Most people went to bed after Johnny Carson? Then the tv went to color bars, and then snow. Occasionally a late night movie. No Internet, no cell phones, no
Xboxes. No 24 hour society. Everything was closed on holidays. Schools actually taught math, English, biology, history without a political agenda. You could draw guns, and war scenes on paper without being suspended, and sent to a shrink. Kids actually went outside to play.

You can't draw tanks and war scenes on paper in school anymore? I woulda been screwed during Desert Storm as a fifth grader.

I go days without turning on my TV and spend days at a time off the internet. I find that I'm a much happier and productive person.

Way too much negativey and BS on both of those idiot boxes.

I remember all these things and also a lot of things that were way worse back in the day.

I remember thinking that if I was up late enough to have seen ALL of Johnny Carson - back when he was 90 minutes - and started watching Tom Snyder on "Tomorrow," I was up WAY TOO LATE and mom BETTER NOT STINKING FIND OUT ABOUT IT.

And I remember getting up early enough on Saturday mornings to catch the VERY FIRST MINUTE of the Bugs Bunny/Road Runner show on CBS - which was also 90 minutes long back then.

Important stuff.

:)

Remember that for a good number of years that Channel 4 would not show Saturday Night Live when it first started?

I remember reading about "the best show you've never seen".


Also remember staying up very late to watch the Midnight Special.

And in those days prior to the Internet, we wouldn't have had OKCTalk to learn about and discuss the goings-on in town. I, for one, enjoy the modern conveniences. I'm sure there is bad along with the good, but I find myself generally in the camp of "the world generally moves in a positive direction."

There is a similar nostalgia oriented thread here.

http://www.okctalk.com/nostalgia-memories/18606-things-your-kids-will-never-know-about.html

Peanut Allergies . . . 1%
Threat of Nuclear Holocaust (c/o The Soviet Union and/or China) . . . 50%.
"Duck and Cover": Total B.S. (yet mandatory)

You can't draw tanks and war scenes on paper in school anymore? I woulda
been screwed during Desert Storm as a fifth grader.
A kid got suspended a couple of months ago, maybe more recent, for
using hand like a gun and yelling bang. Some schools have suspended
kids for drawing guns or biting a Pop Tart into the shape of a gun.

The NRA backs Florida bill preventing student punishment for playing with
toy guns at school. (http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/02/13/the_nra_backs_florida_bill_preventing_student_puni shment_for_playing_with.html)

What they are trying to do is block out all forms of violence and anything related to violence in the classroom. Just like many things in this world you can shield a child from it for only so long until they discover it on their own. When they discover it on their own they learn from all the wrong sources.

The best way to prevent violence or any wrong for that matter is to educate a child on proper behavior. You don't ban and block violence you give people better resources and coping skills. You teach them not to get upset of every little trivial thing. You teach them to pick their battles. When it comes to fighting a battle you teach them to do it with civilized means. When you do have to result to violence you use only the force that is necessary to stop violence against yourself and others.

Waking up early enough in the morning to catch Bill Hare doing farm & market report on KOCO channel 5.

I miss those days, I wonder what folk will miss 50 years from now.

Waking up early enough in the morning to catch Bill Hare doing farm & market report on KOCO channel 5.

I remember him, too, but he did the report on KWTV-9, not KOCO. He did the show jointly for quite some time with a gentleman named Wayne Liles, and through the seventies the "Evergreen Mills Farm Report" immediately preceded "Mr. Magoo" cartoons at 7AM, followed by Ch 9's very ahead-of-the-curve shot at a local morning show called "The Early Beat," hosted by Lola Hall, Bill Hare, and (mostly) Tom Mahoney. Mahoney, who was a meteorologist, left OKC to go back to his home state of Wisconsin and to work for a station there from which - just in case you don't feel quite old enough this morning - he just retired about two or three weeks ago. "The Early Beat" was Ch 9's lead-in to CBS' morning run of "Captain Kangaroo."

I remember him, too, but he did the report on KWTV-9, not KOCO. He did the show jointly for quite some time with a gentleman named Wayne Liles, and through the seventies the "Evergreen Mills Farm Report" immediately preceded "Mr. Magoo" cartoons at 7AM, followed by Ch 9's very ahead-of-the-curve shot at a local morning show called "The Early Beat," hosted by Lola Hall, Bill Hare, and (mostly) Tom Mahoney. Mahoney, who was a meteorologist, left OKC to go back to his home state of Wisconsin and to work for a station there from which - just in case you don't feel quite old enough this morning - he just retired about two or three weeks ago. "The Early Beat" was Ch 9's lead-in to CBS' morning run of "Captain Kangaroo."

