I’m an old fart and remember when our family bought our first TV around the Fall of 1951, a Philco entertainment center with a 17 inch TV (leading edge stuff back then).
We received one station (signon = 10AM / signoff = 10 PM). Every thing was broadcast live except old (by standards of the day), Felix the Cat and Betty Boop cartoons, and other crap that no one would pay to see.
But kids and some adults would watch the TV from sunup to sundown fascinated by what was being broadcasting into their homes. It was like going to the theaters for free. Some people would turn on their TV’s just to watch the snow or search for new channels.
Being dumb, we kids (baby boomers) wondered why the “good cartoons” we saw at the theaters never got shown on TV at home during the fifties. Some did during the sixties, (in color no less) but we were grown up and fixing to head for Vietnam or become peace protesters (flower children) by then. Your generation got to see the “good” stuff on Saturday mornings. We got “Good Morning Vietnam” and no cartoons.
I do not wish to offend any friends of Felix the Cat and Betty Boop cartoons, but they can hide them away forever and I won’t miss them. These cartoons were so bad I was driven to find other interests. Thank you GOD for MAD magazine, action hero comic books, Rod Serling, Leo Fender, and “ham” radio. And finally thanks for Rocky and Bullwinkle, Roadrunner and Coyote, and other intelligible gibberish of that era.
I like Betty Boop cartoons today more than I did as a kid. My favorite is “Minnie the Moocher” (1931) which features Cab Calloway & the Cotton Club Orchestra.
we had a 13 inch Philco circa 1956 My mom would say not too close Jr.
Took it too cal and put in my room lasted till 66, no service. Tube went out. I moved out and we dumped it.