It’s hard to imagine life without television now, but we did not have one until about 1955. The small black-and-white TV that daddy brought home soon became the center of our universe. We were fascinated and there were so many good shows on.
Mother liked “Queen for a Day,” where women told their sob stories and won things like a new washer and dryer so they didn’t have to hang their clothes outside on a line in freezing weather — and she had nine kids and lots of laundry! The sadder the story the more likely she’d win. We only had three kids then, but Mother muttered that she could sure use a washer and dryer herself.
Dream on.
Daddy like to watch Saturday night wrestling and his favorite character was “The Crusher.” Cindy and I watched for a while, decided we could put on a better show, and wrestled our hearts out on the floor in front of the TV to get Daddy’s attention. Sometimes we got it and made hm laugh. Worth the effort.
Cindy and I especially loved Casey Jones Noontime Express, when the venerable Casey in his engineer’s cap came on to share his lunch and show some cartoons – usually Merrie Melodies and Popeye. He always told us what was in his lunch and we’d compare it to ours. He also did birthdays and would call out “Happy birthday to Josie, who is five years old today,” and such. We always hoped he’d recognize us, but he never did. I guess it was because we only got to watch him in the summer and days when there was no school, and our birthdays landed on school days in October and February. Yeah, that was it.
One show we did get to see a lot was Axel’s Treehouse, a goofy guy with a black Beatle haircut long before its time, a black mustache, and a whole slew of cartoons. He had a puppet dog sidekick and told really terrible jokes.
These were both local Minnesota shows, but we assumed kids everywhere got to see them. The one show everyone did get was Howdy Doody, and we adored the kindly Buffalo Bob and the cast of puppet characters. Cindy and I had a favorite marionette – Princess Summerfallwinterspring. She was soooo pretty!
Bob Keeshan, who played Clarabelle the Clown, also had his own show, Captain Kangaroo – an early version of Mr. Rogers, He told stories, sang songs, had fun guests and generally was a perfect segue to the Mickey Mouse Club, which we watched afterwards. Every day had a theme and we knew them by heart. The best part was that they showed Disney cartoons — Mickey, Donald Duck and Goofy. Our favorite Mickey Mouse Club characters were Annette and Darlene. We also loved the Spin and Marty series – it had horses! (Not to mention Spin and Marty).
And speaking of horses, Saturday mornings offered a bonanza of shows featuring them. We never missed the Roy Rogers Show, with Roy on his palomino Trigger and wife Dale Evans on the less glamorous Buttermilk. It was a little confusing, though, because they rode horses but their sidekick, Pat Brady, drove a Jeep, Nellybelle.
(Imagine my surprise, many years later, when I spotted a Jeep going down the street in front of me with the name Nellybelle stenciled on the back. Yup, a much older Pat Brady was driving. He spent some of his retirement in Colorado Springs, where I then lived.)
Our other favorite Saturday morning shows were Gene Autry, with his gorgeous horse, Champion, Fury (a big black stallion), My Friend Flicka, Annie Oakley and an array of old cowboy movies. But my secret crush was on The Lone Ranger. He rode a beautiful white horse, Silver, and his sidekick, Tonto, had a pretty pinto named Scout. I so wanted to see what the ranger looked like under that mask!
These shows inspired Cindy and me to turn the banister of the stairway into our own horses. It was an L-shaped staircase with a short part (4-5 steps) and long part (maybe 8-9 steps). I, being older, got the top part and Cindy, being prone to falling off things, got the shorter bottom part. The flat-topped newel posts were our “saddles” and we used baling twine (where did we get all that baling twine?) wrapped around the rails for reins. We’d make up stories as we rode along, herding cattle or chasing rustlers. Of course, I was Roy Rogers and she was Dale Evans (or so I thought). Later, she told me she pretended she was Roy, too, because she thought “Dale was boring and had an ugly horse.”
It wasn’t all kid and cowboy shows, though. We were fascinated by a show starring Robbie the Robot. We tried to pretend we were robots, probably not very successfully, and one day we tried it out on our cousins, Billly and Randy. They came up to the attic, where we were playing and when we saw them, we adopted a stiff legged pose, stuck our arms straight out in front of us and wobbled toward them, saying, “Wel. Come. To. Our. Plan. Et” in our best robotic voices. They looked at each other, told us we were weird, then ran back downstairs and outside. I mean, they really said, “You guys are weird.”
Maybe so. But we also were liars. We didn’t welcome them at all. We liked living on our own little planet. And that’s the way it stayed for many years.
(Side note by Cindy Adams: A few years later I would chase my brother around the house claiming I was The Electric Man with my arms straight out in front and walking stiff legged. Scared the pee out of that little fella!)
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