Redartz: Think back to your school days. After a long day full of books, papers, pop quizzes, broken pencil leads, teachers and bus drivers, you finally return home and lay down your backpack. What do you do next? If you were like many of us, you grabbed a Pop-Tart and went for the television. After-school programming was a staple of many local television stations for many years. It may have been reruns of old sitcoms, game shows, or cartoons. And it may have involved some local tv talent, hosting a kid's program to lock up the afternoon audience.
Growing up in central Indiana, our afterschool viewing often involved independent station WTTV out of Indianapolis. "Channel 4" always came in a bit rough at our location, some static. But that didn't matter to me, I tuned in to watch their two kids show hosts: Cowboy Bob and Janie. Both these programs featured lots of cartoons, along with animal visits, puppets, bad puns, visiting children, and all the usual kid show elements.
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| "Cowboy Bob" Glaze |
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| Janie Hodge |
Both these shows, and the hosts that made them memorable, are a fond part of my youth.
And, of course, there were other afterschool offerings. Reruns of "Gilligan's Island", "I Dream of Jeannie", "The Munsters", and many other 60's staples were found on the local channel. And when I got to High School, I'd return home to catch "The Gong Show" which conveniently started just after the bus dropped me off. Homework could wait; Chuck Barris couldn't.
So what programs did you enjoy upon getting home each day? Were there local hosts that you followed? Grab a seat and share...
29 comments:
For a long time, back in the three channel days, there wasn't much to choose from....The. Virginian, Bonanza, the Mike Douglas Show. Then, we got cable and had a mind-blowing TEN channels, still all within the state, but we had access to episodes of The Flintstones, Gilligan's Island, and Sanford and Son. Later on, there was some sort of kid's show that had a local lady dressed like a clown and showed Hanna Barbara cartoons and Three Stooges shorts.
For a brief time, one of the stations showed old hour long adventure series like The Prisoner, The Champions, The Saint, and The Avengers, but they didn't stay on very long. They were a lot of fun.
Something tells my my indulgences are going to synch up with other "Chicago land" dudes like Marti, LOL.
Depending on which year it was, coming home could mean -
Speed Racer - a huge favorite in the neighborhood!
Marvel's Superhero Cartoons - being rerun in the later 60s, 70s which were often photos of the comics.
And of course WGN - now a nationwide monkey but then Chicago land - had all the favs in reruns: Gilligan, Jeannie, Andy Griffith...
Not to go off track but after Thursday's blog and today's I realize I may be should have spent less time with the tube and comics and more with books, instruments, sports, etc. lol. Ah well... they say youth is wasted on the young.
CH 47 Indeed! We could have shared a TV. Speed Racer was the best from the Mammoth Car to the Car Acrobatic Team with Snake Oiler!
If there was any such thing as "auto-pilot" programming, WNDU-16 in South Bend had it MASTERED for the after-school/before dinner slot-- no question.
Depending on time of year (summer and/or daylight savings time period), that slot could be potentially be three hours of straight viewing, rather than two. (How on EARTH did we watch so many hours of TV every single flippin' day-???). At 3:00 and 3:30 were usually a couple of game shows we liked-- and by 8th or 9th grade these were The Gong Show and Match Game-- both unintentionally targeted for the lowest-brow adolescent boy level of crude humor.
Starting at 4:00, for years-- YEARS! YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS!!!-- was a half-hour Bugs Bunny and Friends-type of slot-- which used an inventory of Warner Brothers animated shorts that the station had clearly purchased at rock-bottom prices, and just recycled at random. Or not-so random. One week, they stuck the 1936 (!!) Porky Pig vehicle "Fish Tales" into one of the three slots every single day. We would groan and yell and wail as soon as its title card appeared. . . and then sit through the blasted thing (worst incidental music ever) gritting our teeth and loathing it. . . 'cause, I don't know, it was our duty, or something? To bravely watch even the awfullest of cartoons?
4:30 was the slot that had some rotation to it over the years-- MOSTLY the Munsters, alternating with The Addams Family, and now and then Get Smart. That was the slot where we might choose to go do something else.
