Back When TV Was Truly Refined

/ Ally Bean

… After yesterday’s constant stream of sad news I’m feeling a bit nostalgic today.  

This is funny and sweet.  It’s a reminder of how smart + delightful television used to be.  So. Very. Calm.

I miss watching TV shows that were in black & white.  I miss seeing TV shows that don’t *flash* and *bang* all over the place.  I miss being entertained by TV shows that don’t try to impress me with their super hipness.

But mostly I miss the kind of innocence that allowed a pleasant “nobody” to outsmart a panel of curious “somebodies” by merely being herself.  With a smile.

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[H/T to Maria Popova at Brain Pickings.  More info + other video clips here.]

[Unrelated to this video, but interesting to know, the contestant later wrote a memoir titled Look Back and Laugh.  Writers are everywhere, aren’t they?]

10 thoughts on “Back When TV Was Truly Refined”

    • kate, I agree. And if you have cable, then there are reruns all day of TV shows that originally aired after 8 p.m. so the naughtiness is constant. Not to mention the violence in the shows.

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        • kate, I know what you mean. As a society we’ve become desensitized to violence, but not me. I’ll watch some TV shows, but I never go to movies with violence in them. That’s too much hateful emotion for empathetic me.

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  2. I used to enjoy watching these re-runs and also To Tell the Truth. They’ve tried to make new versions that just didn’t work as well. Perhaps it was the innocence of the time.

    I don’t know what to say about yesterday. My heart just breaks.

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    • Zazzy, I think that you got it right. When TV was new it was innocent and classy. Nothing like most of the crap we see today.

      Ditto about yesterday. Impossible to comprehend.

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  3. I so agree with you! All innocence is gone. And everything is so sensationalized.
    I also hate the continual streaming of news along the bottom of the screen on a lot of the shows–so distracting!
    It’s funny. Tim and I were just talking about old time TV this morning, reminiscing about shows like Lucy’s Toy Shop 🙂

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    • Beth, I hate that news crawl, too.

      I loved Lucy’s Toy Shop with Pierre and Dragon and George the Giraffe. Plus my favorite, the shy lambie who said her ABCs. I imagine only a handful of people remember that show. Thanks for bringing it up.

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