My childhood experience with television was a little different. I was born into a generation where the phrase, "Go outside and play." was a release from something called 'chores' and not a symbol of motherly neglect or indifference.

I also lived in a part of the country where the seasons dictated that some part of the year was spent inside due to inclement or extreme weather conditions. The Draper's children were inside because of the snow and heat in New Jersey...I had similar extremes in Nebraska. It was terribly confining for a tomboy, like me...but, I did learn some domestic talents I use today.

Betty seems to send the Draper children to watch television more than I remember my parents doing. There were only certain programs that I could relate to. Humor is universal, so Red Skelton was something we always watched as kids. I remember watching a lot of Captain Kangaroo (although Mr. Greenjeans was my favorite), My dad was a sports enthusiast, so the Friday Night Fights (boxing) was a part of our weekends. The whole family never missed the Nat King Cole Show....he was the first black entertainer with an evening variety show, and every family we knew would not miss it.

Remember, there were only 2-3 channels back then, and stations were not broadcasting 24 hours.

I kept time by TV, instead of a watch, and we only got CBS, so I planned my day around their shows. Do you remember how the early kid shows tried to entice us into their lair? I had Sparky colors and a stick- on screen so that I could color on the screen (no need to worry about being too close to the TV, I guess!) I wondered how the Romper Room woman always seemed to miss seeing me watching, since she knew so many names and mine never came up. But, please, does anyone remember a scifi type kid show that involved a store (maybe a grocery?) with a back room where the clerk talked on a screen to a robot? Pretty obscure, but I swear it was on in the early 1950s. But, I was outside playing more than I watched TV, and would have been schocked if either of my parents played kid games with me. Except on Christmas morning. Betty is disconnected to life and her children are part of it. Where is Sally picking up all her ideas that she used as conversational tidbits during her day at the office? I also notice than seldom do either Don or Betty make eye contact with Bobby.

Betty has the children watching so much TV so she can keep them in her sights but not have to put a lot of effort into monitoring them. Other than Sally's ballet lessons what other activities do we see the kids doing? Zip, nada. The kids have no friends over and when they were outside playing with their dog it got the neighbors pigeon and we know how much trouble that caused. Bobby's natural inquisitiveness from the boredom gets him in trouble with Betty when he breaks stuff.

As a child of the late 1960s-early 1970s, I recall watching ALOT of television. Not because my mother was a bad mother but I think television was still somewhat novel, and had not gotten the bad rap it gets today, when many parents, right or wrong, declare that tv is off limits or to be watched only rarely. I actually think all that tv made me a better person :)). Plus the shows were superior and made us aspire to a better life. Who wouldn't want to live in a Manhattan high-rise and have an English gentlemen's gentleman named Giles French? Or live in a Jeannie bottle? Or have a mom who could twitch her nose and make great things happen? I also don't recall parents being quite as "hands on" as many are today -- we kids were expected to go outside, or watch tv or play board games and find our own fun. Our parents did not really "play" with us. Although Mad Men is set about five-six years too early for my actual memory, it somehow rings authentic to me with regard to the kids and their interactions with the parents. I really hope we see more of the kids. Some school scenes would be great. And where the heck has Glenn Bishop been this year???

Grey - don't the Drapers live upstate NY (Ossining)? Did YOU grow up in NJ? Me too! Just like the rest of you, we had WNEW which was Ch 5 where Sonny Fox's Wonderama, ran on Sunday. The Sandy Becker Show on CH 2 (CBS) and WABC Ch 7 which was full of Looney Toons. Of course, WOR ch. 9 and WNET Ch 13 (no PBS yet) DID have Julia Child later on (who I loved even as a child). There was the very weird DIVER DAN who had MINERVA MERMAID with BARRON BARRACUDA who somehow managed to smoke a cigarette underwater which perplexed me endlessly. The Romper Room lady never called MY name either. Were we damagned somehow by this omission? :-) . FELIX the CAT was always great if perchance you got up too early for regular broadcasting there were those silent cartoons. As for parents playing with their kids back then it just wasn't too common: my dad worked two jobs and my mother was very busy with three little girls. She had no car so we walked EVERYWHERE or took the bus. Until school began, we went on all the errands with my mother since 'babysitters' were unheard of. Grey is correct in that during the day we played outside unless weather did not permit. I don't think moms in the 60s had or made the time to get down on the floor with us kids because we had siblings and friends galore. Betty however, being a princess of the upper class had her riding which she barred Sally from enjoying saying "its just grown ups". The thought of my mother (or any other of the moms in Monmouth County, NJ) doing dressage or jumping in English saddle is not party of my past. But I think we can assume that much of Sally and Bobby's social life takes place off camera. Inasmuch as Sally's comment "are we rich?" is likely to have come from friends at school as well as her comment to Joan about 'big ones'. Being seven years old in 62 and spending a lot of time with adults, I processed much of what I heard or saw from "grown ups" through the lens of my older sisters. I don't ever recall asking for explanations of adult behavior from my mom or my dad. Occasionally if I did ask a question deemed inappropriate the answer was typically, "you're too young to understand that". I drew my own conclusions while waiting to 'get older'. What a great show!
gthey heard from adults in

hyperboliz...yes, how I remember my generation wanting to be adults, instead of the vice versa I sometimes see now. I, too. listened to the grown ups and learned. If I asked a question, though, I would hear a warning of one adult to another about 'little pitchers have big ears'. : )

OOops! I did type NJ when I know the Drapers live in NY state...

