Anybody still remember Ma and Pa Kettle and Hi Ho Silver and away? The Lone Ranger, thanks to Rossini’s classic overture. How about Francis the talking mule, just a couple years ago, eh, and those stars in the early days like Victor Mature, Andy Divine, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Dale Evans and a show on TV called Topper. By the way, does anybody still remember the Brooklyn Dodgers. With rabbit ears we could sometimes even pull in Toast of the Town, with Ed Sullivan, a really early black and white TV show stopper.
There was no video tape, most shows had to be broadcast live. If one could pull in four channels, people would say wow! You needed aerials on top of your roofs, without them, how could modern society survive. Today, with iPhones, it’s hard to figure out how. On radio, we loved Arthur Godfrey, ‘How are ya, how are ya.’
There was Eve Arden in Our Miss Brooks, pulled in often on a five tube Philco. There was the Bob Hope Show and William Bendix in The Life of Riley. There were all those sponsors, from GE to Lipton Tea. What a nugget it is finding some of those great shows from the silver screen to TV now on DVD.