Friday, June 12, 2009

I don't see color

No, I'm not color-blind; I'm hooked on a bunch of black-and-white TV shows from the '50s that are now on cable.
It's kind of ironic that they day all TV broadcasts in America switch from analog to digital, I'm here writing about a few shows from the 1950s, but here goes...

Weekday mornings, cable network Ion Television (you might remember them as PAX TV) airs several old (and I mean ooooold) TV shows that have piqued my interest in recent weeks: "My Little Margie," "I Married Joan" and "The Adventures of "Ozzie and Harriet."

The first two ran both ran from 1952 to 1955, and are more or less "I Love Lucy"-type programs: Each stars a female lead (a widower's 20-something daughter in "My Little Margie" and a judge's wife in "I Married Joan") who somehow gets in a wacky predicament and must find her way out of it by the end of the half-hour, often with the help of an equally zany friend or neighbor. Having watched "I Love Lucy" since I was a kid — and seen every episode a gazillion times — these two shows seem both familiar yet new to me.

"Ozzie and Harriet" stars "America's favorite family," and chronicles the Nelson family's everyday happenings — nothing too special there, but it's a nice change of pace.

Being more than a half-century old, some of these episodes might be grainy in spots, but they're still a better alternative than some of their competition on the other channels (I can only watch so many paternity tests on "Maury" before I get tired of them).

1 comment:

bowler said...

i'll miss the static-snow background noise of regular old TV...