5:00 was never, ever not Gilligan's Island. It may have been Gilligan's Island before the show was ever even made. It might still be Gilligan's Island to this day. I think the Voyager probe may be broadcasting it to the stars at Earth-5:00 every Earth-(week)day. They would cycle through the seasons in order endlessly-- it was a very early lesson in television continuity even in a show that didn't seem to give a hoot about it. OMG- I still love that show so much. (Been watching a bit of Laurel & Hardy recently-- and Alan Hale Jr. absolutely nailed many of Babe Hardy's subtler and more endearing traits--)
5:30-- I don't recall this ever not being I Love Lucy. And we were usually having dinner at 5:30, with our little TV on the end of the kitchen table-- all of us watching it along with our meal. It took most of my life to realize that this wasn't necessarily the household norm for folks--- that many families would sit and talk when they ate dinner. . . !
It's funny-- it's really almost more apt to talk about this in terms of "Ritual", isn't it? I mean, for real? Religion was not a consistent or driving factor in our household at that point, and yet we humans do seem to crave and rely on exactly the sort of comfort and security that ritual provides. And we can fabricate it out of almost anything, it looks like---!
HB
I vaguely remember afternoon reruns of My Favorite Martian, Gilligan's Island, Bonanza, and The Virginian. And there was a late afternoon or early evening talk show, either Mike Douglas or Merv Griffin.
There was also a local station that showed movies, mostly 1950s American-International sci-fi horror stuff like The Amazing Colossal Man, Invasion of the Saucer Men, Earth vs. the Spider, etc. There was a host who dressed in a Dracula-type costume and did a fairly good Lugosi impression while introducing the movies. Count Von Terror, or something like that. With a sidekick named (of course) Igor.
One of our local stations had reruns of Gilligan's Island and I Love Lucy.
Later, when we got UHF, there was a station that ran the 1950s Superman show, with George Reeves. And another station that had Ultraman, which was like a daily Godzilla-type mini-movie. I think that station also showed the Japanese animated cartoon series, Speed Racer and Marine Boy.
I remember the Marvel Super-Heroes, but, IIRC, it was shown very early on weekday mornings in our city.
And I remember the British spy and detective shows (The Saint, The Avengers, Secret Agent/Danger Man, The Baron) being rerun in the 1970s, but, as I recall, they were on late in the evenings (10 or 11 PM).
In my grade school days, I was one of those kids you hear about who ran home to get in front of the TV just in time to watch "Dark Shadows." I was hooked on this monster soap!
Depending on the weather, I would usually change clothes and run out into the neighborhood to play various games - army, tag, hide-n-seek, board games if it was rainy - or just wander around our neighborhood parks, creeks, surrounding open land or get mischievous on lots with new houses being built. I lost a few Hot Wheels and cereal figures in mounds of dirt scooped out for new foundations.
I definitely remember the same cartoons and TV reruns that everyone else has mentioned. Ultraman, Johnny Socko, Speed Racer, Lost In Space, Gilligan, Hogan's Heroes, Beverly Hillbillies, Get Smart, Jeannie, Bewitched, Lone Ranger, and so many more!
At least once a week, I would walk from school to the downtown area of my small town. My grandmother lived in a little hotel there, so on my way to see her, I would check out the latest toys in Ben Franklin and Woolworth and comics racks in a few of the drug stores. Then I would visit my grandmother until someone came to pick me up.
It was a fun time to be a kid!
There was a local kids' show hosted by a guy playing an "Officer Joe" kind of character, with various cartoons. Marvel Super Heroes, Krazy Kat, Snuffy Smith, Popeye, and Beetle Bailey.
Gunsmoke and Bonanza were cancelled by their networks in the mid-1970's, and both started showing in syndicated reruns soon afterward. One of our local stations showed them back-to-back on weekday afternoons.
One of our local stations did a sci-fi afternoon bloc, with reruns of The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. And another had reruns of cop shows: Adam-12, The FBI, and The Mod Squad. Oddly, my late grandparents got hooked on the latter.
Marti - your words are music to my ears! I have the Speed Racer's on DVD. My kids love them too! Racer X stole the show, though! Everyone wanted to be Racer X! The sound his car made was cooler, too. Though, the sound Speed's car made, when Speed deployed those devices that would spring his car into the air, was a great sound too!
I still remember Speed vaulting from pinnacle to pinnacle along a washed out road through a chasm. He, Racer X, Snake... they all crashed into the valley below. Ulimately Speed was blinded but Racer X ("Speed's long lost brother Rex in disguise" LOL) feigns broken legs. So Speed drives while X tells him how many degrees to turn left and right!