Oh, absolutely, we watched a ton of TV. Our family room had a glazed ceramic floor (it used to be a garden room - don't ask) and my dad drew an arched line with duct tape and we had to sit BEHIND THE LINE or we would surely go blind. I chuckle every time Betty tells the kids, "Go watch TV."

Nancy, could you play Jacks on that flooring? I remember being in constant search mode for smooth playing surfaces since our sidewalk was brick.

Does anybody remember the Howdy Doody show?

flowerpower:
I remember Howdy Doody but not well. Watched it rarely because the station carrying it didn't come in well but I do remember one episode. Princess Winterspringsummerfall had been captured by pirates(?) and sang "Let me go, let me go, Mr. Pirate." Don't know why that song was memorable but I didn't identify with the Peanut Gallery.

How do you like my new icon? My favorite alcoholic beverage.

Sizzie asked:

"But, please, does anyone remember a scifi type kid show that involved a store (maybe a grocery?) with a back room where the clerk talked on a screen to a robot? Pretty obscure, but I swear it was on in the early 1950s"

Is that "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis"? I was not around in the fifties, but that show was rerun for a time when NickAtNite showed classic television. It's been ages since I've seen it, but it had a grocery store, and Dobie talked to something -- I don't remember the specifics. Also, a young Warren Beatty had a recurring guest-star role on this series before he got into movies.

No, Piper, that wasn't it, but I watched Dobie Gillis and can remember characters from it, thanks for reminding me. I was very envious of my cousins...although I didn't tell them that...because we couldn't get Mickey Mouse Club and they could. Saturday morning on TV must have served two purposes. One, to sell to children and Two to keep them occupied so parents could sleep late. Cartoons seemed to begin at the crack of dawn. Saturday evening (before prime time) was country music and Sunday morning had church services. Perry Mason was a must see on Saturday evening and for years I craved greasy hamburgers when I heard that theme music, because my dad would bring home a sack of them every Saturday for our supper. Believe it or not, that was a treat!

These posts have been so enriched with a life really not so long ago and still alive by shows such as these and people such as you. I'm so happy to have had the opportunity to peek into your worlds as a child in the 60's. What interested me most in these posts were that we took it for granted that we had to entertain ourselves, thus making us very independent. Nowadays, it might have been frowned upon by the powers that be who have all these claims: "t.v. makes kids dumb" or "hyperactive kids should be on prescribed medication" or "leaving a kid at home without supervision is abusive" or whatever. Seems like there is no middle ground. And, now I wonder, were we better off then without so much supervision? Of course, kids today have to be more protected because of so many crimes against them, walking home from school or such...

These expositions are priceless. Thanks you all!!!!

I grew up in central NY where the winters were colder, longer and snowier than today. Even then we went outside and played for hours building snow forts, ice slides, snowmen and angels in the snow, and having snowball fights with the gazillion neighborhood kids.

Summers we'd leave the house after breakfast and basically spend the day outside, going inside only for the occasional pit stop and food (PBJ or tuna sandwiches - on white.) When we were older we might be allowed to stay out after the streetlights came on to play flashlight tag (Sinbad has a very funny bit about being home on time, or else.)

Still, we did watch a bunch of TV: the original Mickey Mouse Club, Popeye and other cartoons (for some reason Huckleberry Hound comes to mind), and lots of early westerns and detective series. Early newscasts ran 15 minutes. I remember being fascinated with Pauline Frederick, who in the early years was virtually the only woman working on broadcast TV. She began on ABC (1946-1953) then moved to NBC (1953-2974). She actually worked as a "stringer" filing a series of special reports (mostly international coverage and the UN) because nobody would hire her for a permanent position - might take a male anchor's spot, and women's voices were too hight for tv, etc.

Sorry, typos - that's "1974" and "too high"

We watched a lot of tv. I had 6 siblings and our parents never "played" with us. Why would they want to do that? They were grown ups. They did grown up things. We were kids. We did kid's things. The only time our "things" crossed was chore time--we did, they supervised!

We played outside with all the neighbor kids after school. Lots of kids in the neighborhood. We would play ball out in the street, only moving to the sidewalk when a car was coming. We had little supervision, and frequently came home to an empty, unlocked house. No big deal, even for a first grader.

One summer, our big console tv (of course, like the car, we had only one) broke down. It was out for probably 3 weeks, but it felt like the whole summer. When we went to the neighbor kids' houses, all we wanted to do was watch tv! Of course, they could do that any ol' time. So we played outside a lot and got really tan.

Nobody complained about tv being bad for you then (late 60's, early 70's). It was just another member of the family! The member we loved best!

Can't add anything already not covered. Love reading all your memories... ditto for me, what everyone has said up to now!
Being a redhead, my mom would tell me to stay out of the sun and I of course did not. I would not tan much....just freckles. I loved running through the sprinkler with the neighborhood kids and even getting to sit on a stack of newspapers on top of the ice cream freezer while it froze up the best homemade ice cream. I have that freezer even now and sometimes we make that wonderful banana homemade ice cream...can't be beat!
And where have all the lightning bugs gone???

