TV and Cable Media

A similar TV to the first
one in Linda's house.
Source: http://www.tvhistory.tv/
1950-59-PHILCO
From advertising media, we then moved on to TV and cable media. I assumed that Linda and her family would not have a TV in the house until Linda was older because they lived outside of Macon on a farm. However, this was not the case. Linda's family first got a television in 1952 when Linda was four years old. It was a 21 inch TV in black and white that the family would watch altogether. Linda recalled that the TV would not be turned on until after dinner and homework was done. A tradition that she carried over with her own daughter. The family would watch the national news each night and "The Ed Sullivan Show" on Sundays. Some of her favorite shows were "I Love Lucy", "Gun Smoke", and "The Beverly Hillbillies".
"'Beverly Hillbillies' was one of my favorites because I got tickled by my Grandma becuause she thought [the actors] could really see us. She would wave to them on the TV. So that was my favorite to watch if we were at her house visiting."
"Beverly Hillbillies" was Linda's favorite show growing up.
Source: https://www.wideopencountry.com/ 10-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-beverly-hillbillies/ 
Her family then got a 25 inch TV before upgrading to a colored TV. Her father bought a plastic cover for the 25 inch TV that would make the shows appear to be in color. Linda remembered that some shows worked better with the device than others, and would actually appear to be in color. The family got their first colored TV in 1956. The TV received the major stations: NBC, ABC, and CBS. Channel 3 was a station out of Kirksville and Channel 8 was out of Columbia. Linda remembered those being the clearest stations. However, the reception was pretty good because they had a large antenna on top of the house.
"It was good because we had a great big antenna on top of our house. I mean it was huge! Gigantic. It wasn't a little one, it was like a radar tower! I don't know where Dad found it to put up there, but they had a monster up there."
Linda then recalled watching major news events on TV. She remembers watching the news surrounding the Kennedy assassination, and not being able to take her eyes off the television. Linda recalls being a Freshman in college and being in Citizenship class. Once she got back to the dorm they did not stop watching the news all night. She remembers is being so sad because it was a Kennedy that got taken away. I found it interesting that she spoke about losing a Kennedy, as opposed to losing a president. Linda also watched the moon landing at her job. The place she worked at brought in a portable television and everyone stopped to watch it. She also recalled watching the Chiefs win the Super Bowl and watching boxing with her dad.
"Dad loved boxing, so he watched boxing all the time. And he would box with them. I mean he would start back here and by the time it was over he was up there with them. Football was the same way! He would run the plays with them. We had more fun watching him than the football game."
As she got older, she recalls having more options for channels when she moved to Kansas City and got cable. However, Linda remembers certain apartment complexes not having cable. First getting cable was "awesome" for her and her daughter enjoyed it the most. Stephanie made sure their package included MTV, which is what she and Linda watched most often. Today she has Direct TV and enjoys using it to record her favorite shows, so she can skip commercials. She also uses Netflix and Hulu to stream series. Most recently, she has been watching "Ballers" on HBO.


Video Caption: Footage from the Chiefs Super Bowl win, which Linda remembers watching
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egP-Ujhdo_w&feature=emb_err_watch_on_yt

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Audio Media

Image
When we turned to audio media, my Grandmother described how the radio was central in her home growing up. Her mom would listen to the news first thing in the morning, while her dad always had the fights tuned in at night after work. Whether it  was the small radios in her siblings' rooms or the larg e one i n the kitchen, there was always a radio tuned into WHB. "I played it all day long, of course we had to work, but as much as I could. On the weekends especially. Then when I turned 16, I would listen to the radio in the car all night long. The Rolling Stones would play, Santana, The Who."  She remembered WHB playing every type of music fro m cou nty to pop music. The station would be cut off by Kansas City at nine at night, then she recalled having to make their own music. She would The only country Linda listened to was Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton Source:  https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/country /7873024/kenny-rogers-dolly-parton-final-performanc
Read more

Movies and Video Media

Image
The final topic we covered in our interviews was movies and videos. Linda mostly remembers going to the Macon Movie Theater downtown and going to the Macon Drive-In Theater. She also remembered going to the movie theater in Bevier when she was very young, around four or five years old. The most prevalent thing she remembered was how small the movie theaters were. The Macon theater only had one screen and seated around 100 to 150 people, while the Bevier theater was even smaller and only seated around 50 people. Royal Theater in Macon, which was turned into a movie theater in the 1950's Source:  http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/12668 Linda would go to the movies about once a month with either her mom or friends in the evening. They never attended matinee showings. It was always a big treat for her mother when they went to the movies together. "Mother and I went to movies because Dad never went to the movies. Never. I don't think he's ever been inside a movie
Read more