1960s TV Shows – Effect

I’ve always thought that I watch way too much television, an opinion shared by both my late mother and my wife.  I’m a member of the first generation to grow up with TV as part of their daily routine.  I can remember being absolutely thrilled and amazed when my parents brought home our first color TV and how happy we were with the three channels that we had.  Saturday mornings were devoted to cartoons and Sunday nights were Lassie, Disney, and as it got later – The Ed Sullivan Show for my parents.  We even had a “TV Room” which was solely for watching the boob tube.  This room became an escape capsule for my three sisters and I, but more for me than them, I think.  We all huddled in there as we listened to my parents fight in the nearby living room as their marriage dissolved.  I originally intended to write today’s blog about my favorite TV shows from the 1960s, covering my youth from the age of 5 to 15.  As I put together the list I was struck by both the quality and social relevance that a lot of these shows achieved.  The 1960s were a time of immense social turmoil as we moved into the earliest instances of the information age parented by a generation that had passed through the twin cataclysms of the Great Depression and World War 2.  Many of these shows snuck in socially relevant ideas and concepts.  I always wondered why I was so against racism in any form and I think some of that came from the TV shows that held my rapt and wondering attention in the 1960s.  I yearned to live up to the ideals of my TV heroes.  It’s probably why I ended up in the Army as I strived to live up to Sgt Saunders and Lt Hanley from Combat.  It’s probably why I fell so hard for the English girl that broke up my first engagement, remembering my crush on Judy Carne from Laugh In.  In a way the TV became a surrogate parent as my own parents were so embittered by their own personal struggle against each other to really be the parents that we needed.  As I looked back on some of my favorite shows – the boob tube didn’t do a half bad job with me.  I could have had a lot worse role models to emulate.  I’ll blog that list of top 1960s TV shows later.  This is what I’ve come to enjoy about this blog – I get to wander down these rabbit holes of memories and try to make sense of what we’ve all become.  It may also explain my antipathy towards what TV has become – too much of a good thing.  A force for good that has in many ways lost its way.