Balls and Walnuts
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Thirteen television memories
Sometimes, I get an idea for a Thursday Thirteen, but I’m not certain I can meet the number. It’s a two-part challenge: come up with something new and interesting, and find thirteen things which apply.
This time, the challenge is different: can I come up with only thirteen television memories — and can I pick the best thirteen?
You folks will undoubtedly have a few of your own television memories, too. Feel free to tell me about them in the comments.
***
1. John F. Kennedy’s assassination, November 29, 1963. I remember my mother crying while she and my sister watched the news on television. My mom, a Bostonian, idolized the Kennedys. You would think a family member had died — and, from her point of view, I guess this wasn’t far off the mark. I was two.
2. Captain Kangaroo. Okay, you have to understand something. When I was little, weekday programming for kid’s sucked big time. Captain K, he was about it. When I was real little, we had only one TV, a black-and-white built into the wall with a fish tank on top. I remember arguing with my mom (WHY can’t I pet the fish?) while, in the background, Captain K yakked with Mr. Green Jeans. Remember the carrots, anyone?
3. Underdog marathons, every New Year’s Day. Oh, Sweet Polly Purebread, why were you such a bitch?
4. Star Trek. Or, as I used to call it, Star Track. For years, Star Trek symbolized the essential unfairness of childhood because (A) it was the only program I wanted to watch, and (B) it aired after my bedtime. Then it got cancelled, became resurrected in syndication, and I could watch the episodes over and over again. Kirk was my hero. Four hundred-and-something miles away, my wife-to-be watched the reruns, too. Spock was her hero. Still is.
5. Apollo 11 moon landing, July 19, 1969. My young cousin Carol Ann slept over that weekend. We watched the moon landing on our little black-and-white in our living room. When Carol Ann’s parents came to pick her up, she gushed about all the things she did over the weekend: “And then we had hamburgers and then we almost went to the beach and then we played Sorry and then some guy stepped on the moon and then we went to the park . . .” That cracks me up to this day.
6. Night Gallery: the earwig episode, March 1, 1972. “She laid eggs.” Nuff said. First time a television program ever squicked me out.
7. Nixon’s resignation speech, August 9, 1974. I taped this on my handheld tape recorder and saved the cassette for several years, thinking it would be worth something some day. Dumb shit kid.
8. Saturday Night Live, 1976-1979. Here are some old photos. First time I watched SNL was with my brother, and it was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Damn. Damn. If you don’t remember the old show, you can’t begin to imagine how good it was. We were raised on The Smother’s Brothers and Laugh-In. That should tell you something. . . . And watching it became a ritual for me and my girlfriend . . . . And I saw David Bowie for the first time on SNL, and the B52s, and Elvis Costello. And I still miss Gilda.
9. George Bush, Geraldine Ferraro Vice Presidential debate, October 11, 1984. We watched this at my thesis advisor’s house, along with a small horde of grad students and post-docs from the lab. Karen and I were sure Ferraro won the debate and that Bush looked like a sniveling idiot. No one else in the room agreed with us. That’s when I first realized we were all fucked. (No, that’s not quite true: when Reagan won in 1980, that’s when I first realized we were fucked.)
10. Twin Peaks pilot, April 8, 1990. Med school home stretch, just a couple months to go before graduation, and I was on call at the University Hospital. Hanging out in the call room, I watched part of this with my intern and junior resident. It was a real jaw-dropping, what-the-hell experience — one of many, courtesy of David Lynch.
11. The Persian Gulf War, January, 1991. By now, I was in the thick of internship, so I didn’t have much time for TV. But I do remember the televised images of tracer fire at night. (Photo from CNN.)
12. Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine (Star Trek Voyager). As you all know, I am usually not so shallow as to love a woman only for her torpedo breasts, mouthwatering camel toe, a muscular ass that could grind coffee beans, and state-of-the-art cranial hardware. But for Seven of Nine, I’ll make an exception.
And last but not least,
13. South Park: Jesus vs. Santa. Summer, 1998. My junior resident, Dan Fleming, couldn’t believe I’d never watched South Park. It was so . . . so me. He invited me and Karen over and played the videotape of the Jesus vs. Santa pilot episode, and maybe a few others he had recorded. Karen and I hadn’t seen South Park, hadn’t heard about it, and — and oh my God that kid just died! That’s not funny! They killed a kid, Karen, did you see that? And — oh, no, that’s just not right, there are rats eating his face — oh God Dan you’re showing me this and you still expect me to let you graduate from this program? This is sick! They just killed a kid!
Meanwhile, Dan’s laughing his ass off.
D.
Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged!
