Those are great, Richard. How far they have advanced is amazing. Back in the fifties, my buddy came running up to me and said, wow, we have color TV. He grabbed me and went to his house to show me. Come to find out that there was a sheet of colored cellophane one could stick on the picture tube. Nice, if you like green people and red oceans.
The first television set we had was about a four inch screen and pointed toward the ceiling. There was a swing up mirror attached and we would all squeeze together to see it. Way back then all we had was one channel and that showed mainly the same cartoons of a farmer chasing mice around. Years later when we got out first color set, my father, who was a scientist (genius style), told me color TV was impossible. When I questioned him, he just shook his head and said something like, you wouldn't understand! Decades later, I still don't understand!
Richard, I absolutely love this clips! The 'One Hand Behind My Back' commercial is my favorite. I think it is very creative! I think I will try turning on my tv remote with one hand behind my back and see how easy it is!
We only could get two stations on our 17" TV. One was out of Syracuse and the other from Binghamton, NY. Only problem was, we had to go outside and turn the antenna towards each station. After a while, we got a thingy that sat on the TV that rotated antenna automatically.
I am afraid we never had one of those gizmos! We had to rely on putting tin foil on the "rabbit ears", not that it ever seemed to help!
We had the little rabbit ears, too. We didn't have to use tin-foil; but my dad did have to adjust them every now and then when he changed the television station. We had three stations, all from Spokane. Between the three stations, we had all of the networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS; which was about all there was back then. I was 13 before my folks got a television; so I didn't watch any Saturday cartoons like younger kids watched. I did enjoy the Mickey Mouse Club, and sometimes watched Dick Clark's Bandstand. Other than that; I just watched whatever my folks watched if I was interested in it; otherwise, I was in my bedroom, reading a book or drawing horses. I was grown up and married before my folks finally bought a console color television, and that was the one they used for the rest of their life, and I used it a long time after they passed away, and I moved into the old house again.
Does anybody remember taking the television tubes tubes to the drug store and testing them in the machine? When you found a bad one you could buy it right there!