When I was young, I used to believe.....

[Stanislav]

An always fun topic is discussing those weird things we used to believe when we were kids. Now when it comes to television, most of us TV Geeks were probably pretty savvy about the medium at a fairly early age. Nevertheless, most of us can probably remember at least a couple of misguided or plain strange ideas we had concerning the medium when we were very young, whether about the way TV works, the magic box itself, the programs or performers, etc.

For example, I previously mentioned in an older thread that as a very young tyke, I thought the TV set could "see" me when it was switched off. This was a result of those old-style picture tubes in which the raster would shrink down to that bright dot in the center of the screen when you turned the thing off. I thought that was an "eye" that could watch my every move.

Some of the more common youthful misconceptions I've heard of about TV include: thinking that the actors on screen can see you or are talking directly to you; believing that if you get real close to the screen and look at an angle, you can see past the edges of the picture; thinking that if you turn the set off in the middle of the program, it will resume where you left off when you turn it back on (like a VCR); or getting scared if the station unexpectedly goes off the air while you're watching (i.e., believing that somehow you "broke" the set, and are your parents gonna be mad at you!!).

One of the oddest such beliefs I've heard of was a guy who when he was a kid thought that when a program was billed as "live via satellite," it meant the performers had been sent into space and were in orbit, beaming their performance down to Earth. :

So, how about you? What strange, misguided, bizarre, or just plain wrong beliefs did you harbor about TV when you were but a tyke?

 

[Duncan Park]

I thought Walter Cronkite was looking at me because where ever I moved in the room he appeared to still be looking at me! Shortly thereafter I noticed paintings and pictures did the same thing.

Speaking of the little white dot... I may have been the one that killed the old black and white set by constantly turning it on and off to see the little dot! That set was replaced by our first color set. I soon discovered that when it was turned off the picture would collapse into a green and red bar that then shrunk horizontally.

 

[easttxtv]

When I was a toddler to up into grade school, my father fixed TVs for a living. I remember almost anytime someone had trouble with their signal or their TV itself, he'd tell them it was 'sunspots'!! I don't remember if I ever believed it, but he sure tried hard to get his customers to believe it!

 

[NoWayNoCC]

When I was about 3, I used to refer to black-and-white TV as "public." Because the PBS affiliate had such a weak signal that it frequently faded to black-and-white, I thought that's what "public TV" meant.

 

[Smittian]

When the network or local station had trouble and displayed the "Please Stand By" slide, I would get up and stand by the TV. Funny thing, it always seemed to work.

 

[LKellerIII]

When I was a toddler to up into grade school, my father fixed TVs for a living. I remember almost anytime someone had trouble with their signal or their TV itself, he'd tell them it was 'sunspots'!! I don't remember if I ever believed it, but he sure tried hard to get his customers to believe it!

Funny. Your father wasn't TV repairman Jean Shepherd in Tujunga, CA, was he? I remember my father saying more than once "Jean says its because of sun spots."

 

[RicoGregg]

When I was around 6-8 years old, popular shows included "I've Got A Secret", "What's My Line", "To Tell The Truth", "The Ed Sullivan Show", and so on.

They all had two things in common: They all had lots of men wearing suits and ties, and they all seemed to come from New York.

As a result, whenever I noticed anybody wearing a necktie, or on those gawdawful occasions where I had to wear a necktie, I always mentally called them "York ties."

I still instinctively think of that term in relation to suits and ties. To the best of my memory, I don't think I ever said "York ties" out loud.

 

[mleach]

When I was in my early teens I used to believe that when a station would sign off for the night they would come back on the air a short time later showing adult films then sign off for a few hours before they would sign on again for their "normal" broadcast day. Why did I believe this...my friends told me me and I believed them.. My best friend at the time ( early 80's ) SWEARS he saw "Behind The Green Door"...on Baltimore's WBFF-TV at 3am.

Porn? Sinclair? WBFF? ...ah I should have known better.

 

[bpatrick]

There's an urban legend that WNEW disc jockey Jim Lowe's
1956 song hit "The Green Door" did beome the name of a
lesbian nightclub in later years. Could there have possibly
been a movie about that club? (By the way, Lowe's song
doesn't even hint at such a thing taking place in the club
he wants to visit.)

 

[easttxtv]

When I was a toddler to up into grade school, my father fixed TVs for a living. I remember almost anytime someone had trouble with their signal or their TV itself, he'd tell them it was 'sunspots'!! I don't remember if I ever believed it, but he sure tried hard to get his customers to believe it!

Funny. Your father wasn't TV repairman Jean Shepherd in Tujunga, CA, was he? I remember my father saying more than once "Jean says its because of sun spots."

No, that wasn't my dad, but thanx for the interesting coincidence!

 

[firepoint525]

I thought Walter Cronkite was looking at me because where ever I moved in the room he appeared to still be looking at me! Shortly thereafter I noticed paintings and pictures did the same thing.

I remember thinking the same thing, only with local news reporters. I always assumed that they were looking at my parents while my folks watched the news, because after all, the news is geared towards adults! However, I, too, noticed that no matter where I sat in the family room, the reporters always looked right at me! ;D

I also remember watching a black and white episode of Gilligan's Island on the black and white TV in my bedroom, and then going into the family room to see if it looked any different on the color TV. When I looked at it on the color TV, it seemed to have a greenish tint, by comparison, as though it were green and white. But if you only saw it on a color TV, and didn't have a black and white TV to compare it to, it would have seemed the usual black and white to you. The greenish tint wouldn't have been noticeable.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

I also remember watching a black and white episode of Gilligan's Island on the black and white TV in my bedroom, and then going into the family room to see if it looked any different on the color TV. When I looked at it on the color TV, it seemed to have a greenish tint, by comparison, as though it were green and white.

