by James Wallace Harris, 8/7/21
I recently joined the Facebook group The History of American Television. It has 73.4 thousand members, and I feel many are Baby Boomers. We were the first generation to grow up with a TV. It’s both remarkable and disturbing how many thousands of hours we’ve spent in front of a cathode ray tube. Television imprinted on us like ducklings to their mother. Now that we’re old, we nostalgically remember TV shows, and some of us even rewatch our childhood favorite series time and again. Everyone I know loves TV, but most stick to the new shows. However, a large percentage of my friends if they don’t occasionally rewatch TV from the past, wistfully remember shows from when they were tykes and teens.
My father (1920-1970) and mother (1916-2007) liked TV but they seldom talked about pop culture from their youth, or tried to reexperience it. And my mother’s mother (1881-1972) never talked about pop culture at all to me, and neither did my father’s mother (1898-1981). My generation, the Baby Boomers seems obsessed with remembering TV shows, movies, albums, books, games, sports – everything they loved growing up. That’s quite evident by all the diverse groups on Facebook devoted to wallowing in Oldie Goldie pop culture.
When the TV History Facebook group began discussing the first TV show they remembered I posted a photo from the show Topper (CBS 1953-55). That was the first television series I remembered watching when I was four or five. Up till then I never met anyone who talked about seeing Topper as a kid. I got 7,300 likes and 746 shares. I was amazed that so many people had the same blast from the past.
Like my peers, I’m hung up on memory and pop culture. Individually, we have personal memories, but collectively we have history. Both kinds of recall tend to forget and distort the past, often rewriting it. I’m old enough that every year is the 50th anniversary of a year I remember living, and the media celebrates with a string of significant anniversaries. For younger people it’s only abstract history. But if a kid today grows up watching Star Trek and digging The Beatles, do they have the same experience we had?
I find it enlightening to challenge my memories. Because of this Facebook group, I struggled to recall everything I could about the TV I watched in the 1966/67 season and compare it to how pop culture remembers those shows today. I was 15 and in the 10th grade. A great deal of real history happened during those months, especially regarding the Vietnam war, but I’m only going to focus only on TV shows.
First, my memories without using Google for help. Here are the shows I remember now and believed I tried to watch every week.
- Star Trek
- The Time Tunnel
- The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.
- ABC Stage 67
Of course Star Trek has become a cultural phenomenon and I’ve seen all the first season episodes since, some several times. I’ve also read books about the creation and production of the program, meaning my memories have been reinforced. I do have a memory of watching the very first episode of Star Trek when it premiered, and I have vague memories of liking specific first season episodes that existed before I saw the reruns. I think it came on Thursdays.
My memories of The Time Tunnel are vaguer. In recent years I’ve caught a few episodes shown on MeTV, and I remembered seeing them in 1966 but I couldn’t have recalled them before hand.
I’ve never seen The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. again but I remember it starred Stephanie Powers and Noel Harrison, Rex Harrison’s son. I have seen The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in reruns, a show I also loved from that time period, but I find them impossible to watch now. I’d love to see The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. again, but I assume it would be just as stupid to me now.
I can only recall one episode from ABC Stage 67, a musical with Ricky Nelson. I think it was called “Yesterday’s Heroes.” I’ve always had fond memories of that episode and even tracked down a copy of the soundtrack years ago.
That’s not much to remember to believe the 1966-1967 television season was my favorite. I can’t watch Star Trek anymore, but I did love it for many years and watched all the sequel series through Voyager. Star Trek has made a huge impact on pop culture, and even young people today know about it. I’ve had dreams over the years where I’m flipping through the TV channels and find an episode of Star Trek I haven’t seen before. I wake up feeling this tremendous sense of nostalgia, and wanting to watch Star Trek again. When I do I’m always disappointed. It’s never as good as my memories.
Now, using help from Wikipedia’s page for the 1966-1967 television schedule. It triggered countless memories I’ve forgotten. And that makes me wonder just how many memories are still recorded in my brain? I can only access them when triggered with an external clue. Could complete ancient episodes be recorded in my brain?
Sunday: I watched Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea by myself, The Ed Sullivan Show with my family, and then my sister Becky and I would fight with my dad over the final hour. He wanted Bonanza and we wanted The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
Monday: My sister and I would watch The Monkees and I Dream of Jeannie, then I’d watch The Rat Patrol. I’d skip the rest of the evening, but I think my sister and mom watched The Andy Griffiths Show and Family Affair.
Tuesday: I watched The Girl From U.N.C.L.E, and then the family would watch The Red Skelton Hour (which is probably why I don’t remember The Invaders, a show I would have watched), and then my dad watched The Fugitive. The Fugitive bored me then, but a few years ago I bought the complete season on DVD and got into it.
Wednesday: My mom commandeered the first hour with The Virginian, which meant I usually didn’t get to see Lost in Space. I remember the kids at school loved Batman, but I thought it stupid. The family would watch Green Acres and Gomer Pyle. Sometimes I would stay, but mostly I’d go read science fiction. If I came back out I’d watch ABC Stage 67 or I, Spy, shows no one else in my family liked. I, Spy was my favorite show from the 1965-1966 season.