Sizzie...lord how I loved playing jacks! And hopscotch...so fun!! No wonder we all were so skinny then! Great time to grow up...wouldn't trade it for anything.

SCfan - the lightning 'June' bugs are thriving on Virginia's Eastern Shore! My kids love to watch them, but unlike me have no desire to catch then in jars filled with leaves and holes in the top for air. They're content to watch them blink from the front porch. I recall being crestfallen in the morning when, after watching them fluoresce all night - woke to find them all DEAD! My first lesson in the risks of captivity!

I am so glad to hear folks talk about the lightening bugs - great memories from my childhood of catching them - I remember some little girls - NOT me - would cut off the lighted tails and put them on their fingers for play rings. Was this disgustingly cruel game just an Illinois thing? I noticed this summer the sad scarcity of these little creatures of the night - could count on my hand the number I would see from my back patio of an evening - so I am glad to hear, Hyperboliz, that they are thriving in Virginia.

I lived in a "bohemian" type of household in an urban area.Most of the time we didn't have a TV...but we always had plenty of music playing.(It was the mid to late 60's).I would go to my Granma's house to watch Lost in Space,Shin-dig and Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.The Flying Nun,Bewitched.Those shows were great!
I do remember the freedom we had, a bunch of us kids would go to the park and swim in the public swimming pool,play on the slides,play dodgeball, and hop scotch.And have summertime crushes on boys we'd probably never meet in the school year. It was a different time back then, it was ok to let kids be kids.It seems now that we are getting them ready to "excel" at a very early age(Baby Einstein)
Oh yes and we were in a city so we walked everywhere or took the bus.Parents didn't need to be micro managing our after school time.You did your chores and then got out of the house to go play.I never wanted to come inside........it was so much fun outside.Now,you have to pull kids away from the X-box,computer,TV,etc. I kinda miss our primitive days of childhood.With all the advances we've made in technology, it doesn't always seem to be make us more "free",instead more enslaved.

As I recall, there wasn't as much for us to watch then as there is now. No Sesame Street and various other kids' shows on public TV, just Captain Kangaroo, and no Nickolodeon or Disney Channel Kids now can watch all day because there is stuff to watch.

That being said, I remember my Dad being concerned about us watching too many cartoons on Saturday morning, and he made us choose 1 or 2 shows so we could spend time outside.

I also remember watching reruns of Leave It To Beaver when I got home from school.

I also want to mention the trouble that the kids and the dog got into last year with the neighbor, so they did play outside. Betty might be more vigilant because of that.

Sometimes I like to give my 14 year-old the "Back In the Day" talk just to shock her. One TV, black and white with maybe 3 channels. I had 2 little sisters and lots of neighborhood friends, so we'd be gone all day outside. However, we still managed to watch a ton of cartoons and family shows (i.e. Dick Van Dyke) or whatever my dad watched (Dragnet, Combat, westerns) and lots of stuff after school. My mother watched a lot of TV with us, especially movies and Saturday Night at the Movies. We used to go visit an older lady on our block every Saturday night because she had the only color TV and liked the company. I sometimes wonder what my teenage daughter will have to say about all the "old fashioned" stuff she does now. Will texting be passe and fun to remember??

Green acres is the place for me.
Farm livin' is the life for me.
Land spreadin' out so far and wide
Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.

New York is where I'd rather stay.
I get allergic smelling hay.
I just adore a penthouse view.
Dah-ling I love you but give me Park Avenue.

...The chores.
...The stores.
...Fresh air.
...Times Square

You are my wife.
Good bye, city life.
Green Acres we are there.

(We used to memorize all the TV theme songs, so maybe we did watch too much TV!!)

Beverly Hillbillies started on September 26, 1962. I remember the commercial that ran for weeks before the first show with Jed (in black and white) saying they were getting some new kind of dollar. To which Grannie added 'millionth' dollars. I felt I knew the characters and plot before the first show because of the intense ad campaign leading up to it. It had a theme song for the beginning of the show and a different one for the end. Ya'll come back now, ya here? as the charcters waved goodbye to us (and we waved back sometimes. )

Rosebette and I must have lived in the same area. ;o) We only had three channels and news seemed to be on every one of them at the same time - three or more times a day. No 7 or 8 year-old kid wanted to watch that for entertainment. Late nights involved being forced to watch the Lawrence Welk show. I called them the singing mannequins. I think my parents used this show to just get us to go outside to play.

Oh, Drink&Smoke, you suffered through Lawrence Welk, too?!? My Grandma and my Uncle lived way out in the timber and had no TV (or indoor plumbing, but that is a different story!). They adored the Lawrence Welk show, so every Saturday afternoon they would drive in to our house, stay for dinner, and watch the Welk show. Of course, we children had to watch, too. My Grandma was convinced that my three sisters and I could be just as good as the Lennon Sisters, if we would only apply ourselves - nevermind that we couldn't carry a tune in a bucket!

So far, the kids have been watching what I used to watch (Make Room for Daddy, Wagon Train). Would love to see them watching "American Bandstand" on a Saturday or Saturday morning cartoons or Saturday afternoon horror theater!

