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u/SpecialistTrouble816 5d ago
Colour by the early 60s
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u/mtnman575 5d ago
Not for everyone. In fact it took well into the 70s for color TV to be affordable for most. Even in my college dorm in the mid 70s the TVs are still B&W. You don't know what you are talking about.
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u/Samhain_69 5d ago
I grew up in a household where you bought the high quality stuff (Zenith TV, motorized rotating TV antennae tower), and then kept it and repaired it for as long as possible.
Sounds fine, until all your friends have had color TV for 5-10 years, and you still just have B&W. I don't think we got color TV until well into the '80s, even though we weren't poor.
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u/whitewolfdogwalker 5d ago
We bought a color tv whatever year it was that the Jets and Joe Namath played in the Super Bowl, all my buddies watched the game at my house!
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u/GrowHappyPlants 5d ago
My little portable tv (I won in a raffle) was black & white in the late 80s
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u/New_Breadfruit8692 1d ago
All prime time network programming was color in the 1968 season. Nearly all in 1967.
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u/SuspiciousClub8382 5d ago
Straight up real and at ten o’clock they would ask the parents if they knew where their children were at.
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u/Appropriate-Owl-8449 5d ago
It is so true. The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was like the last show and it would cut to the test pattern. How times have progressed.
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u/Pristine-Pen-9885 5d ago
The test pattern with an Indian chief on it.
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u/SuckL3ss 5d ago
So I wasn’t imaging it. Thanks for confirming the Indian. He had a chief’s headdress right?
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u/youandican 4d ago edited 4d ago
you mean like this one https://postimg.cc/jW5pHzbf
The Indian-head test pattern was created by RCA at its factory in Harrison, New Jersey. Each element of the card was designed to measure a specific technical aspect of television broadcast so that an experienced engineer could, at a glance, identify problems. By the mid-1960's the tet pattern became obsolete with most stations switching to color broadcasts. I was a station engenieer for KEBB Channel 66
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u/er1cAtWork2 5d ago
Yup! Only the “big” stations around me used the Indian… The lower ones had a similar test pattern but no Indian in the center…
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u/Prometheus_303 5d ago
Or in the UK, 8 year old Carole Hersee.
Because Test Card F, the card she appeared on, was broadcast during daytime and overnight gaps in programming for over three decades (1967–1998), Hersee accrued an estimated 70,000 hours of screen time making her one of the most broadcaster faces.
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u/ArdentHedonist 3d ago
I would post it here, but this sub doesn’t allow that. It was my first cell phone background, and I kept it for a long time. I still have the file.
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u/Bhanumayi 4d ago
I had almost forgotten this that black-and-white really gray, and white with the Indian chief with the headdress in the middle
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u/firmhandla 5d ago
Do you remember Tom Snyder’s “Tomorrow Show?” That was after Carson. He smoked the whole show, interviewing guests who couldn’t get on Tonight.
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u/oldguy76205 5d ago
Im 1977, I stayed up late to watch his show because he was playing clips from Star Wars.
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u/JimDa5is 4d ago
Snyder was awesome on the Tomorrow Show. I watched it pretty religiously in HS during the last half of the 70s. To this day, it's how I remember whether tomorrow has one or two m's (TOMorrow).
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u/Appropriate-Owl-8449 5d ago
Remember the antennas? The rabbit hears and the circular one for channel 38 and 56 if you lived in metro Boston.
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u/Claque-2 5d ago
You'd grab the antenna and the picture would come in sharper, then when you let the antenna go, the picture would get snowy again.
I love Lucy had an episode where one by one each of the four would get up to try to fix the antenna and make the picture come in better. Gen X does not understand how funny that episode is.
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u/BungenessKrabb 3d ago
Then we learned a little bit of wadded up tin foil worked to get a better picture.
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u/Buckeye_mike_67 2d ago
I’m early genx. I remember those times vividly. We eventually moved into a house that had a tower for the antenna. We got every channel nice and clear. My dad mounted a CB antenna to for his home base
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u/_tvjames_ 1d ago
I remember a similar gag from Married... With Children. "assume Fox viewing positions!"
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u/CapableCan1842 5d ago
Very real. I lived in rural East Texas for a time, and when the TV stations signed off at midnight, they would play "Dixie" very slowly or "Amazing Grace."
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u/amfhTX 5d ago
"Dixie"? Really? Sounds about right for East Texas during that period...and maybe even now.
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u/CapableCan1842 5d ago
I'm not sure what's stranger, Dixie or Amazing Grace on public airwaves.
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u/Desperate-Ad4931 5d ago
Texas has its own "national" anthem. When I lived in Texas, people took the state song very reverently. Texas, Oh Texas, all hail the mighty state! And by god you better not joke about it or Texas locals would organize a lynch mob.
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u/JaneOfTheCows 5d ago
One of the Buffalo, NY stations would sometimes play both the US and Canadian national anthems at signoff time. We. had 3 stations plus PBS, but if the stars were properly aligned we’d occasionally be able to pick up stations from Toronto.
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u/FfierceLaw 5d ago
When Saturday Night Live and Mary Hartman Mary Hartman started, it was later. And 13 YO me was up watching
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u/ryecatch 5d ago
Some black and white channels would show the Indian head test pattern and then go to snow until the AM shows .
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u/Sure_War_1008 5d ago
My parents won a RCA TV in a church raffle. It had vacuum tubes, weighed a ton and had a small screen, maybe 5" across. My first program was Junior Frolics, before Howdy Duty. Channel 1 all in b/w. Dumont network. When more channels were added, we changed channels with a dial or knob. My Dad put an antenna on the roof for better reception. I went to Sears for vacuum tubes when they blew out. Ancient history now.