The B E S T cartoon on TV at that time. HANDS DOWN!
I grew up about 30 miles south of Portland, OR, and initially all of the stations we could watched were aired from there. There was one channel in particular that really cornered the market on after school programming aimed at kids. The staples of that time-slot were a half-hour of Warner Bros. cartoons and the Flintstones, pretty much in constant rotation, as well as the Brady Bunch. Other shows frequently rotated in included Gilligan's Island, Hogan's Heroes and Batman. Star Trek was often shown a little later.
That same channel aired Speed Racer, but only for about 2 years, when I was in first and second grade - and, boy, was that ever popular with all of the kids in school. My personal favorite character was Racer X, and yeah, I do recall that episode Charlie mentioned, when Speed was blinded. Very entertaining stuff.
I remember shows like Gunsmoke and Mary Tyler Moore being on when I was really young ... Partridge Family too, I think. Later it was stuff like Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, and My Favorite Martian.
The best was when I was about 6 or 7, the 60s Batman show was on around 4:00; I never missed that.
Any of you groove to the Japanese shows besides Speed Racer?
Astro Boy? Any of you old enough to have seen Gigantor and Tobor the 8th Man?
I think I may be the only Boomer in our group who has never, ever seen an episode of Speed Racer. He wasn't on ANY of our local channels, ever. Hunh. (Also, our local viewing was almost entirely UHF broadcast-- which confused the bejeepers out of us when we'd travel. Channels 16 NBC, 22 CBS, 28 ABC. . . a little later 34 PBS. . . and finally a strange ultra-low budget independent-- 46-- which was entirely OLD reruns and stuff that must have been in public domain. These were all out of the Elkhart/Mishwawaka/South Bend, IN area.)
Wonder what the criteria was for choosing either UHF or VHF for broadcast?
HB
HB - I just always remember asking my little brother Mike... "What happened to Channel 1 [on the VHF]? Why does it start at 2?" LOL.
So where the hell is CH 1 anyhow? Was it reserved for like Nuclear War broadcasting or secret squirrel stuff?
IIUC (and, as usual, I may be all wrong), the frequencies on "channel 1" are for two-way transmissions, and are used mainly by police departments, fire departments, and emergency ambulance services.
In the late 1960s and 1970s, as I recall, the network affiliates were on VHF, and independent stations were on UHF. Don't know if that was an official policy or just coincidence, though.
And I remember Astro Boy and Tobor the 8th Man, but, IIRC, they were on Saturday mornings in our area. Speed Racer and Ultra Man I seem to remember as being on weekday afternoons.
And, years later (ca. 1980), Space Giants and Spectreman were showing on weekday afternoons. And then, in the 1990s, it was the Power Rangers.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
TC - you made me scratch my head... Gigantor and Tobor were indeed Saturday morning fare on WGN TV. Astro Boy was a mid-70s show in Chicago that popped up on the UHF after school!
I did buy the Tobor DVD and, well, not so great 50 years later, lol.
After school us kids owned the tv. From about 3pm-6pm, then the dreaded local news would come on and the parents commandeered the set.
Most have already been listed above, I also remember Deputy Dawg and Kimba the White Lion cartoons. Of course I couldn't miss Batman or Star Trek either.
We had 4 UHF stations and 4 VHF in the early '70's. The VHF were affiliates of ABC, NBC, CBS and CBC (Canada). It was usually UHF except for 1 week out of the year when the ABC affiliate ,channel 7, would have "Monster Week" on the 4 O'clock Movie. All Godzilla and Gamera goodness for 5 days!
Charlie: Astro Boy was on here in Canada in the 80s, though at the time I didn't realize the show was actually from the 60s. I also watched Battle of the Planets in the late 70s/early 80s, which was based on a Japanese cartoon (or manga), but seemed thoroughly Westernized.
My favorite Speed Racer episode featured the Melange X-3 ghost car piloted by Flash Marker and a seemingly malevolent robot killing off enemies. “Melange is alive!” Just the best. Speed Racer was a particularly violent show - I remember in the Mammoth Car episode (I think) a man put on headphones and giant spikes came out between the ears touching in the middle!