Yes Sooner ,... Thanks for the memory refresh ... Channel 9. And Lola Hall too. Speaking of which, remember weatherman David Grant, who was Gary England's predecessor?

Yes Sooner ,... Thanks for the memory refresh ... Channel 9. And Lola Hall too. Speaking of which, remember weatherman David Grant, who was Gary England's predecessor?

Nope, I think Grant was just before my time. I remember Gary England because he went to KWTV right after he left KTOK-AM 1000 as their chief meteorologist (yes, back in that era, some radio stations did have their own weathermen). I also remember Jim Williams over at nee-WKY-TV 4, and remember his "chalk" looked for all the world like an Elmer's glue bottle, while Gary England and his guys used a big square chunk of actual chalk to draw on their big, rotating weatherboards, and hand-lettered their forecasts. Fred Norman, a bit later in the 70's, was actually the "anti-hype" guy of that era and was always needling England who had the reputation for being a harem-scarem type back then. When KOCO got the first color radar in the market, they were showing it off at Penn Square (back in its pre-enclosed days!), and Norman told me that once WKY got wind of their getting a color radar they bought some strange color retrofit system and, in his words, "it **** near blew up their whole radar." He was a curmudgeon, to be sure, and would never survive in today's looks-driven environment, but he was an old-school meteorologist and was really, really good. He got fired from KOCO for making some off-handed remark about their hiring practices, but landed at a station in Colorado if memory serves - and actually ended up back here for a brief time...

One last bit of memories I have about KOCO weather in that era wouldn't even be relevant in this era of 24-hour broadcasting was what Norman called their "Night Weather Watch." It was really simple - if there was a risk for severe weather overnight, after normal broadcasting hours, they'd stay on the air, and switch to a simple continuous feed of their radar with no audio. If anything was threatening - and I think it was limited to the greater metro area - he'd promise that "we'll play an alarm loud enough to wake the dead" so you'd wake up and be advised of what was going on, but until that time, "you can just go to bed, just turn your volume up." Thought the idea was pretty darned clever for its simplicity.

Yes and also on Sunday nights after the newscast on Channel 4, Star Trek TNG would come on!


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I'm from SEOK, so we got Tulsa stations. "Hower, Woods, and Z(abriskie)"...Woods was the meteorologist who drew a cartoon caricature named "Gusty". Hower and Woods both died in 2012 in their mid- to late 80s. Mazeppa Pompazoidi and Teddy Jack Eddy...(Sartain and Busey)

When I'd get up on Saturday mornings to get a jump on those violent Warner Bros. cartoons, likely as not, the 'test pattern' was still on the screen, and I think some guy named Gene did the farm and market reports...still don't know what barrows and gilts are.

What they are trying to do is block out all forms of violence and anything
related to violence in the classroom.
And classroom/school violence still escalates.

I'm from SEOK, so we got Tulsa stations. "Hower, Woods, and Z(abriskie)"...Woods was the meteorologist who drew a cartoon caricature named "Gusty". Hower and Woods both died in 2012 in their mid- to late 80s. Mazeppa Pompazoidi and Teddy Jack Eddy...(Sartain and Busey)

When I'd get up on Saturday mornings to get a jump on those violent Warner Bros. cartoons, likely as not, the 'test pattern' was still on the screen, and I think some guy named Gene did the farm and market reports...still don't know what barrows and gilts are.

I spent a lot of time at Eufaula as a kid in the late 60s/70s and we got Tulsa stations as well. I remember a guy I believe his name was Uncle Zeb on Saturday morn show for kids.

Barrows and gilts. And don't forget canners and cutters...

Yes Sooner ,... Thanks for the memory refresh ... Channel 9. And Lola Hall too. Speaking of which, remember weatherman David Grant, who was Gary England's predecessor?

You're exactly right. David Grant was right before Gary England. He was a very nice man who had a passion for teaching weather to kids and held a "Summer Weather Camp" for kids for several years at the old Science & Arts Foundation building on the grounds of the state fair (where the planetarium was).

I spent a lot of time at Eufaula as a kid in the late 60s/70s and we got Tulsa stations as well. I remember a guy I believe his name was Uncle Zeb on Saturday morn show for kids.

Carl "Uncle Zeb" Bartholomew, and I think it was on daily around 3:30 (the old buffer zone between soaps and news). "I'll be looking for ya!" I think he died a few years ago.

Grew up in Ponca City. Had Tulsa, OKC, and Wichita Stations. Got the Tulsa World for print news and watched KOCO for airwave news. Fred Norman is my first recollected weatherman.