Yatta yatta yatta. Boy, am I sick of that paragraph.
Tracer fire over Bagdhad. My TV was never off – I’ve never again felt such a morbid fascination for anything.
I mean Baghdad.
I forgot to do my 13, so I’ll copy you and do mine here, lol.
1: Disney Movie (first TV memories)
2: Jackie Gleason Show (Man threatens to beat his wife every night on National TV and no one bats an eye – but you know what, it used to scare me, lol)
3: I love Lucy!
4:Mary Tyler Moore (Never forgot that show – my sister and I LOVED it)
5: (We move to St. Thomas and I don’t have a TV for over 10 years…
6: I move to NYC and discover ‘Mork and Mindy!’
7: Saturday Night Live (the first time I think I’m really going to die laughing.
8: SOAP (My new boyfriend and I get hooked on SOAP)
9: Twin Peaks (My boyfriend – soon to be hubby and I) get hooked on Twin Peaks
10: My kids are born – I see nothing for about 10 years except cartoons – The Ninja Turtles rule my life!
11: My kids grow up and one night we discover Buffy!
12: My daughter and I get hooked on NCIS
13: I wonder what’s next?
Morbid fascination, Maureen? And yet the first Gulf War has nothing on the second in that regard. Eh, too early to have such thoughts.
Thanks, Sam. Yeah, I’d forgotten I Love Lucy. As a kid, I don’t think I understood Lucille Ball’s schtick, but I never liked her much. I’ve always disliked aggressive humor (like The Honeymooners, or The Three Stooges, for that matter).
Ahhh–Nixon! I was a little kid riding in a car with my neighbor when he resigned. I asked her what it meant, and she said “They booted him out!”
For years, I took that literally.
You killed Kenny!
Enjoying your blog!
Hah I called Star Trek Star Track too. Still do sometimes 😉
You cannot be of a certain age and not remember Captain Kangaroo on a black and white set. That is our childhood, period.
Captain Kangeroo used to scare me. Remember when he used to look in his mirror and say, “I see…” and then list names of kids? I used to hide behind the sofa until he was done.
LOL
I have a relative who was a/the producer for Captain Kangaroo. Had Emmys on his mantlepiece and everything.
It’s very weird to watch someone get all pompous and full of himself over the lyrical majesty and educational brilliance which is Mr. Green Jeans.
I always preferred Mr. Rogers anyway.
The South Park “Chickenlover” episode makes my top ten, along with watching the Berlin Wall come down and seeing the coverage of Princess Diana’s death. The first Iraq war filled me with dread and anxiety, but is inextricably married in my mind to Dennis Leary’s riff on the whole deal.
The next television event I remember is 9/11. I remember seeing it on the television as I listened to Howard Stern on the radio, my heart in my mouth and my fists damp with sweat. It was horrible, to this day I still can’t watch the footage.
I’ve since stopped watching the telly. Although there was that one episode of COPS where the word “detained” was used twelve times…
I remember all of these except #1, I wasn’t even 3 yrs old yet. Thanks for visiting my TT. I hope your day is running smoothly. Take-Care…
Great list, although I cannot relate to some of them because I have lived in the US only a short time. But Saturday Night Live, exactly those years! wonderful. My TT is up!
we watched the Captain everyday!!!
thanks for stopping by.
Oh man, Doug, good Thursday Thirteen today. My list in no particular order…
1. Watching men walk on the moon. –comment: Why the hell aren’t there people up there now.
2. Watching Nixon take that last walk to the helicopter. I remember being home, out of school that day, as my parents also took the day off from work to watch it.
3. Related, my Dad renting a small black and white television while on vacation at the beach, to watch the Watergate hearings.
4. Sitting in my bean bag chair, next to my Dad in his recliner, watching 2001. It was on UHF (probably chanell 56) and on at 1 in the morning. My mom came in and was amazed that the two of us still awake, eating popcorn, mesmerized by that movie. Yes, it was a school night, and no, neither my Dad nor I cared.
5. Watching the Berlin wall come down, in a ratty little apartment, in Newmarket. The only light coming from the TV, as I called everyone I knew and we were all watching the same thing. We were absolutely giddy.
6. I loved Captain Kangaroo, and Mr Rogers.
7. Watching, in black and white, Julia Childs make pate. My brother and I were in hysterics watching her. Amazing woman. My love for cooking can be traced to that.
8. Getting up on Saturday mornings, in college, to watch the 80’s version of Mighty Mouse, and PeeWee’s Playhouse. And getting up all the other art students, in the dorm, for orange danishes (the kind from the tube, is there any other kind?) and hysterically disturbing cartoons. Does anyone else remember the scene with Mighty Mouse, and *mumble* duck in bed smoking cigarettes?
