I had posted this story before, but it's worth repeating. My parents had one of the first television sets in the neighborhood. And it wasn't just any ordinary set. It was a BIG screen set, made especially for a bar by my father. (He was in the pinball/jukebox rackets that supplied bars with all that stuff). He made a set especially for a bar owner who ended up not being able to pay for it. Voila, Mom and Dad C then had a tv, and a big one. My parents (and brother and sister) told me that neighbors would line up outside the living room window and watch the shows through the window. I think this was in 1949 (before I was born).

A few years later when tv became a little more popular, the stations expanded their broadcasting. A lot of it consisted of movies (they were long enough to take up time and they didn't cost anything to produce shows). My mom used to love to tell the story that one night (must have been 1952 or 1953) she was doing her clothes ironing and she liked to watch tv while doing it. There was nothing on so she actually phoned the station to complain and within a few minutes they aired a movie (she thinks it was some Claude Rains movie but she couldn't remember for sure in her later years).

Could you imagine that happening today?