Channel 44 in Chicago was the best (if there were no White Sox games on). Tennessee Tuxedo, Penelope Pitstop, Beatles cartoons, Space Giants, Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot, Spectreman, Ultraman etc. Channel 32 had Banana Splits, Magilla Gorilla, and others.
Well done, everyone; great memories and comments!
Graham- yes, three channels to choose from, and maybe a couple UHF stations (which in our area were all PBS affiliates). It forced some tough viewing choices, didn't it?
Charlie- a cogent comment about tv viewing. It's easy not to realize just how much time is spent watching that glowing box. Oh, and as to your Chicagoland fellows- count me among them, due to that cable giant WGN...
HB- Your comments about "Gilligan's Island" made me think; of all the shows everyone's mentioned here, that one seems ubiquitous (somehow it feels odd using a word like "ubiquitous" describing Gilligan). EVERYONE seems to have grown up watching Gilligan, the Skipper too, the millionaire and his wife, the movie star, the Professor and Mary Ann. Oh, and actually, your'e not the only one who has never seen an episode of "Speed Racer". Yours truly has never done so either...
Disneymarvel- you're not alone in having lost Hot Wheels, action figures, Super Balls, frisbees, and heaven knows what else. Formerly empty lots worldwide, beneath more recently erected structures, doubtlessly contain a bounty of vintage goodies.
Red, on the ubiquity of certain shows, yes, it's my impression that Gilligan's Island was one of the more frequently rotated shows in syndication, but I'm surprised I'm the only one here who's mentioned the Brady Bunch. As I noted in my first comment, it was in constant rotation where I grew up from the early '70s (in fact, I think syndication of the early seasons began when the show was still on the air in its first run) and until the mid-1980s at least. Like all of the kids I grew up with, it seemed like we absorbed rather than just watched that show, and when went to college it was the same: anyone that was around my age (indeed, anyone born from the mid/late '60s through mid-'70s at least), regardless of where in the US they were from, had watched every single episode of that show multiple times - to the point that you could quote obscure quotes from the show, like "pork chops and applesauce" or "oh, my nose!" and everyone in the room would know exactly what you're talking about.
Edo, I wonder if you've identified an unofficial marker for, like, fractional generational differences? You can tell roughly how old someone is based on what they recall being the most ubiquitous syndicated reruns from their youth? 'Cause even though at the time, it seemed like certain shows re-ran eternally (as I pointed out earlier), in reality that really would have only spanned a limited number of years-- maybe 5 or a little more? Seven? As with anything from our youth, it just seemed to stretch on forever (like summers when we were kids. . . . or the yawning epoch of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas---). For those of us born in '60 or thereabouts, it's gonna be Gilligan's Island. For you folks born about 5 years or so later, Brady Bunch and Partridge Family ("I woke up in Looooooove this mornin'----!"). And maybe the following group gets (stuck with) Three's Company. I know that when I was home a LOT with infant HBSon and HBGirl, both Family Matters and Full House NEVER seemed to NOT be on the tube as I sat rocking, feeding, holding, etc. . . so maybe even those shows have the same connection for someone considerably younger than us. . .
Speaking of Syndication-- it's still not uncommon at all for shows to cash in on syndication while they're still in their original run. IIUC, the threshold is about 100 episodes, and then they open the gates for that supplemental revenue stream. Frasier did it; How I Met Your Mother; Big Bang Theory; and so on--- Also-- I do remember a short time in the late 70's when there was an attempt to differentiate between the new and re-run shows by slightly altering the name of the syndicated offering. So EMERGENCY's re-run was EMERGENCY 51, and HAPPY DAYS was HAPPY DAYS AGAIN. I wonder if that was just a local experiment, though? It disappeared very quickly. . .
HB
Marti -I did not know Banana Splits were ever rebroadcast once they went of the air from NCC Saturday mornings! And you are smack dab correct that Speed did have some good violence... ANd is there anyone who can forget the Mammoth Car two-parter if they saw it? Even my French wife was "awed" when she saw that Mammoth Car episode! I think it appeals to our "War of the Worlds" fear of an all-powerful, unstoppable machine?