9. Early Saturday morning, watching “Home Time” with my two year old nephew, trying to convince him that Joanne Liebler is the perfect woman, she’s pretty, and can install plumbing! He wasn’t buying it.
10. The first Iraq war.
11. Alien–it was the demo tape for that new product, Video Cassette Recorders, when I worked at Caldors.
12. Watching Candlepin Bowling, with my Grandfather.
13. Watching “Creature Double Feature” Godzilla movies, with my Mom on Sunday afternoons.
Thanks Doug, for stirring up the memories 🙂
Oh, and a number 14…The Bob Newhart Show, Thanksgiving episode. I still laugh hard enough to have difficulty breathing. Again fond memories of my parents associated with it.
and a number 15. Carol Burnett show, with the family, More difficulty breathing. Simply brilliant timing on that cast.
you know, DC & i were just reminiscing about the captain the other day. i miss mr. moose & the pingpong balls. lol!!
have a lovely day! 🙂
[…] Doug's 13 TV memories […]
As you can see from my trackback above, I’ve done up a T13 of my own, again. This one’s a bit more violent than “13 things that ma[d|k]e me cry”. But still gentle.
13 Techniques
I really love when you do these 13 Thursdays. I have NO MEMORY of our mom crying over the Kennedy assassination, but I do remember where I was when I heard the news (9th grade, in front of my locker at lunch); for me, watching that funeral on TV with John John saluting is my TV memory related to that event.
And that earwig episode…ooochchhh…most definitely the creepiest/crawliest Night Gallery ever.
Another TV memory was watching Lee Harvey Oswald being shot by Jack Ruby and watching Robert Kennedy as he was shot, right there, live on TV.
No memory of Carol Ann staying over or saying those things…geeze.
Beth got me thinking about the house that I lived in longest as a kid — an old farm house in the middle of nowhere, surounded by fields of alfalfa and cows. So I’ve listed the 13 things I remember best about the house.
http://jmcarr2001.livejournal.com/44769.html
Thanks, everyone. I think I have everyone listed now, but if not, give me a holler.
Sis, it might have been the funeral we were watching on the little TV in your room. I’m sure it was JFK’s death and not RFK’s, though, since I know I was really little at the time and had no clue what was happening.
I posted mine! A little late and after a long hiatus, but it’s up! Loved yours!
Gotcha, Sapph. See how I linked you?
I forgot to say earlier that your 13 are interesting (in a good way ;)). I would be hard pressed to think of thirteen tv moments that were memorable for me. The first Gulf war, 9/11 watching the towers fall (all of us at the office huddled around a 13″ screen), watching the Challenger explode in earth science in middle school. That’s about it.
Re: your question about tulip trees. Here’s a link to the Wikipedia entry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_tree
There wasn’t anything special about the tulip tree I listed in my 13, other than the fact that it was old and tall and it had a tire swing that I loved. Not long after we moved, it had to be cut down because of some kind of fungus. The yard looked off-kilter and wrong to me forever after.
Thanks for the link.
I have no 9/11 TV memory because I was seeing patients when it happened. One of my old guys told me what happened. It sounded crazy, so I called Karen at home, asked her to turn on the news, and tell me if this was an old guy’s bad dream or what. Sadly not.
Haha thanks Doug, I figured you’d like that! Just make sure to give us all updates when you have them!
Oh, yes. #s 2, 8, & 11.
Captain Kangaroo & Mr. Green Jeans.
And then later, there was Bozo the Clown, with the hula-hoop contest at the end of every show. I’d go get mine & hula-hoop along with them.
The very first seasons of Saturday Night Live. My parents had just gotten divorced, and I was living with my mom in a house trailer (it was new & aside from flimsiness, wasn’t all that bad–and I had my very own bathroom!), and we had a 7-inch black and white TV. It was still a great show. All the original not ready for prime time players. *sigh* It just wasn’t the same later.
That’s also where I got my intro to Dr. Who–fuzzy b&w broadcast from Canada on a teeny-tiny screen.
And then the Gulf War. GLUED to the TV. Carl was in Long Term Civilian Training (i.e: the army was sending him to U of M for grad school). His military POC said “don’t worry–they’ll call me up to go before they make you leave school.” The week after he said that, he was gone to Iraq.
[…] And I don’t even like blondes (except for Jeri Ryan in her Seven of Nine outfit . . . and, um, I’m not looking at her hair). See how dedicated I am to you? The best I could do was this photo of Ms. Underwood with a right boob hickey. Or mosquito bite, but I favor the hickey theory. […]