BEST SEAT IN THE HOUSE

My favorite show growing up in the sixties…well…it’s not that easy.  First of all, I was born in the year 1960, so my memories of television shows were based around 1966 and beyond. Honestly, there are way too many to name. To be fair, I have to list categories. Cartoons, Sitcoms, Dramas, Movies. It’s not a short list! ✍

 

Cartoons. Bugs Bunny,🐰 with his buds, Daffy Duck, Porky 

Pig,🐷 Taz. Sylvester the cat😸 and Tweety Bird, Felix the Cat, Road Runner and Wiley E Coyote. Tom and Jerry,🐭 Chip and Dale, Rocky and Bullwinkle. Have no fear! Underdog is here!  Also, Pepe Le Pew,🦨 Atom Ant, Gigantor, Hercules. 

My sister and I would sing,🎵♪💏 duh nuh, nuh, nuh, nuh, nuh, nuh, nuh, Batman! Batman! Batman! As the caped  crusader with his trusty side kick Robin, protected Gotham City from the evil villains.  Of course, The Flintstones! Yabba, Dabba, Do! and The Jetsons🚀—just to name a few. I don’t think there was a child alive that didn’t have Saturday morning cartoons from the second they woke up, and the minute you threw open the front door after school.🏫

 

Sitcoms. I don’t believe that was a word back then?These weekly shows were based on comedies and dramas, etc. I can’t decide what I enjoyed watching more: The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, or Family Affair? Then there was The Ghost👻 and Mrs. Muir, The Flying Nun, Gidget, Lassie, Hogan’s Heroes and Mc Hales Navy, The Monkees, That Girl, I Dream of Jeannie,🍾 Bewitched. I Love Lucy, 💕 The Jackie Gleason Show. And we can’t forget, Gilligan’s Island, or The Beverly Hillbillies. Come ride the little train that is rolling down the tracks to the junction…Petticoat Junction! Green Acres!🟩 Starring Zza Zza Gabor, dressed in her stunning evening gowns… on her farm. Mr. Ed the talking horse 🐴 shot in black and white.

 

The 60’s were the time of the space wars 😧💥  between the United States and mostly Russia. Naturally, every child watched,👀 Lost in Space, My Favorite Martian,👽The Outer Limits, Space Odyssey, and hid multiple times under a pillow, terrified, viewing,🙈 The Twilight Zone! Back then, it felt like we spent more time dreaming about space than we did about Earth.🌎 I could be a total “Space Cadet,” even, “Spaced out!” Hard to say…

 

Dramas. Bonanza, The Virginian, Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, The Wonderful World of Disney👸where every Sunday featured an entertaining movie🎥 the entire family would sit and watch. Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom documentary of animals🦁 in nature. Least we neglect the sports fans out there; let’s not forget ABC’s Wide World of Sports🏅 where every Saturday we watched the ski jumper⛷ crash in the Sports intro, when Jim McKay proclaimed; the “thrill of victory or the agony of defeat!”

 Movies.  A very tough category. My parents would drop us off for a double feature and most of the time we watched Disney shows while we ate chocolate Flicks, and popcorn.🍿 I remember watching The Love Bug with my cousins. Musicals,🎻 both animated Disney and Cinema productions, were quite popular at the box office. 🎟 My mom bought me the record of Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang. I loved the Jungle Book and The Sound of Music. 🎶 Both of those are classics; even now in 2021! Batman, the Movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Planet of The Apes,🙉 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kids, Born Free…as free as the grass grows, as free as the wind blows…🌬

Too many, really, to name! 

 

The evening dramas were often times viewed with kids and parents eating their TV dinners. My favorite? Salisbury Steak?

 Our television 📺 in the 60’s was about the size of a microwave oven, with “bunny ears” for the antennae 📡 and foil wrapped on the top for “better reception.” The “remote channel changer”📲 was usually the youngest kid…because they had no choice!  And all the episodes were on three networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC! 

 

Like a kaleidoscope 💠 of psychedelic colors, interchanging and mixing together, to form a beautiful pattern of shape and sizes, so too, is exactly why, I canNOT choose 💁 a favorite! Too many to choose from, and I’m sure I’ve missed a top pick or two! 

 

Ahh, those were the days my friend…so tell me…what’s your 

favorite? 

Genevra Bonati

Author: A Halted Heart