Most of the time we were playing outside until 10 at nite during the summer or early evening 7pm during the winter. Always lots of tv after school (from 3-5) like "Where the Action Is", "Mickey Mouse Club", "Divorce Court" or local kids tv shows (in our case, "JP Patches", "Captain Puget", "Stan Boreson" or "Brakeman Bill").

jamm54 you forgot Wunda Wunda

Our local TV kids show was sponsored by Pegwell Weiners and hosted by Pegwell Pete. The show was O.K., but the weiners were gawd awful.

@Hapynzap: Oh yeah, I LOVED Wunda Wunda (Ruth Prinz). I was actually on her "Telladventure Tales" in 1964-65? I got to sit in one the "open book chairs" and give my book report on some book I'd read, and later autograph it and donate it to the school library. Can't remember the book at all! But that was so exciting being on tv!

Yes, I remember Howdy Doody!...
I also remember giving performances for our parents and friends. Each child in our family played a musical instrument, and showing the results of our lessons was one of the first thing our parents suggested when weather forced us inside. My sister played the piano, I played violin and my brother played clarinet.

We made up small theatrical plays learned from inner-city youth programs held in city parks during the summer. We were allowed to dress up in our grandparents old clothes and shoes to play the parts.

These old suits and hats were also the favorite attire for the teas (and mudpies) my sister and I arranged. The dolls that shared those soires survived like we did, and smile at us today from an honored place in our respective bedrooms.

Jacks...marbles...hand-clapping games...hopscotch....jump rope....run from the little boy chasing you with hairy caterpillars....

How did you amuse yourselves inside without video games?

I was either drawing or reading or I would spend hours at the library.

I forgot about board games. We used to play a lot of "Life" and would also have marathon "Monopoly" games that went on for days.

Every year we had "hydro" races in the street. We'd make our hydros from apple crates, and paint them up like the Seafair hydros that would race in August on Lake Washington.

Big games were war, hide and seek, mother-may-I, and when my brother could drive, off to the drive-ins (movie) we'd go, usually hiding in the trunk and coming up through the back seat (my brother's cars were always convertibles). Swam at Greenlake all summer long or fished off the T-dock there (a inner city lake that was half a block from our house). Sometimes we'd participate in city-run contests like the Tom Sawyer-Becky Thatcher fishing derby (you had to dress in costume from the period to enter - I won 2nd place one year). There were also 4th of July fireworks on Greenlake, and small hydro races on Memorial and Labor Day weekends.

I used to read out loud to my two younger sisters (Nancy Drew, Laura Ingalls, and many more). I'd reeaaalllly exaggerate the lines and change the wording so we'd all be howling with laughter. We also made up our own form of The Enquirer: we'd eavesdrop on my grandfather's second wife, who was a shameless gossip, and made up a little newspaper. We played a lot of board games and colored, plus we had a big blackboard.

My elementary school was just two doors down from my house and we played there...it wasn't fenced off. The chains of the swings were sometimes wrapped around the top pole..evidence that it was possible to swing all around the top. I didn't, but I would jump out (to fly!) when swinging. We had a merry go round that would bump into the center pole, the point being to hang on tight and be the last one left on it instead of flying off when it hit the center. We had a tall slide, but thought it too slow a ride down its curve unless we were sitting on a sheet of waxed paper. The corkscrew slide always slightly scared me, because it was enclosed. We drew a circle in the dirt to play marbles and kept the ones we won. There was little grass on the playground, because it was worn off from little feet playing. We had little or no supervision...during school recess or on the after school hours. In the evenings (before the street lights came on) we played neighborhood games. We didn't always like each other, but that didn't make a difference when it came to playing the game. There was King of the Mountain, Capture the Flag, and Hide and Seek that took up two blocks or more to play...at dark all would be called in free. There was a hide and seek type game called 'Beckon" where a captured person would be released and able to hide again if given a wave from someone not yet captured.

I love reading all the memories of TV! I was born in l953 and grew up in Northern New Jersey. I actually remember the first time I saw the same "show" on every chanel! It was President Eisenhower giving a speech! Also because of TV I remember John Kennedy running for President and on Halloween before the election I remember kids coming to the door "trick or treating" asking who we
were voting for (I also remember UNICEF "cans" that we filled up with coins) boy these memories are just flooding back.

I remember 1960 to1962 as being wonderful childhood years for me. My parents were divorced in l963. I went to Catholic school and spent an inordinate amount of time at church and also "volunteering" my time at the convent - cleaning for the nuns! Mad Men brings back many good memories I haven't thought about in years - maybe that's why I relate to it so well!

In my neighborhood (Passaic, NJ) every summer day was an adventure - it was not unusual for kids to be outside for the entire day without communicating with their parents. There was an old abandoned incinerator in my town where people used to bring their trash. This was like a magnet for kids to explore - of course we weren't supposed to be in there - but it was the scariest place that everyone loved to explore - it was said that a horror film was made there - this was probably a rumor. The only time I can remember a parent playing with my sister and me was when my mother took us sleigh riding - my mother was only 21 when she had me so she was a very young mother, but I guess she so busy with housework she either did not have the time or even the interest in playing. I also remember never having anything explained to me - it was always "you'll understand more when you're grown up". This even applied to my parents' divorce.

Anyway, I tried very hard to give my daughter an adventurous childhood and I think it was. She had a lot of freedom to roam in our neighborhood of Verona, NJ. Going to the town park and running around on the golf course behind our house! (not exactly city living) Thanks for listening - I know I'm just rambling on and on...