HB / REd / Edo / et al. - Gilligan, Jeannie, and Andy Griffith were the 3 shows in perpetual syndication here in Chicago maybe from late 60s to late 70s at least, on WGN (now nationwide cable station). Perhaps "just" these shows appeal eternally to adults and kids alike, perhaps unlike Brady Bunch which (dare I say it) is more for kids? I have to assume all of us, regardless of age, are well familiar with the 3? Or no? Set me straight!
Edo and HB- I think you've both struck on in intriguing concept here! Using the given examples, I recall Gilligan from the syndicated reruns, while the Bradys and Partridges from watching the original prime time broadcasts. I do recall seeing both in syndication, but personally, Both shows live in my memories as Friday night staples.
Oh, and HB, the shows you refer to with differentiated names- not local, the same thing happened in our neck of the woods...
HB, you might have a point about the Bradys as a generational marker, but I should add that where I grew up, Gilligan's Island was the most frequently rotated after Brady Bunch and the Flintstones (which, as I noted, went on continually). In some years, there would sometimes be a pause of 6 months or so for Gilligan, but then he'd be back - and this was the case for the entire period I mentioned, i.e., mid-'70s to mid-'80s (in high school in particular, that show was really popular with my group of friends).
Partridge Family didn't get as much airtime where I was though, but I remember watching it occasionally when I was in high school. However, since my older sister and brother liked both that and the Brady Bunch when they were still in their first run on network TV, those are some of the earliest, non-cartoon TV shows I remember watching on our family's old black & white set when I was really little.
And HB, the 'adjustment' of TV show names for their syndicated runs definitely wasn't a local thing. I also remember that Happy Days was called Happy Days Again when its earlier seasons went into syndication.
Still Bronze Age, but a bit later: There was no force on Earth that pulled pre-teen boys to the tv any stronger than the black hole that was GI Joe and Transformers. Every day from 4-5, we main lined non-lethal soldier and robot violence, even if the shows were reruns. I preferred Transformers, because I thought robots who could turn into things was cooler than dudes with guns. I think the GI Joe/ TF block only lasted a few years (TF only had three full seasons, IIRC), but Hasbro owned one hour of our lives for almost every day of them.
HB- I think your generational syndicated shows/reruns theory is correct, so let me add an addendum: Saved by the Bell. Bridging the gap between '60s and '70s shows, '80s cartoons, and later TGIF fare was the teen-centered sitcom that enraptured the 8-12 crowd in the late '80s & early '90s. It was always on, and nearly every American born between 1972 and 1989 have probably seen every episode.
- Mike Loughlin
Our catholic school let us out at 11:15 one Wednesday per month so the CCD kids could get some religious instruction. Oh, how fast we would race home from the bus stop to watch Happy Days reruns that started at 11:30am on Channel 7!
Those early shows were just awesome slices of (at-the-time) an only twenty year old past, but they really started stinking up the joint come Season Five.
Yoyo
Well, if we want to talk about what we watched on those very rare days we got out at Noon - Let's Make a Deal, Newlywed Game (?), some game show where a guy (or girl) would pose questions to 3 girls (or guys) and select one for a date. No marriage, no copulation, no vacation... just a date, LOL. Wow, have times changed?
And somehow there were a few cartoons on the UHF at noon: Tennessee Tuxedo and Underdog!
"The Dating Game"-- that's the one you're describing, CH47.
And a lot of the daytime (non-soap opera) fare was stuff that we tended to stay in touch with in the summers and over holiday breaks during the school year. And through about 3rd or 4th grade I was out a good chunk of days w/ the usual childhood ailments. And. . . was not at all above feigning (or enlarging) a malady in order to stay home up until about 6th-grade (ish). (To be fair-- if there was a stomach virus to found within 20 miles of our village, it would use our home as a motel---)
Of the "traditional" game shows, Password was the particular favorite for our family. A smarter show, and it really did bring out the personality of the celebrity guests in an enjoyable format. (There was one week where I think Greg Morris and Bill Bixby were the guests-- both fellows being very bright, great with word manipulation, etc-- and the contestant was an UNUSUALLY obnoxious, self-absorbed, humorless, complaining woman who somehow managed to keep winning even though she seemed to be w/out any skills at all. Like she was a savant or something. And as she continued to win, the two of them got into a not-so-subtle shtick of handing her off to each other with a "she's all yours-!" gesture or two. It was so wonderfully human to see their barely-covered exasperation with her---)
HB
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