How professional and high-quality was the Dragnet program? Jack Webb & company presented a Petty Theft case just as well, and made it as interesting, as their Homicide cases. Thank you for sharing all the excellent old programs, and in their entirety at that.
How well I remember the days when the TV repairmen would come to our house when the set went of the blink! It was like when the doctor would come to your house! Those days are l-o-n-g gone now!
Well, my family inherited a beautiful perhaps 13 or 14” TV from a very wealthy old woman in the early 1950’s, and the chassis had it labeled as a 1942 Stewart Warner. It was very heavy and on casters and had a solid walnut wood case. So they were out even earlier. I just googled and it said in 1942 there were approximately 5000 TV sets nationwide, so they were out there early on but very rare. It says that because of the war production was suspended until August 1945, but “by 1947, there were about 44,000 TVs, and that number swelled to 940,000 in 1949 and 20 million in 1953.” Big jump in just 11 years!
Are you kidding? Do you know what those new fangled things cost!? I don’t think so, people aren’t going to give up going to see the picture show and newsreels a couple times a week!
Tacohead Makenzie / Six months tops, yessiree! Soon it’ll all be just another teenage dream, like loud music from that man called Elvis, and duck tailed haircuts!
Nell Wackwitz funny. Apparently you didn’t notice that the story you just made fun of was on a RADIO. A lot of people didn’t have TV sets. They did have more manners. That won’t catch on either
"Now, you hold these rabbit ears...walk towads the window...lift your right hand...a little more...now, bring your left leg back...perfect! Just hold that pose - it's time for Ed Sullivan!"
And the sound when they first turned the TV on sounded like the Gravitron's alarm in the Second Doctor story "The Moonbase", just as a steady sound rather than a repeating sound. Guess that's where the BBC got the sound effect.
Ok, just curious, and had to check: only $4.50 to fix the set, including the house call! Seems like nothing, but at a minimum wage of .65 cents an hour in 1951 that was 6.9 hours earnings! Nearly a whole days wages. The inflation calculator 72 years later says that $4.50 is equivalent to $53.34 now, so at $15.50 min wage that’s only 3.4 hours earnings, but taxes and everything else is higher today percentage wise, so maybe it works out? Interesting to me. My Dad only made $12,000 a year back then, and I always wondered how he got by but at those prices that wasn’t too bad.
At least in those days, a repairman would come to your house and help you. These days, all you can do is call an 800 number, be put on hold for an hour, and then be stonewalled by someone is a faraway country. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NOZKLtIIUZE.html