I love reading all the memories of TV! I was born in l953 and grew up in Northern New Jersey. I actually remember the first time I saw the same "show" on every chanel! It was President Eisenhower giving a speech! Also because of TV I remember John Kennedy running for President and on Halloween before the election I remember kids coming to the door "trick or treating" asking who we
were voting for (I also remember UNICEF "cans" that we filled up with coins) boy these memories are just flooding back.

I remember 1960 to1962 as being wonderful childhood years for me. My parents were divorced in l963. I went to Catholic school and spent an inordinate amount of time at church and also "volunteering" my time at the convent - cleaning for the nuns! Mad Men brings back many good memories I haven't thought about in years - maybe that's why I relate to it so well!

In my neighborhood (Passaic, NJ) every summer day was an adventure - it was not unusual for kids to be outside for the entire day without communicating with their parents. There was an old abandoned incinerator in my town where people used to bring their trash. This was like a magnet for kids to explore - of course we weren't supposed to be in there - but it was the scariest place that everyone loved to explore - it was said that a horror film was made there - this was probably a rumor. The only time I can remember a parent playing with my sister and me was when my mother took us sleigh riding - my mother was only 21 when she had me so she was a very young mother, but I guess she so busy with housework she either did not have the time or even the interest in playing. I also remember never having anything explained to me - it was always "you'll understand more when you're grown up". This even applied to my parents' divorce.

Anyway, I tried very hard to give my daughter an adventurous childhood and I think it was. She had a lot of freedom to roam in our neighborhood of Verona, NJ. Going to the town park and running around on the golf course behind our house! (not exactly city living) Thanks for listening - I know I'm just rambling on and on...

Zerelda, there is something about this blog that makes us all have something in common sooner or later. Loved your story about the Lawrence Welk Show. LOL Cheers to you and all of us that suffered through the "un-reality" shows of the 60's!

The intelligent comments left on this blog are a reflection on the intelligence of Mad Men, a brilliant show that challenges one's imagination and does not just feed it pablum like most current TV. Regarding the reminscences on old TV, I grew up in Manhattan in the 1950s and 60s ---older than the Draper kids and did consume alot of television, becoming passionate about a number of shows, some mentioned, like Howdy Doody, Sandy Becker, (anyone remember Ding Dong School), Pinky Lee, I Remember Mama, Winky Dink, Gerald McBoing Boing, Twilight Zone, Your Hit Parade, General Electric Theatre, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Make Room for Daddy, the list goes on. Alot of these shows can be found on YouTube, I was thrilled to see Pinky Lee and Miss Frances there. Part of the cultural milieu that bonds Americans together is our prior shared experiences of these TV shows which we all shared depending on our ages -- impossible in a time of 200 channels and many other distractions. Watching Mad Men, I realize there was the shared experience of products and ads that was also unifying. I still have so many old commercials and jingles stuck in my head, the magic of the psychological astuteness of the ad profession starting in the 50s. I think that part of the reason that Betty's kids do watch so much TV is that she is depressed and not very motivated to be a hands-on mom, the way many frustrated women were then. I don't recall much play on my mother's part either... we played in the street and came home, ate, did homework, watched TV --- so different than today.

I was raised a couch potato and avid TV watcher. I think it all started with my mom - she spent most of her childhood in Alaska during the '60s (my grandfather was a marine biologist) and they only had 2 TV channels that were on for a few hours a day. When she moved down to the lower 48 as a teenager and realized what more TV had to offer outside of the Arctic, she became a TV fanatic.

In my family our after-dinner routine was always a couple of hours in the living room, crowded around the TV as a family. We had to agree as a family what we were going to watch and we watched it all together (no hiding in your room). I loved it. We learned how to compromise. We laughed together and discussed what we were watching. When TV was especially bad we might break out the board games or play a rousing game of dodgeball with our rolled-up socks. To me prime-time television means family time, not rotting my brain.

One of the things that tv brought to me were the movies. My mom made a big deal of the movies, so I was pretty much spoon-fed movies, and got a lot of my ideas (many idealistic and unrealistic) about life from the movies.

Fortunately, I feel, I was never shielded or had any movies censored for me, so I saw quite a lot, some probably over my head. No regrets, though. Movies levelled the playing ground of life in my head. What I didn't have or couldn't imagine, the movies showed me what was out there: different lives, different people, different situations.

Happy53: Man, I am so glad you brought up the "cleaning for the nuns" story. I think I went into some detail on another thread but if you weren't there it's hard to understand. What we did, was go to the school a few weeks before school was to start and we'd help the nuns clean and prepare for the new school year. For our help, we were given a nice new Holy Card!

Do you also remember buyng "pagan babies?" Now that I think about that, it's pretty awful.

Drink&Smoke and zerelda...suffering through Lawrence Welk...I'm a member of your club there. I used to ask my dad why the man had such a strong accent when he was always talking about being born and raised in North Dakota...he did not have an answer and I've never understood why the accent...anybody know why that was?
I agree, D&S...it did seem like a ploy parents used (forcing us to watch) to get us kids to go out to play! lol
But,l I will admit that I liked the Lennon Sisters--I thought Janet (the youngest) was so cute. I wanted a ponytail like hers and (brace yourselves...) I got a dress sock of my dad's and filled it with other socks to make a ponytail and actually pinned it up on the back of my head and went around like that!!! Can anybody top that for stupid kid crap???!!!