The season when the Professor and Mary Ann were just "and the rest."

Was this a syndicated rerun back when the source was 16mm film?
If so, perhaps the station forgot to turn off the burst on the film chain.

 

[Stanislav]

I also remember watching a black and white episode of Gilligan's Island on the black and white TV in my bedroom, and then going into the family room to see if it looked any different on the color TV. When I looked at it on the color TV, it seemed to have a greenish tint, by comparison, as though it were green and white. But if you only saw it on a color TV, and didn't have a black and white TV to compare it to, it would have seemed the usual black and white to you. The greenish tint wouldn't have been noticeable.

Actually, to me B&W programs on a color set have always appeared to have a very slight greenish tint. It's not always that noticeable unless you look at a color and B&W screen side-by-side on the same program. Kind of like how if you have a monochrome image that someone has scanned in a color scanner (without changing the settings), if you put in in Photoshop and delete the color info, you can see an obvious difference. I guess it's because a color medium will see all those greytones as some combination of colors, and since the balance is rarely perfect, there will always be a slight bias in one direction or another on the color spectrum.

 

[LKellerIII]

I also remember watching a black and white episode of Gilligan's Island on the black and white TV in my bedroom, and then going into the family room to see if it looked any different on the color TV. When I looked at it on the color TV, it seemed to have a greenish tint, by comparison, as though it were green and white. But if you only saw it on a color TV, and didn't have a black and white TV to compare it to, it would have seemed the usual black and white to you. The greenish tint wouldn't have been noticeable.

Actually, to me B&W programs on a color set have always appeared to have a very slight greenish tint. It's not always that noticeable unless you look at a color and B&W screen side-by-side on the same program. Kind of like how if you have a monochrome image that someone has scanned in a color scanner (without changing the settings), if you put in in Photoshop and delete the color info, you can see an obvious difference. I guess it's because a color medium will see all those greytones as some combination of colors, and since the balance is rarely perfect, there will always be a slight bias in one direction or another on the color spectrum.

There may be something to the greenish tint, though I've never noticed it personally. In the early 60s, Squirt (the soft drink) ran an ad campaign saying something like: "Squirt gives you such a burst of flavor, you'll be seeing color on your black and white TV." Accompanying this, the Squirt logo on screen would flash from positive to negative rapidly.

The ad campaign was very successful - when the commercial first appeared, people would flock to their TV sets to see the "color." Because of the rapid flashing of the logo, it did appear to most to have a faint greenish tint. At the time, I thought that this was just the power of suggestion, or possbily an optical illusion.

It also occurred to me years later that this kind of rapid on-screen flashing might cause seizures in some epileptics, much as strobe lights can; though this was probably a medical discovery made since the early 60s.

 

[kirkiefan]

As a first grader back in 1960-61 I always felt a bit of hurt for the Trix rabbit as he was constantly discriminated by two children uttering the phrase "Silly rabbit...Trix are for kids!"

The Trix Rabbit (from a seven year old's perspective) was my first exposure to social commentary as was Rocky and Bullwinkle being my first exposure to political satire at the height of the cold war. Perhaps we can use it now once again as the mud is already starting to fly between Obama and McCain before the conventions.

 

[gr8oldies]

Where is that Kerwood Derby? I used to watch a local kids show out of South Bend IN and I sent away for a "carnival". I actually thought some dudes were going to set up rides in my back yard! In reality, it was a manila envelope with some cut outs and game instructions.

I used to wait for the Romper Room lady to say she could see me in her mirror.

 

[Tom Wells]

Where is that Kerwood Derby? I used to watch a local kids show out of South Bend IN and I sent away for a "carnival". I actually thought some dudes were going to set up rides in my back yard! In reality, it was a manila envelope with some cut outs and game instructions.

I used to wait for the Romper Room lady to say she could see me in her mirror.

She did see me once! The swirling in her mirror was too cool.
There were pictures of her in my television engineering text, as well as Ringmastger Ned on Bozo's Circus. Someone must have like WGN.
I remember thinking radio and TV stations had a meter showing total tune-ins.
If you tuned out, or turned off, their "meter" would go down.
Naturally, this is why the phrase "Don't touch that dial!" had come about.
If only I could invent such a thing now, I could replace Arbitron!

 

[1069_KIFR]

I also would Stand next to the TV set when they said Stand By!

I thought my dad was Johnny Carson. Because we lived on a ranch. My Dad would take an afternoon nap. Then the next day he would talk about the show from the night before. So I associated him 'sleeping' in the afternoon and the show being on at 11:30 at night. So therefore he was hosting the show at night.

When Smokey the Bear would say. "Only you can prevent forest fires!" I couldn't sleep at night knowing I was responsible for any fires!

 

[Stanislav]

I thought my dad was Johnny Carson. Because we lived on a ranch. My Dad would take an afternoon nap. Then the next day he would talk about the show from the night before. So I associated him 'sleeping' in the afternoon and the show being on at 11:30 at night. So therefore he was hosting the show at night.

Can't argue with logic like that..... ;D

 

[firepoint525]

The season when the Professor and Mary Ann were just "and the rest."

Not too long ago, there was a prime time special on TV that went behind the scenes at Gilligan's Island. Dawn Wells was one of the hosts of the program, and she was dismayed that some fans of the show sang "all the rest" when given a chance to sing the theme song to the show! ;D

Was this a syndicated rerun back when the source was 16mm film?
If so, perhaps the station forgot to turn off the burst on the film chain.

Channel 13 in Memphis used to run it during the after-school hours back in the early '70s when I was in elementary school. This is when I saw the show. I am not old enough to remember it in prime time. I'm not sure if this answers your question or not.