I grew up watching TV. But what I saw as a child was quite different from what is on now. As a grade schooler, I used to get up and turn on Channel 3 here is Philly - WPTZ - and watch a guy from Trenton who had a very weird and funny morning show. Ernie Kovas left after a few years to pursue bigger and better things. (Another local guy was a fellow named Ed McMahon.)
The TV I remember was Omnibus, Studio 1, Playhouse 90, Maverick, Peter Gunn, Have Gun, Will Travel, Gunsmoke (lots of guns there, I notice), Ed Sullivan, Steve Allen, Jack Paar. This was supposedly when television was a vast wasteland. But what I see today seems to fit that description better.
When, that is, I see it. Because I hardly ever watch anymore. Perhaps TV continues in some way, to some degree, to define American society. But I suspect the Internet is taking over that role more and more.
Hi Frank,
ReplyDeleteThis is from the Wikipedia entry on Ed McMahon:
Early Years
McMahon was raised in Lowell, Massachusetts and attended Boston College and The Catholic University of America, majoring in speech and drama. At The Catholic University of America he joined the Phi Kappa Theta fraternity, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1949.
McMahon had begun his 'showbiz' career as a bingo caller in Maine, when he was fifteen. He worked as a carnival barker for three years as a teenager, and put himself through college as a pitchman for vegetable slicers on the Atlantic City boardwalk.
He got his first broadcasting job at WLLH AM radio station in Lowell, and began his television career in Philadelphia.
I had thought he was born in Lowell, not Detroit. I remembered about the carnival barker job. But I see Philly launched him as a TV personality.
Rus