I like the imagination that went in to creating that ponytail, scfan, what a riot! It's "wunnerful, wunnerful"! I liked Lawrence Welk for the bubbles, that's what I remember. And for the record, I had a great uncles and aunts who sounded exactly like Lawrence Welk. In fact, alot of my older relatives from Minnesota/North Dakota, around LW's age, sounded exactly like him! It's the Scandanavian origins, I guess.

Let's talk about our mother's weapons of choice.

My mother would rip off the rubber band and ball from those wooden paddles and that's what she'd use -- IF she could catch us!

SCFan: LOVE the ponytail story. You're cracking me up!

Hmmmmmm...thanks for the insight, jamm! An answer to my musings about ol' Lawrence after all this time. lol
I wish you'd re-tell that funny story about you and your brother (the same age difference as me and my bro. as I recall) and the sodapop can"grenades"! That was soooo funny and I think everyone here (the "newbies"-- I say affectionately) would love reading about it.

My mom would grab a fly swatter, wooden spoon, whatever was handy...but, a lot of times we'd outrun her! I remember her yelling "Don't you run from me!" (we'd say to each other: "Yeah, sure let's just stand here nice and still and get beat!" (Bill Cosby: ..."the beatings will now commence!")
Lest this start another go-round of "child molestation" posts like a few months ago...there were never "beatings" of my bro. or me...just quick get-your-attention swats. I bet Laurie B.'s history was the same...I know jamm's was.

Oh, you mean our war games where my brother would get up on the roof of the garage and nail me in the head with a fastball pitch of the ol' pop can loaded with rocks (the grenade), screaming "You're dead! You're dead! I got you!"? I would infuriate him by getting up, rather than lying down "dead". If I got up, I usally got another one in the head! I WAS disobedient! Of course, I never got to wear the camouflage helmet, I had to go bare headed (can we guess why?).

My mother gave up spanking me (with her hand), because I would plaster both my hands to my butt, and squirm around, so she wouldn't be able to pry my hands off me. She gave up after a few times of that (I was 5), usually laughing. I was never spanked again after that. Then, it was "young lady"! I was more easily "shamed".

My specialties were drawing on the underside of the coffe tables, and my brother's books; eating the middle out of slices of bread and hanging them on door knobs; hiding in the dryer and in the cupboards; and my favorite, standing on doorknobs and swinging back and forth on the doors.

You know, I never thought about it, but my brother got all the equipment (the helmet, the machine gun, the grenades) and I got......nothing! Somehow, I was the one always being hunted down. I must have been the "escaped prisoner", never the hunter. Jeesh, I was such a naive, trusting soul. My brother would come up with the "games", and I'd go along with it. I was such a sap!

Sheesh, jamm - Your brother was vicious! The worst my younger brother ever did to me was sic the dog on my favorite Barbie doll and the dog ate the doll's hand off (she was thereafter known as "amputee Barbie").

Well, I think my brother obviously knew he had a "built-in" sap for a sister - good to be used in any manner he saw fit! And I worshipped my brother! Why, why, why???

One my most crushing childhood "moments" is when he wouldn't let me take a bath with him anymore!! Don't ask me why we double-teamed on the baths - it sounds weird now, but I was about 4 when he put a stop to it. And then he didn't want to share a bedroom with me anymore either (we had twin beds). I was doubly crushed. LOL

Yes, jamm, having the exact same deal as a kid (4 years between me and my older bro.) I can attest to the fact that indeed the worse they treated us the more we'd idolize them!!! How nuts is that!?
You sound like you were a "monkey" like me as a kid (what my dad called me when he'd go out in our back yard to track me down if I ignored my parents' calls to "come in this house this instant before the mosquitos eat you alive")--- I was usually up in a tree! and there was one huge old elm I wore the bark off of from climbing it so much.

hanna...big brothers are like that! (vicious) But.... let any other kid pick on their "little sister" and that unfortunate sould would be flattened for sure, right jamm?

"sould"??? you all know I meant "soul" lol

SCfan: I only have a younger, slightly irritating brother, so I wouldn't know about the mean big brother thing. I did know how to get him in trouble when he bugged me (or beheaded my Ken doll) though - just the right combo of tears, a slightly whimpery cry, and a pathetic "he hit me" story did it every time. I know, it's passive aggressive and evil. ;)

I was a monkey, too, always climbing up trees, into things or following my brother around. Heck, I didn't know how to swim, but I'd dog paddle out to the dock at Greenlake just to follow my brother.

Scfan, your parents liked the Lawrence Welk Show too? LOL ;o) Do you think there is enough of us out there to start a support group? I can still hear him "and a 1 uh, and a 2 uh, and a (orchestra plays)". Jamm54, darling can you help us all to see the light? Cheers.

Yes, Drink&Smoke, I had to suffer through that torture as well...and most certainly, all us victims need therapy now ('support group") for the damage it did to our psyches lol ...
remember Norma Zimmer, "The Champagne Lady"?? oh lord.....

