The Early Days of Television Were Exciting
Remember running home from school in the late '40s, pouring a glass of milk and grabbing a few cookies then plunking yourself down in front of a massive piece of furniture housing a ten TV inch screen? You'd turn it on and watch the soundless test pattern waiting for the buzz to begin. This sound signaled that in just a few minutes Howdy Doody and his friends would be pumped into your living room in glorious black and white. If this experience was part of your distant pass, you're a pre-boomer.
Howdy was a round-faced, freckled, little cowboy. He become so familiar, it was hard to think of him as a marionette. Being surrounded by live host "Buffalo Bob" Smith and Clarabelle the mute clown along with a number of other puppet characters made Howdy a household name for years. A little remembered fact is that when the show began in 1947, an uglier, horse-faced, clownish Howdy Doody graced our TV screens. Then magically, overnight the new-look Howdy came on the scene. No one minded. The new image was an instant success and is the one most everyone thinks of today.
The Howdy Doody Show ran from 1947 to 1960, so the early baby boomers grew up with him as well. It's interesting to note that during the '50s, RCA, owner of the NBC network, used the program to help introduce color television to kids in an effort to get the little ones promoting the concept to the rest of the family. Advertising people have long known the power of children when selling products, but color TV was a high ticket item compared to breakfast cereal and snacks.
During the early years of the tube, we'd watch anything - nothing aired until late afternoon. There were terrible movies, and equally bad live TV. No one cared as long as they were watching television. But there were some good variety shows that premiered back then such as the Ed Sullivan Show (first known as The Toast of The Town) and the Milton Berle Show (Texaco Star Theatre). Live dramas (first in the evening and later the daytime soap operas) along with sports were a big part of programming in those days.
Late night TV ended after the local news, because Jerry Lester's Broadway Open House did not appear until 1950. So, a minute-sermon followed by the Star Spangled Banner marked the end of the broadcast day. Soon the stations realized not everyone was ready for bed before midnight, so local shows started to appear, but the audience was too small to sustain this effort, in time this would change. Then someone had the bright idea to sell the unused time that was just sitting there. Possibly the first infomercial to run on late-night TV was for Charles Antell Formula 9. It utilized a quirky spokesman using only a hairbrush and the product that he touted as being the answer to everyone. Grooming needs, because it contained lanolin. Now infomercials, both log and short-form, are the most visible means of support for late-night television.
It's fun to recall those simple, not-very-slick days of television when the power of the medium was the technology rather than the message. Somehow the computer, with all its sophistication is not nearly as exciting as the old black and white TV.