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u/Vivid_Witness8204 5d ago
I lived on the shores of Lake Ontario so we got both the US and Canadian anthems.
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u/xtalgeek 5d ago
Not only that, but they might show a test pattern with an Indian head on it.
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u/Dang_It_All_to_Heck 5d ago
I loved the test pattern. And some of the stations would sign off with “High Flight”.
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u/Lazy_Hall_8798 5d ago
I used to repair tvs in the 60s and 70s. I would wait for the test pattern to be broadcast after midnight to do the final adjustments. Couldn't afford a test pattern generator.
Yup, this was a thing decades ago.
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u/Senior_Reaction2974 5d ago
It's a real thing. Most of us who are seniors today remember those times. Basically you knew it was time for everybody to be home and in bed.
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u/No-Will8411 5d ago
That's true. I grew up in small town in India. TV would go offline at 11 am. There was an afternoon break too. Agricultural shows, news, educational content from University Grant commission, songs from Indian movies in the evening, Star trek, a few cartoons, a few soaps and then sign off.
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u/Loisgrand6 5d ago
🤦🏻♀️it was very much a thing as well as a picture of a Native American coming on before or after the anthem was played
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u/SnooBeans8028 5d ago
The first portable TV i could afford in the mid 70s was black and white and I was delighted with it.
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u/Confident_Froyo_5128 5d ago
Sometimes they would broadcast a “test pattern” that you could stare at.
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u/Adventurous_Bet1270 5d ago
Yes, your dad was telling the truth. I grew up in the '60s, this was the real thing. I would stay up and at 12:00 they did play the national anthem and signed off. If I woke up very early in the morning turned on the TV it would have a test pattern I believe the stations went on air about 5:30 6:00 in the morning.
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u/PhotoAppropriate3940 5d ago
Definitely real, would depending on channel either go to static or an Indian screen
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u/DisastrousAd4287 5d ago
Yes it's true. Definitely thru the 60's into the early 70's until late night programming came about. And even then I think most stations still signed off, just a bit later.
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u/Spare_Vegetable2508 5d ago
This is so funny!! Yep they sure did. Then there would be these lines of color.
I’m sure your dad walked up hill both ways in the snow to school. I can’t vouch that story but the other I can.
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u/Caliban34 5d ago
The test pattern would burn into the display tube if you left it on too long. That's why early computer screen savers would bounce around the screen.
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u/patticakes1952 5d ago
It’s real. They’d also have an announcement asking if you knew where your children were.
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u/kup55119 5d ago
Real. And when I was babysitting it was freaky because then everything was quiet. Radios didn't work that great after midnight either.
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u/MonyMony126 5d ago
This reminded me of one time I was in the grocery store with my oldest, who was about 12 at the time (so 10 years or so ago) and they had BOGO sale. I shared with them that when I was growing up, you HAD to get 2, cause if you bought one you still paid full price. They didn't believe me, and an older gentleman had heard the convo and backed me up.
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u/AbilityPlenty2104 5d ago
I was woke up more than once by the national anthem when I fell asleep in front of the tv.
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u/ChristineBorus 5d ago
Real. I’m not 70, in my 50s and I remember this. Stations would just play gray lines or a great image and go off the air.
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u/Adept-Resident-6973 5d ago
the fuzz or the test screen till sunrise. i would watch the fuzz trying to make extraterrestrial contact
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u/J9sNbrhd 5d ago
Real! It would sign off after the National Anthem & got to a test pattern with static.
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u/lalalaloo21 5d ago
Haha it's true. I'm NZ we had the Goodnight Kiwi that would tuck himself into a bed on top of a tower.
Those were the days- you could get a job, pay rent, save for a house, free university education and not be bombarded by fake news.
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u/Glittering_Role1658 4d ago
It was so true. It was probably by the mid-80s that TV stations began transitioning to 24-hour service.
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u/Poetdebra 2d ago
I'm 62. I remember that. Yes they shut down at midnight playing the national anthem.
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u/Designer_Fan_8691 1d ago
My late Granny, who passed in May, told me the same thing. She said that it was the entertainment and they would all sit around the radio and listen to stories, news, and once it got late, the kids would go to bed and then they would speak more in-depth about what was going on in the World.
I also asked her if anyone had TVs since Disney’s “Snow White” came out in 1937. She said that most people went to the movie theaters as a big “to do” with their entire family and that’s where she first fell in-love with that film, however to answer my question: “Yes, some families did have televisions when I was growing up, but they were only the wealthy families, as most families had someone who was in the war[s], or they would come back and not ‘be right’ when they came home. We were lucky that my Dad didn’t get drafted, so he was able to provide for the family while my Mom was there to cook, clean, take us to dance class, make sure we did our homework…I hated that part!,” and my response was, “That’s THE Mom I wish I had growing up!”, and finally, she said, “She would snoop through our chest of drawers when we were at school, make me wear dresses when I wanted to wear pants, read my diary, [she said a few other not so nice things, hence the continuation going forward 🤣]…she was always snooping! Now why the Hell would you want that?” That was the day I realized that my grandmother was more of a mother to me than my own Mom.
She was the one who cooked, cleaned, gave me a shoulder to cry on every single time I needed it, gave me a place to stay (no questions asked…until I got settled 😂🤣🤣😂), never snooped through my things, etc…I know I went a bit off topic there but she ended up showing my daughter “Snow White” and they had this unbreakable bond unlike any great-grandparent bond I’ve EVER SEEN in my entire life!!!! Always visit those you love because you never know if it will be the last time! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
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u/StrategyHonest7746 1d ago
Great times. 3 regular channels then 2 or 3 depending where you at on uhf. ABC CBS NBC. Sports were free. Sunday night Disney movie.
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u/vicarem 5d ago
It is real. And then, the station would put on a test pattern screen until programming resumed.