When TV Was New

It’s Showtime, Folks—Almost

I THREW OFF the bedsheet at 6 a.m. and headed outside. I hadn’t slept a wink. It was June 1, 1953, and the first television in our middle-class neighborhood was about to be installed in our living room!

At 10 a.m., our neighbors began moseying in and out our front door. Several milled around the porch while waiting.

Soon, three workmen arrived in a battered blue truck with several long boxes and a square box in the back. My friends and I followed the workmen and the square box into the house.

As they lifted the TV out, they told us there wouldn’t be anything to see for several hours. My friends fled outside to find more interesting things to do, but I was so crestfallen that I couldn’t move.

Daddy later told me it took about three hours to get the antenna up on the house, anchored and hooked up to the television.

People started gathering in the living room, and Daddy turned on the set. The technician worked feverishly until he got a picture—well, a bit of a picture, if you used your imagination.

The new term we learned was “snow,” which meant the gray, white and black dots dancing all over the screen. Despite the fuzzy picture, I was in love with the wonder of sitting at home and watching snow.

The next day, we watched the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on an incredibly snowy screen while straining to hear the words over the terrible static. We didn’t mind. We were all happy to be together. I remember feeling sorry for the queen, since she had only a crown and we had a television.

— By Missy Estes, Evening Shade, Arkansas

Omaha Had WOW Factor

I’M NOT SURE what my teachers thought at the time, but in the mid-1950s, I had to be excused from class three times in less than a month so I could appear on television.

Omaha’s WOW-TV often featured locally produced shows, and I appeared on an afternoon talent show singing the song Come to the Fair. I was a winner in the first day’s competition, which meant I had to return Friday to compete against the other daily winners.

Two weeks later, my family was featured on the station’s Farm Family of the Week program. The show’s representative came to our farm along with a photographer. I especially remember the farm truck he had with two radiators.

Johnny Carson got his start in TV at WOW. We watched his show when he had billboards advertising for sponsors.

— By Iris Doksansky, Fremont, Nebraska