My History Television

In 1878 William Crookes confirmed the existence of cathode rays by building a tube to display them in, which is what made it possible for cathode rays to produce a luminous image on a fluorescent screen used chiefly in television and computer terminals. The first man to actually make a scanning cathode ray tube was Carl Ferdinand Braun, a German scientist, in 1897. His invention was a CRT with a fluorescent screen, known as a cathode-ray oscilloscope that emitted a visible light when struck by a beam of electrons. A Russian scientist, Boris Rosing, who worked alongside of Vladimir Zworykin manufactured a CRT in the receiver of a television system that was at the cameras end. Needless to say there were many improvements and breakthroughs with the cathode Ray tube through the years all the way up to 1926 when the first moving images were broadcast to the television screen. The very first clear perception of the moving image was displayed at the AT&T Bell Labs in New York City in 1927. The first television magazine for the serious hobbyist was published in 1927.

Hallelujah, the first television station owned by General Electric, WGY – TV in Schenectady, New York broadcast the first television broadcast but the transmission was only a 40 minute stage production, The Queen's Messenger, and they were only broadcast for television sets with the system developed by Dr. Ernst Alexanderson . Fear not though, GE was not the only one experimenting with broadcast television stations. RCA also opened up a television lab and experimental station W2XDS . The first license was issued to W3XK, to Charles Jenkins in Wheaton, Maryland who planned to broadcast radio movies. RKO experimented with their televisions in Schenectady, New York broadcasting up-to-date local news and sportscasts to the movies that were being broadcast. By the time 1932 rolled around, NBC had begun experimenting with their television programming as well.

Even though there were many more innovations and stations and people to mention up to the perfection of what we know as broadcast television today, it didn't really get its start until the FCC authorized commercial television to begin on July 1, 1941 and there was no turning back at that point. There is money to be made in the airwaves across the United States broadcasting programming and commercials to the unwitting public. But the commercial broadcasting was short-lived just as a lot of other industries were put on hold for the war effort after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, commercial television broadcasting was just about put on hold till after the war. The Dumont's network had the distinction of having their first network hookup broadcast the news of the atomic bomb being dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.

1946 the war is over and our men are back and there is a desire for relaxation and entertainment. RCA in its wisdom had the first post-war designed television, the 630 TS. It had sold nearly 10,000 sets at $350 each at a time when it was almost 10% of an average yearly salary. Women of the world united to watch the soap opera. One of the biggest expansions in commercial history was the television set. By 1947, 44,000 television sets are in the homes in the United States. Even children were not left out. The Dumont network premiered the first children's programming called the Small Fries Club at 7 PM, Monday through Friday. It was a program that had originated on the radio in 1921. The tradition of using old radio programs in the new mediums that are to come had now started.

Moving ahead to 1949, Milton Berle hosts the first charity telethon. And the Zenith Radio Corporation invents the remote control called the lazy bone. It could turn the television off our on and change channels but it was tethered to the television with a bulky cable. Skipping forward to 1951, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz negotiate a contract with CBS for the right to film I Love Lucy and get 100% ownership, pioneering the rights to residuals and earning more than $1 million a year by the mid-50s. Commercial television was now viable and there is no stopping it.

Skipping ahead to the 1960’s where Irwin Allen seems to own the television audiences with such shows such as Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, the Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants, and several others. And, of course, there were other television shows by other networks and other producers. Here's a short list of some of the best; Andy Griffith Show, the Beverly Hillbillies, Bonanza, I Dream of Jeannie, Have Gun Will Travel, Star Trek, the Brady Bunch, Dick Van Dyke Show, Gilligan's Island, the Ed Sullivan Show, the Addams family, the Munsters, Make Room for Daddy, Gomer Pyle USMC, What's My Line, Bewitched, My Three Sons, the Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, the Flintstones, the Carol Burnett Show, and the Jack Benny program.

I could talk all day about television and which shows I love the most but I won't bore you with what I like the most because I know you all have your favorites as well, but there is one show above all the others that had anybody and everybody who was somebody on it. No, I'm not talking about the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Before Johnny Carson was a household name, Ed Sullivan had a show called the Toast of the Town. I guess you could say that show grew up to be more of a variety show.  With the Ed Sullivan Show itself there were rock stars, there were opera stars and there were even Broadway stars. I don't know at that time what show had so much variety of entertainment. Even variety shows at that time could not get the guests that the Ed Sullivan show were able to acquire. I mean, let's face it, they introduced us to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, to the Birds to the Mamas and the Papas and many other rock 'n roll groups. 

What more could a teenage kid ask for. Oh that's right, I wasn't a teenage kid when the Ed Sullivan Show started, I was what they call now a preteen whatever that means. I was more interested in things like the Flintstones, Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, etc.,  than listening to a bunch of old people singing opera but my parents lived in my house and they control the television, so whether I liked it or not, we watched the Ed Sullivan show. We saw Chinese acrobatics, the Chinese plate spinners and various other artists from around the world. We even saw jugglers and I didn’t even know what a juggler was at that time. We even saw Ed kiss little Topogigo goodnight. But I find myself longing for those more innocent days of the Ed Sullivan Show that tried to give us a little bit of entertainment and a lot of culture.

Today one of my favorite networks is PBS, our Public Broadcasting Stations. Public broadcasting brings you shows like Masterpiece Theatre, News Hour, Sesame Street, Mystery, Sherlock Holmes, Austin City Limits, Frontline, This Old House, Mr. Rogers, Reading Rainbow, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and many more children's programming choices, just as there are many more adult programming choices. Now with the invention of digital television there are three PBS programming channels, the regular PBS we have all known and loved, the second channel is known as PBS World and the third is the PBS Create channel. I can't say enough about today's PBS. It is the channel that informs and entertains and instructs us in our daily way of life, unlike other channels that say things like they are the Travel Channel but the only programming they have is about food. Now I know that I have to eat when I travel but if I'm going to see ancient Egypt, it is only of secondary importance or even less of the adventure of my travels. Don't get me wrong, I do love to experience exotic foods from a faraway land that I am traveling to but if I had to eat at McDonald's every day to see the pyramids and the ruins of Egypt I would do so. It is not my main goal when I travel so as well it is not my main goal when I turn over to the Travel Channel to see what kind of gross food some fool is willing to try. That's enough of my tyrade on channels that are not what they appear to be.

There is a new channel on the horizon of the digital channels that gives me all of the channels that I grew up with; such things as the Man from Uncle, or Hawaii Five-O, so you see this is the channel for me and it is called Me TV. If you love watching television from when you were a kid, a teenager or young child, this is also the channel for you. I could go to the list of programming that they have but there's no need. You know it, you watched it, you lived it back in the 60s and the 70s, so all you have to do is get an antenna for your television set and look for your channel number on your dial.

I also wanted to tell you about a flea market treasure that I found just the other day. It is a photo of Annette Funicello which appears to be from the Spin and Marty series that aired on the Mickey Mouse Club. She actually appeared in the New Adventures of Spin and Marty after the original Spin and Marty had aired and was so popular that Walt Disney had to put on a another serial of Spin and Marty. In the New Adventures they added Kevin Corcoran, Darlene Gillespie and Annette Funicello. I had never seen this particular picture so I bought it because Spin and Marty along with the Annette serial are my utmost favorite television programs of all times, that is other than Tales of the Gold Monkey with Roddy McDowell and Stephen Collins. So I leave you with this from one who was born with television as a pacifier and will go to his grave with television being his biggest source of comfort," there is more to life than television", but it will wait till my program is over with.