Oh gosh. Winky Dink. Remember, you could send in for the plastic film to put over your TV screen & draw the figures they showed on TV? One time, I neglected to put the film on & just drew with crayons on the TV! Trouble....
I went to a live show with Howdy Doody & Buffalo Bob & actually got sprayed with Clarabell's seltzer bottle as he ran down the aisle.

I forgot about the "Champagne Lady"!! Wunnerful, wunnerful!! LOL It was pretty slow except for the bubbles! The Lawrence Welk Post-Traumatic Viewing Recovery Center - sounds good to me!

Remember on Lawrence Welk when the orchestra would play the dance music, and the singers and Lawrence would go down and dance with the audience members? My Grandma thought that proved L.W. was just the nicest man ever. Her greatest dream was to go to Hollywood and dance with Lawrence Welk on his show. She and my mother would spend a great deal of time discussing how many crinolines the Champagne Lady was wearing!

Speaking of crinolines, remember how they had to be washed and starched so the ruffles would not go flat? Or was that just my mom?

Hello everyone,

A few little things I remember about Lawrence Welk:

My grandmother, my dad's mom, would fall asleep watching Lawrence Welk and if you dared to change the channel she would wake up and yell at you to not change the station.

My other grandmother, my mother's mom, loved to watch the Lawrence Welk show reruns while she was well into her eighties here in SW Florida. She passed away 2 years ago.

When I lived in San Diego, hub and I would often pass the exit off of the 15 where he had his resort. I think the road was called Champagne Blvd. It was just north of Escondido. I wonder if he ever lived there?

Thanks ladies, for all the Lawrence Welk trivia! ;o)Wow, I forgot all those things. Jamm54, zerelda and jerseygirl can decorate The Lawrence Welk Post-Traumatic Viewing Recovery Center. No fighting over the job of Champagne Lady, bubble machine engineer or choreographer. The best part of the clinic will be the daily trip to the champagne fountain. We might make it through with some bubbly scfan! Cheers ;o)

D&S....."hic".........

Drink&Smoke,

I love your screen name and picture- very cool.

You can still get your fix of Lawrence Welk reruns on your local PBS station on early Saturday nights usually......if you dare........

Hyperboliz: don't forget the unforgettable Soupy Sales!

Thanks for bringing back fun memories -- I too amf from the same area you grew up in...and you had to remember Soupy Sales.

Somebody my father detested. He'd flip out when me and bro were watching that show: "Are you both still watching that JUNK?!" hehe

I remember Wonderama, another local show called The Funny Company, Speed Racer, Pixanne, Kukla, Fran And Ollie and a whole slew of others.

Does anyone remember Soupy Sales and Fang? He was one of my favorites along with Captain Kangaroo, Shari Lewis & Lambchop, Kukla Fran & Ollie, and the "new" Flinstones and Rocky & Bullwinkle - just loved them!

MadMenSuze: duh, I just noticed you mention Soupy Sales.....wasn't he just hysterical? I loved him! Alot it would go over my head (his double entendres), but it was a riot.

I had Lennon Sister paper dolls and had to ask who they were. I wasn't in Lawrence Welk country, but he still reruns here, so I have now caught up. I remember Sing A Long With Mitch, though. Not the same, I know. I remember walking down a sidewalk after dark (alone, can you imagine?) and hearing people singing through the open front doors as they sat in their front rooms, watching the bouncing ball. And I kept saying I had Sparky crayons...it was Winky Dink. Thanks for reminding me!

Thank you, jerseygirl for the compliment. ;o) Cheers!

Jamm54: Shari Lewis, Lambchop, and HUSHPUPPY!! I loved him, wasn't Hushpuppy kind of the sarcastic one? Or do I have them mixed up?

I grew up in the NYC metro area (Jersey City). All of the tv stations were from NYC.

So I do remember Soupy Sales. Used to laugh at White Fang and Black Claw. Also loved the picture on the wall of the old lady (or old man) that used to make raspberry noises at Soupy.

I remember Wonderama. The kids next door went to be in the audience of that show and I remember feeling soooo jealous of them. NYC was only a PATH train ride away.

I also remember Sonny Fox, Pixanne (hated her), Fireball XL5, and Romper Room (with Miss Louise- she never called my name but I still hoped she would.)

I also remember the teachers setting up a huge tv in the auditorium of our school and we would watch the space launches. I only remember the Gemini and Apollo stuff. I was too young to remember the Mercury launches.

I was a huge Doris Day fan, but another particular favorite from TV was Dinah Shore. Loved her gowns and her singing. "See the USA, from your CHEVROLET, America is asking you to call, See the USA, from your CHEVROLET, America's the greatest land of all!"

@LaurieB: yes, I think Hushpuppy was the aggressive one and Lambchop was the passive, innocent one.

jamm54: that was classic kid's tv at it's best.

I heard that his kids are quite accomplished, as well -- one is a musician and I think the other one's an actor.

Nobody remembers what happened when they pushed the button on the wall that said "DO NOT TOUCH"?

I also remember the Soupy Sales trading cards. Came complete with the "Words of Wisdom" on them ("do unto others and then cut out"; "tis better to receive...especially if it is a punch in the nose") and I also remember the live Stridex commercials he used to do on air.

