My TV Viewing as a Kid

During my preschool/elementary school days of the mid-to-late 1960's, my favorite TV shows were Batman, Lost in Space, Wild Wild West, The Red Skelton Show, and Bewitched. As I recall, my bother (who is just 11 months younger that I) seemed to like the same shows. My parents weren't big TV watchers at that time (they really didn't get into the whole TV thing until about a decade later), so they pretty much let us watch what we wanted. Back then, they didn't have to worry about the kind of inappropriate stuff that parents have to be concerned about now.

My brother and I were quite obsessed about regularly watching these shows. One Friday night, when my father was working the four-to-midnight shift at the plant, Wild Wild West was pre-empted by a special program. I was okay with it, but my brother went nuts! After having a temper tantrum (which included beating his head against the floor), he asked my mother for the phone number at the plant where my dad worked. When she asked him why, he said he was going to tell him to go down to the TV studio and shoot the station manager for allowing his favorite show to be taken away that night!

Speaking of preemptions, they used to pull this trick on The Red Skelton Show that always irked my brother and me. When it was time for the show to come on, an announcer would say, "The Red Skelton Shelton Show will not be seen tonight so that we may bring you a special episode of ... The Red Skelton Show!

Neither of us realized at the time that Batman was actually a comedy. We took it very seriously and were often scared to look during some of the sequences when the villain was about do Batman and Robin in. We also found Lost in Space a bit too scary and intense at that time.

I hated the way the Wednesday night episode of Batman always left us hanging until the Thursday night episode. I didn't understand why they couldn't (just once, anyway) resolve everything on Wednesday night. But I guess that woud have meant no Thursday night episode. I remember Lost in Space also pulling a regular "to be continued" stunt. Instead of showing some previews of next week's episode (like most other shows did), it would actually start the next week week's episode at the end of the current week's program and leave us with a cliff-hanger.

The main reason I liked Bewitched is because I had a crush on Elizabeth Montgomery, who played Samantha. I remember my brother and I getting into this big debate about who played Serena, Samantha's cousin on the show. I contended that she was also played by Elizabeth Montgomery, only in a black wig and trashier outfits. My brother, however, insisted that she was played by a different actress. He even claimed he had seen the actress' name listed in the closing credits. Of course, he never really did, because I was right -- as usual.