Thursday: I’d hog the TV on Thursday for Star Trek. Me and Becky would sometimes watch F Troop or That Girl. And my parents like The Dean Martin Show.
Friday: I’d watch The Wild Wild West or Tarzan, and then The Time Tunnel, and then 12 O’Clock High, sometimes with my dad, but usually I was by myself with the TV on Friday nights.
Saturday Night: This wasn’t a big night except for Mission Impossible which I think the whole family enjoyed. However, we often skipped it for Saturday Night at the Movies. That’s the show we watched most as a family.
Before I started these memory excavations I assumed I watched TV every night, and caught every episode of my favorite shows. But when I’ve tried to watch these shows again as reruns, DVDs, or streaming, I seldom found episodes I remember, except for Star Trek or The Time Tunnel.
As I squeeze my brain cells I realize I don’t believe now I watched as much television as I thought I did, and I don’t think we had as many regular family viewings. But I’m not sure. I do remember what I watched, and to a much lesser degree, remember who I watched with.
My mother and father were separated for the first half of that TV season, so we couldn’t have had that many family viewings that year. And once they were reunited, and we were all together again, we did watch TV as a foursome like I describe above, but I’m not sure how often. Once I began remembering TV from 1966-1967 season other memories emerged like digging for fishing worms in cow pies.
On the other hand, most of the shows from the 1966-1967 schedule are still being rerun, streamed, or sold on DVD today. Well, except the variety shows, but even clips and compilations from The Ed Sullivan Show and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour still show up. Pop culture has a more powerful memory than I do, especially after digitizing it. I could recreate and relive my 1966 days from artifacts off the internet.
These efforts to remember watching television is unearthing all kinds of connected memories. I need to stop here otherwise this blog would turn into a book. But I have one last interesting observation. I no longer like the shows I loved as a kid, but I discovered I now enjoy the shows my parents loved back then. I’ve bought the complete series DVDs of my mother’s favorite show, Perry Mason, and my father’s favorite show, The Fugitive. In the 1960s, both bored the crap out of me. In the 2020s I enjoy them.
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 
First show seen…The Lone Ranger, about 1950 in Cleburne, Texas (I was eight). We did not have a TV but got to watch just that show at a neighbor’s house. Also about that time, another Western, name unrecalled, ended at midnight during a party. The hero rode into the sunset and the camera irised into a black screen. No national anthem, no religious encouragement, just dark till the test pattern the next morning.
Our family’s first TV came to us about 1953 in Denver. Two years earlier, we had Thanksgiving at a wealthy friend’s house. Denver has just gotten its first station (Channel 2, I think). We all ate turkey and watched a ballet. A few months later, a second station arrived (Channel 9?) and the non-social media buzz throughout the city was how would we be able to decide which channel to watch.
The shocking Back to the Future scene where Marty McFly said his family had two TVs was characteristic of those times. Today? Our empty nest has four TVs and we can watch shows on one of our two laptops. A long time and high technology from the days when we were allowed to watch TV until 7:30 p.m., and then the next year could stay up until 8.
Morris, I’m a bit younger than you. We always had a TV, and my earliest memories go back to 1953 or 1954. My family never had more than one TV. I think my wife and I got a second TV sometime in the 1980s.
The TV years that I find most memorable were all during the time of ABC, CBS, and NBC dominating the airways. The quality of TV production since HBO and The Sopranos has been impressive, but there are just too many TV shows, with hundreds of scripted shows produced every year. I have no sense of TV seasons anymore. I miss that.
I agree. I liked the September-to-May format. Still, there is something to be said for not locking in 26-show seasons. We recently have gone strictly to streaming (YouTubeTv, Roku, Disney, etc.) We enjoy the 6-10 episodes of certain shows on Disney+; we watch when we want and don’t feel pressured to keep watching. TV production apart from the Big Three nets (quality there has diminished markedly) has been interesting. Talented people have left the monoliths and have gained some measure of artistic freedom. On t’other hand, so many shows are thrown at the viewer that it’s hard to decide what to do. Well, that does speak to freedom of expression, artistic freedom, capitalism — but also to an attraction to couch potatoism. I guess there’s something that could be called desk chair potatoism for those who spend too much time on the Internet.
I remember watching Topper reruns after school. The show we’ve recently rediscovered and are very much enjoying is Yancy Derringer–a Western (1958-59) set in New Orleans. It was a pretty thoughtful show for the time and has aged surprisingly well.
Donna, I don’t remember ever hearing of Yancy Derringer before. So I had to go read about it at Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yancy_Derringer
And it’s on Amazon Prime. I’ll have to check it out.
