Chapter 5, Part 2
My sister and I had favorite TV shows. There was Serial Theater, which consisted of episodes of old movie serials, a different one each day. Flash Gordon was a sci-fi space serial; Tim Tyler’s Luck took place in a jungle, with the Jungle Cruiser; Gene Autry combined westerns, mystery and sci-fi; and a serial about the navy at war with a nurse named Mercedes. We also watched lots of Westerns on early TV: we liked Crash, Dusty and Alibi, and Hopalong Cassidy. Channel 13 in those days was a kid’s channel, all old cartoons and westerns from the movies. After school we watched original made-for-TV programs like Howdy Doody with Clarabel the Clown, a nasty creature, and Buffalo Bob – I was envious of the kids who got to sit in the "Peanut Gallery" and be on the show. Kukla, Fran and Ollie, a puppet show, was a favorite. My friends and I liked a kids game show called "Sense or Nonsense" and we desperately wanted to be contestants. Later, our favorites were the space themed shows like Tom Corbett Space Cadet and especially Captain Video, with the video ranger and the alien Spartak. These were very low tech indeed compared to Star Wars and Star Trek. But they were great fun!
My Grandpa also had his favorite shows but no television set; he and Grandma lived across the street from our church, only a block away. He would come to our house to watch the Lone Ranger and the Groucho Marx quiz show "You Bet Your Life". Only he had listened to the Groucho Marx show on the radio the day before and tell us the answers and the jokes.
Of course, we did many things – even 50 or 60 years ago – that you and your friends still do today. Like the movies. On Saturday mornings, the Parthenon Theater was turned over to kids: cartoons, serials and double features. Too bad you couldn’t hear a thing with all the noise and screaming. I liked to go to the movies with my Mom on Thursday nights, the night they gave away free dishes. In those days there were always two films, a double feature, with newsreels and cartoons in between and of course, coming attractions. My Mom and I always got there late, in the middle of a picture. We’d see the second half, the next movie and then stay until Mom announced "This is where we came in." Knowing how the movie ended did not spoil the fun for me.
We may not have had video games or computer games, but we had lots of board games, some that you still play like Clue and Scrabble . When I was 11 years old, we spent the summer at Rockaway Beach. My summer friends and I played one Monopoly game that lasted the whole summer. Mainly because Joey Hannigan, who was always winning, would throw us money when we went bankrupt. We also loved to play cards and the games were ones you know: Old Maid, Go Fish, Rummy, War and Knuckles- if you lost at Knuckles, you got "knucks" on your knuckles with the edge of the card deck. Ouch!
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