Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, off on a tangent sparked by musing about the effect TV shows have on kids. The argument that watching violence makes children into violent adults has been around for decades. I don’t know how valid it is, but I do remember a lot of gun and fist fights on the television shows I watched growing up. Futuristic weapons were also prevalent.
Return with me now, as The Lone Ranger would have it, to those thrilling days of yesteryear. As I recall, back then there were only three networks, although in some rural areas, viewers were only able to get one station, and that’s if the antenna on top of the television set was pointed in the right direction. I was lucky in that respect. We lived close enough to New York City to pick up all the available channels and we had an entrepreneur in our little rural town who pioneered the idea of using cable to improve reception. He also sold and repaired tv sets.
When the original live presentation of Peter Pan with Mary Martin ran in 1955, it caused a crisis at our house. Our tv died only a few minutes into the program. Fortunately, my parents rapidly came up with a save. I was bundled into the car and rushed to my best friend’s house to watch the rest of the show.
Not only did my parents have a tv set by the mid 1950s, but so did both sets of grandparents. I can remember watching the popular soap opera, The Edge of Night (1956-1984), with my maternal grandmother when I was eight or nine. On the paternal side, my grandfather was addicted to Queen for a Day (1956-1964). The contestant with the most heart-wrenching sob story was the one who won the crown.
I don’t remember watching “kid” shows like Howdy Doody (1947-1960) or The Mickey Mouse Club (1955+), but with two friends I was a proud charter member of our local Mighty Mouse (1955-1967) Fan Club. Cartoons were a Saturday morning staple—talk about violence on the small screen! Westerns were everywhere, too, from Roy Rogers (1951-1957) and The Lone Ranger (1949-1957) to Annie Oakley (1954-1956), to Sky King (1952-1956). I also loved what passed for science fiction—The Adventures of Superman (1953-1958), Flash Gordon (1954-1955), and my personal favorite, Rocky Jones, Space Ranger (1954-1955). Walt Disney’s Disneyland (1954-1958)—renamed Walt Disney Presents for 1958-1961—was another staple, introducing mini-series like Davy Crockett (1954-1955) and Zorro (1957-1960).
My mother was a fan of Raymond Burr’s Perry Mason (1957+) and devoted to variety shows, not just Ed Sullivan (1948-1971) and Red Skelton (1951-1981) but also Mel Tormé (1951-1952). Somehow, there was also time to watch situation comedies. Everyone watched I Love Lucy (1951-1957) back in the day, but we also watched shows like The Gail Storm Show: Oh, Susanna 1956-1960). Way before The Love Boat, that one took place on a cruise ship. I don’t remember a lot about it but I do recall that the actress who played the star’s pal had an all-time great real name: Zasu Pitts.
Zasu Pitts
How did all those shows affect the adult I became? Darned if I know. I certainly didn’t grow up with a fifties view of what a woman’s place should be! On the other hand, my very first writing, aside from newspapers for my dolls, was what could loosely be called fan-fic. What show? you ask. Almost all of them. The cast of Rocky Jones, Space Ranger interacted just fine with the characters from Sky King and Roy Rogers, as well as with the regulars who appeared on Mel Tormé’s variety show. There were also two characters named Kathy in the story line. One was an eight-year-old girl. The other was the queen of the kingdom where they all lived.
cast of Sky King
What do you think, readers? Did your television viewing during your formative years have a lasting effect on you? Share, please!
Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty-four books traditionally published and has self published others. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. In 2023 she won the Lea Wait Award for “excellence and achievement” from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. She is currently working on creating new omnibus e-book editions of her backlist titles. Her website is www.KathyLynnEmerson.com.
I remember Sky King and Oh Susanna best of all. I was scarred emotionally for several years after watching a short cartoon on the Ed Sullivan Show about children and nuclear war. Later on it was chess marathons with my best friend on Saturdays until the late night ‘creature feature’ came on with double feature horror/science fiction movies.
It was a Twilight Zone episode where someone was beheaded that gave me nightmares!
Fascinating blog! Doubly so as I’m currently writing a historical fiction PI mystery set in Raleigh in 1955 and have been incorporating popular culture of the time.
Thanks, Matt. The more I thought about shows I watched back then, the more I remember. I don’t think my parents ever supervised what was on, either. I know some parents back then used the tv like a babysitter. Stick the kid in front of it and they’d know exactly where he or she would be for hours!
No TV until 1962 and then it was only one fuzzy channel because the hill behind us blocked the signals. I was probably the better off for the dearth of regular TV, but when my sister and I stayed weekends with my wonderfully permissive grandparents (who got all the channels!), we made up for lost time!! Friday night’s Nightmare Theater, which introduced us to Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy, and more, was our favorite.
I don’t remember that one. Probably just as well, since I scared easily.
I was addicted to the detective shows…77 Sunset Strip, Surf Side Six, and of course the whole family watched Perry Mason. And cowboy shows. All good prep for crime writing where the good guys win, right?
Kate
I watched those, too, but by then I was old enough to be watching for the cute guys rather than the detective work! Along with 77 Sunset Strip and Surf Side Six, there were also Bourbon Street Beat and one set in Hawaii, all produced, I think, by the same outfit with contract players.
We only got one channel, NBC, so I missed a lot. All I really remember seeing were Westerns– Bonanza, Branded, Laredo, the Virginian– so that’s why Star Trek made a HUGE impression on me. It was nothing like I’d ever seen before. Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, Honeymooners, Twilight Zone, were all on channels we didn’t get so I didn’t see them until syndication. When I was about 12, a CBS affiliate booster their signal so we could get that channel; a few years later, ABC. Let me amend, we could sometimes get two channels– both NBC, though. The afternoon cartoon shows (local) were different, and the telethons were different– remember those
Ah, telethons–I definitely remember watching Jerry Lewis.
I think we had the same childhood, LOL. I got a TV for my own room at some point and then I never left it. Route 66, sigh. 77 Sunset Strip. I remember coming home from elementary school at lunchtime and watching soaps with MY grandmother!
My best friend had a huge crush on George Maharis. I was more taken with Michael Landon’s Little Joe Cartwright, even though Landon’s personal life (according to movie magazines–remember those?) didn’t paint him as a very nice person.
What a trip down memory lane! My most precious Christmas gift ever were Roy Rodgers twin six guns. I even learned to twirl them and slap them back in the holsters. Got them the same year I got a Froggy the Gremlin – Anybody else watch the Andy Devine show? Did these shows influence me? Probably. They all had good will triumph over evil themes and the moral of if you do the right thing, the right things will happen. Beliefs I still hold, even in the face of reality.
I had a cowgirl outfit (probably Dale Evans) that came with a toy gun. No one thought anything of it when kids “shot” each other in those days! Maybe we (and our parents) just had a better idea of what was make-believe and what wasn’t, but thinking back on it now makes me cringe.
It’s fun to reminisce. I grew up watching a couple of the shows that you mentioned. I think you are a few years older than I am. I was definitely influenced by some of them. I was thrilled by That Girl starring Marlo Thomas. Add that to the Nancy Drew books I was reading and a strong preference for a strong female lead character was born. I do believe that young people today are desensitized to violence and demonstrate indifference to others. I believe this in part because “back in the day”, as kaitcarson mentioned, good triumphed over evil. It was desirable to do the right thing. These days flawed and dysfunctional characters are the norm. While it makes for very interesting reading for grown-ups, I believe that the glamorization of these types of leads and content is influencing the young in a very negative way.
Good point. Thanks for commenting.