TV in 1966 was a Total Thrillride and a great treat, and when you are a six-year-old boy as I was, the Primetime of my time period was fun, family-friendly, and best of all, IN COLOR! “ABC-TV’s “BATMAN” ruled the airwaves throughout 1966, airing twice on Tuesday and Wednesday, opposite CBS’s “LOST IN SPACE”, as “BATMAN” also replaced “SHINDIG!”, ABC’s live rock and roll jukebox that ran for 86 episodes since its debut in Fall 1964, and along came other TV shows, like ABC’s “THE DOUBLE LIFE OF HENRY PHYFE” with Red Buttons-great sitcom! and then, there was “THE BARON”, a UK import from Lew Grade’s ITC Television Company, that starred future “S.W.A.T.” actor, Steve Forest, who played an American antique dealer, “John Mannering” in Great Britain who was also involved with espionage and intrigue, at the height of the spy craze. Then, in Fall 1966, the big hitters came, and Thursday and Friday nights just got even better, with the debut of “TARZAN” and “STAR TREK” on NBC on September 8, 1966, while “MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE” was making its CBS debut, and on ABC’s Friday evening schedule, you had the September 9, 1966 TV debut of “THE GREEN HORNET” with Van Williams and Bruce Lee, and Irwin Allen’s “THE TIME TUNNEL” with James Darren and Robert Colbert, and the following day on CBS Saturday Morning TV, you had the debut of “THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN” from National Periodical Publications and Filmation Associates (their very first TV series). “SPACE GHOST”, “FRANKENSTEIN JR. AND THE IMPOSSIBLES, and “THE LONE RANGER”-how much TV fun was that? Then, came the debut of CBS’s “FAMILY AFFAIR” TV series from Don Fedderson, the force behind “MY THREE SONS” and “THE LAWRENCE WELK SHOW”, and ABC’s “LOVE ON A ROOFTOP” from Screen Gems with Peter Duel and future “LAUGH-IN” regular, Judy Carne, along with Marlo Thomas as “THAT GIRL” (1966-1971) on ABC, and an amazing adventure series called “T.H.E. CAT” with Robert Loggia for NBC, and The WWII adventure series, “THE RAT PATROL” for ABC (1966-68), and Burt Reynolds’ “HAWK” TV series for Screen Gems and ABC-TV, and NBC’s “THE MONKEES”, from Raybert Productions and Screen Gems, which ran 57 half-hour episodes until 1968, and was later rerun on CBS Saturday Mornings in Fall 1969. There was really nothing like TV in Fall 1966, nor did I forget NBC”s “THE GIRL FROM UNCLE”, or short-lived shows like CBS’s “RUN, BUDDY, RUN” and “IT’S ABOUT TIME”, or NBC’s “HEY LANDLORD” and “OCCASIONAL WIFE”, the list is endless, but 1966 Primetime TV was still great fun!!
One casualty I failed to mention in my 1966 TV list, was ABC”s “THE TAMMY GRIMES SHOW” from William Dozier’s Greenway Productions and 20th Century Fox Television, synonymous with ABC’s “BATMAN”, and CBS’s “THE LONER”, starring Lloyd Bridges (“SEA HUNT”) which was created by Rod Serling (“THE TWILIGHT ZONE”). “THE TAMMY GRIMES SHOW” was the first casualty of Fall 1966, and it ran either one or two episodes before ABC canceled the series, Dick Sergent, the “second Darrin Stevens” from ABC’s “BEWITCHED”, also co-starred in this very short-lived sitcom!
From a life punctuated by natural seasons to a life punctuated by TV seasons.
Cycles: is there a way out?
“To be forgotten is to be forgiven.”
My earliest TV memories:
The Lone Ranger
Death Valley Days
Sky King
Highway Patrol
CId Caesar Show
Jack Benny Show
Some kids show but all I remember was that the sponsor was Buster Brown shoes.
This is very fascinating, James! I’m a bit younger. I see myself as part of the earliest Gen X. I was born in 1963. I believe it’s when you’re around 10-years-old that you have your most vivid and profound experiences with TV. As has been said many times, newspapers and most pop culture/media is written for the average age of around 13. There’s a lot of stuff I fondly remember seeing that was very popular in syndication, like The Twilight Zone, I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners. From the 1973 TV season, I can easily recall The Carol Burnett Show as a standout. Further into the ’70s, I loved the golden age of sitcoms, everything from All in the Family to The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Taxi. I really got hooked on politics and national news so I was a devoted fan of Walter Cronkite. I think it was a terrible shame how The Twilight Zone reboot, with Jordan Peele as the host, was so mishandled! That would have required a lot more careful contemplation to get it right. It seems like some of the old gems were simply much better written. Today, some of the best stuff needs to factor in being “binge-worthy.” Some of the best old shows had that built-into them, carrying over what worked in radio and pulp fiction.
I became so fond of The Rat Patrol that I created a blog of my original RP stories on WordPress. It’s called Stories of The Rat Patrol, if anybody feels like something to read.
What’s your URL? I searched on “Stories of the Rat Patrol” and didn’t find it.
Hi, I’m still getting used to this site. My URL on Google is storiesoftheratpatrol.wordpress.com. In Reader, I use the tag words Rat Patrol and find my site that way. I hope you can find it!