Well, being a complete stubborn kid, I would stay up late in the early 60's and watch "The Tonight Show" first with Jack Paar, then Johnny Carson, and the Steve Allen Show late at night (after 11), all of whom I loved. Especially Steve Allen with Don Knotts, Louis Nye, and Tom Poston. They were a crack-up!

I loved the early Tonight Shows! Remember how they always wore evening clothes? Tuxedos and dinner jackets and cocktail dresses and evening gowns. Those little hats with feathers and little veils.

I still remember Jack Paar walking off his show over the water closet joke. How incredibly tame that joke is now. Getting to watch the Tonight Show was a peek into the mysterious and alluring world of adults. Black and white and coming into our house late at night from New York City. Didn't matter what they said, it was adults talking to adults. My sisters and I were fascinated!

I remember the water-closet joke walk-off. It is "tame" by today's standards. I loved Carson when he was still in NYC - it was sophisticated, and so was the humor. Always loved it when he had Truman Capote on.

I was quite fond of Captain Kangeroo and his guests. He said once, years later, that speaking slowly and being articulate was the key to children's shows and that many of the newer shows was geared much faster than he thought they should be. He may have also mentioned repetitions, since every thing was repeated so much on his show. The steam shovel, Alice at the Palace, Bunny Rabbit hi jinx. We didn't have a kitchen TV back then, so we listened to the radio while eating breakfast and lunch. The Breakfast Club, Arthur Godfrey (was he the one who mentioned 'the clock on the wall"? ). During lunch we listened to Paul Harvey. I first heard about JFK's shooting on our kitchen radio while eating lunch.

Didn't Caption Kangaroo also have Magic Drawing Board? I hope I have the right show. ;o) I really thought that round stick-looking guy was cool.

Anybody remember the Joey Bishop "summer replacement" that he used to do for the Tonight Show?

It was a pisser -- he used to go through the audience to see who had a special talent. Somebody usually won some sort of give away after they performed whatever it was.

...and there was plenty of cool late night TV during the summer -- I remember "Reel Camp" -- came on during the very wee hours on WNEW. They'd show a bunch of old shorts, probably what they used to show in movie theateres back in the late 30s and early 40s.

Does anybody remember twenty five cent movies? You got a cartoon or two and a double feature.

When monster and horror movies came out, we were not allowed to see them. I snuck out to see the Beast of 20,000 Fathoms. Soon the Japanese monster movies followed, like Godzilla, Rodan, etc. You would see the actors' lips move, then the dubbed dialog came about 10 seconds later.

Then a lot of movies with the same plot: due to radioactivity, things become strangely large or menacing. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and Night of the Lepus,which was about killer rabbits! Scary.

I think this topped out when 3D glasses were introduced for 13 Ghosts. You couldn't see the ghosts unless you had the 3 D glasses, which were a cardboard pair of "glasses" with red cellophane in one eye and blue in the other. Very hi tech!

There were tons of sci fi/suspense movies about killer fauna: "Bug", "Empire of the Ants," "Jaws", 'Ssssssstttt...", "Cujo", to name a few.

What great memories! I swear I was born with a TV antenna on my head!
I was too young to remember Howdy Doody. But, Captain Kangaroo...I loved that show.
Also, Davey and Goliath. I can still hear Goliath saying: DAAAAvey in that dog voice!
The Bullwinkle cartoons, esp. Fractured Fairy Tales. Oh, I could go on and on...

We had a black and white set for most of my childhood. I remember the first time I saw The Wizard of Oz (a Thanksgiving night tradition) on a color set. When Dorothy landed in Oz I was blown away by the color!!
Does anyone remember Danny Kaye doing the intro. to the Wizard?

I grew up "up the river" from Manhattan, I remember the first time my parents took us to New York City. We stayed overnight in a hotel, and I couldn't believe TV was on all night!!!
I wanted to live in NYC just for the TV!!

And, yes, I too was tortured by The Lawernce Welk Show! (with deepest apologies to any Maddicts affiliated with the show). Every Sat. evening. I remember thinking how amazing it was that Bobby (of Bobby and Cissy fame) had been a Mouseketeer!!
I loved The Mickey Mouse Club. I was always a frustrated Mouseketeer!!

Another favorite tradition was Lassie and The Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights.

OK, that's enough....

Hi gang! flowerpower jogged my sweet memories of going to the Drive In movies!!
There were so many when I was young. The best ones had the playgrounds.
My parents would pile us up in the station wagon in our jammies with our pillows and blankets. My brother, sisters and I would always fall asleep after the first movie.
I think it was planned that way...the first movie was usually for kids, the second, more adult oriented. Just so there is no confusion...not adult by today's standards!!!
And who can forget the intermission ads?! Dancing hot dogs, ice creams, and the snack bar countdown until the next movie.
I am lucky enough to have a Drive In in a nearby town. I was able to take my son to see what is now a piece of American history!!

60sChild: Want torture?

Five words:

Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour.

I'll see your Lawrence Welk and raise ya one Ted Mack's. hehe

The drive in by us had a playground -- it was also located right next to a main highway -- if you drove past slowly enough, you got to see an entire scene.

That drive in is long gone -- there's now an office complex and a hotel there. That drive in shut its doors somewhere in 1977.

And I remember this intermission ad: "Fight Pay TV." This was in the early Seventies and nobody knew what the hell that really meant. hehe

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