Anyone remember Jack Paar or Howdy Doody?

I met "Buffalo Bob" at Penn Square Mall a few years ago. Received an autographed picture from him. I was a grown man, but it was still thrilling to me!

And classroom/school violence still escalates.


No it doesn't.

Violent crimes are way, way down across the board. 50-60 year lows actually. Murder is down by half in just the last 20 years.

That we would be sitting around a checker table talking about "back in the good ol' days".

That we would be sitting around a checker table talking about "back in the good ol' days".

I've wondered if I have been reduced to that. Oh! Please excuse me. I need to recuse myself from this discussion in order to bark at young people crossing my lawn.

Anyone remember Jack Paar or Howdy Doody?

Of course I do. I was never a big fan of Jack Paar but always watched Howdy with Buffalo Bob, Clarabell, and Princess Summerfall Winterspring.

What's a TV?

Typical Saturday Morning (c. 1959, Boulder, Colorado): Black and white test pattern featuring an Indian in a feathered headdress against a strange, technolooking background . . . The National Anthem . . . The Farm Report . . . Captain Kangaroo . . . Heckle and Jeckle . . . Fury . . . Some other cartoon show . . . Then out to play and cause mischief for the rest of the day.

Not too different from 1974 Wichita, KS I must say.

http://www.mediacollege.com/video/test-patterns/television/indianhead640x480.gif

I think we had six channels to pick from: The three major networks, the local PBS station and a couple of really fuzzy UHF channels. The UHF stations were the "bush league" TV of the day, weren't they? Compared to the VHF channels? I'm old, I forget. In retrospect, early American TV was a lot like the BBC in terms of viewing choice . . . wasn't it? Some Saturdays, I'd go down to the local drugstore or whatever, with Dad, where he would take his cigar boxes of vacuum tubes to test them to see why our viewing pleasure was being messed with on account of bad tubes.

We also had rabbit ears and I vaguely remember an outside antenna, as well. It never worked right either. Having rabbit ears made it difficult to shop for hats that fit correctly.

Let's not forget that at the end of each broadcast day...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq8igGHtuSc

I don't remember them having jets like that when I was a kid.
I think they just replayed The National Anthem with a picture of the flag.
I'm not sure that the flag was even waving.

I don't remember them having jets like that when I was a kid.
I think they just replayed The National Anthem with a picture of the flag.
I'm not sure that the flag was even waving.

Yep, I remember that, too. I also remember that some of the stations were doing the John Wayne version as well.

Danny Williams and Mid-South Rasslin on Saturday nights after the news "...and watch out for flying chairs!"

Waking up feeling great and not having a shoebox full of daily meds.

Waking up feeling great and not having a shoebox full of daily meds.

This reminded me of my grandmother. Ardently opposed to taking medication of just about any kind, other than Milk of Magnesia (and no, I'm not kidding), she had to go to the hospital for something...when they did her backgrounder and asked her what meds she took, she said "nothing," and they didn't believe her. "No, hon, we mean what medications do you take daily?"

"Nothing."

"You don't take any kind of medicine?"

"No, nothing."

They wrote "psych" on her chart. They just didn't believe anyone could possibly exist into that stage of life without some kind of daily medicine - but she did.

And this was a lady who for years smoked packs of cigarettes per day until the price went up when she restocked, and it so incensed her that she quit - cold turkey - that day and never touched another one. My mom unloaded cartons of untouched cigs from her home years and years later. She snacked on mayonnaise, ice cream, and garlic for snacks, and drank the strongest coffee you'd ever see.

She lived into her eighties when the after effects of heat stroke from working outside a bit too much in the Oklahoma summer caught up with her. (Not a direct cause, mind you, very much a downstream effect, but that was the catalyst). Those last few months were the only times she ever took much of any medication.

Sorry about your Mom Dave. I believe some families genetic inheritance just make for a longer life. My Grandparents were long lived and my parents are in their mid to late 80's. Genetic crapshoot.

Sorry about your Mom Dave. I believe some families genetic inheritance just make for a longer life. My Grandparents were long lived and my parents are in their mid to late 80's. Genetic crapshoot.

Thanks, Mel - my grandmother was one of those incredibly tough types of people who were tough, I think, because they didn't know they were tough. They just lived. And worked. And did what they had to do. i think - no, make that know - that generation was infinitely tougher than mine in general or me in particular.

I remember lots of fun Saturday mornings as a kid with her and my mom just running errands. Good times. Fortunately, mom is still in really good health overall, and tough as nails :)