Life Under the Rabbit Ears

The United Nations General Assembly established November 21 as World Television Day in recognition of the mpact TV has on society.

Life Under the Rabbit Ears – by Don Mathis

The Howdy Doody Show with Clarabell the Clown, Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop, Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans, and the whole crew in the Mickey Mouse Club were great in black and white – but my brother Jeff and I wanted color television!

And we wanted Daddy to get an outdoor antenna, the little rabbit ears on top of the TV got too much static. I think my father succumbed to peer pressure, rather than his children’s begging, and finally got an aluminum aerial.

Because color television sets were so expensive, Jeff and I convinced Dad to buy a film to stick on the TV screen; it made green grass, beige people, and blue sky – and everything blurry. And when the TV program showed a close-up of the star, the colors were hilarious!

My brother and I got to meet Cactus Vick, the TV host who showed all the Westerns we wanted to see. When Saturday morning programming didn’t show the modern cartoons we loved (like Popeye, Bugs Bunny, or Mighty Mouse), we settled for old re-runs of Laurel & Hardy, the Keystone Cops, and the Little Rascals.

Children’s fascination with the Adventures of Superman must have compelled thousands of kids to leap from rooftops and trees. Zorro was another favorite. A stick, a coat hanger, anything could be a sword. ‘Swish, swish, swish;’ everywhere we went, we would leave the Z for Zorro! Uncle Clark owned Mathis Furniture down in Mansfield, Louisiana, and he had a state-of-the-art television. Once Daddy saw his brother’s color TV, he had to have one too!

Our family watched Sing Along with Mitch and NBC Saturday Night at the Movies in living color – and loved it! If we didn’t go to church on Sunday afternoon, we watched the annual re-run of the Wizard of Oz or the weekly Wonderful World of Disney. Like millions of other boys, I got a case of Davy Crockett fever. Mom bought me a real coon-skin hat for my 10th birthday so I could re-enact floating down a river, wrestling a bear, or the battle of the Alamo.

Comedy was king, and we would watch the Three Stooges, the Jerry Lewis Show, the Carol Burnett Show, or the Red Skelton Hour. The music on the Lawrence Welk Show was pretty corny but everyone liked the Ed Sullivan Show. Mom would send us out of the room when a mature drama came on PBS’ Masterpiece Theatre. And Peyton Place was totally out of the question for us kids.

I watched the funeral of President Kennedy on television with the rest of the world in 1963. And that was the beginning of the end of my childhood.