A few years after World War II, television burst upon the American scene with great speed. We bought an RCA in 1952, and the novelty of seeing TV pictures in our home caught everyone’s fancy but not my grandfather’s. He was convinced that we would go blind watching TV. The rest of us thought of it as a modern wonder of electronics.
Television brought the world into our home in sight and sound. I could see sports teams play, and the adults (not grandpa yet) could see Broadway plays, news events, and political speeches.
Thanks to TV, images of middle-class life and ads for consumer goods blanketed the country. By the end of the 1950s it was said that nine out of 10 American families owned a television.
Television replaced newspapers — not in our home — as the most common source of information about public events, and from what I observed about many of my friends, TV watching was their main leisure activity.
Television changed Americans’ eating habits. Frozen TV dinners, heated and eaten while watching a program were available by the mid-’50s. This form of eating never took place in our house because we all ate together and the TV was not turned on until 7 p.m.
One Monday evening a friend of mine stayed for supper and said he wished he could eat like we did because his family regularly ate TV dinners. That evening we were eating left-overs from our Sunday supper.
This revolutionary new food trend provided many Americans with a common cultural experience. With a few exceptions, like the Army-McCarthy hearings, television avoided controversy and projected a bland image of middle-class life. Popular shows for our family were The Goldbergs (with immigrants as the main characters) and The Honeymooners, which portrayed working-class families living in a city apartment building.
By the end of the decade, the dominant programs were quiz shows, westerns, and comedies set in suburban homes like Leave it To Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet, a show that also featured teen idol Ricky Nelson — the real life son of Ozzie and Harriet.
By the end of the ’50s, television had become the most effective advertising medium ever invented. Large corporations sponsored popular programs like General Electric Theater and Alcoa Presents. I remember that TV ads, aimed at middle-class suburban viewers conveyed images of the good life based on endless consumption.
In 1962, we bought an RCA color TV. Black-and-white was fine, but color TV was terrific. All of the performers were more lifelike in color and the costumes and settings were far more appealing, too.
After a while Grandpa lost his fear of going blind due to watching television. Most every night and on weekends he was front and center in the living room enjoying comedy shows, baseball and — to my grandmother’s chagrin — wrestling.
