Parental Controls

- jim Young 20190221

“Parental Control in the 50s or 60s was a flyswatter or a belt.” jy

Laura and Rob Petrie slept in separate
beds on the Dick Van Dyke Show.
The expression “Parental Control” when I was growing up in the 50s and 60s had nothing to do with television. In our house “Parental Control” was exercised with a fly swatter.

“Parental Control”, relative to the TV, was the “off” button which I didn’t dare touch after one of my parent’s had shut it off, for fear of invoking the other “Parental Control” - the fly swatter.

We only got 1 TV Channel in our house. Apparently it was black and white. As I have been colour blind since birth, my parents told me we had a colour TV and it wasn’t until I was 14 that I learned the truth.

I had cousins that lived in the big city (Toronto) however and they got what seemed like hundreds of TV channels to choose from.

Even so, I don't think there were any TV stations that required parental control back in those days. (Yes - that's how old I really am!)

Rob and Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke show slept in separate beds as did Henry and Alice Mitchell on Dennis The Menace. Even the Mitchell's elderly neighbours the Wilson's slept in separate beds.

There were plenty of single Dads on TV back then; Chuck Connors in The Rifleman, Fred McMurray in My Three Sons, Andy of Mayberry and Ben Cartwright of Bonanaza, but it would have been scandalous for a TV show to suggest a single mother was fit for television!

That didn't happen until the late 60s when Diahann Carroll starred in Julia, also as the first black woman to star in a TV series in a non-stereotypical role.

If a TV couple were even sitting on the same bed just talking, the censors required they have 1 foot on the floor at all times.

Lucy on I Love Lucy was the first pregnant woman on TV but they couldn't use the word pregnant. Pregnant ladies, that were always married in the early days of TV were “in the family way” or “had a condition”.

In fairness to the writers however, it was really just a reflection of the times as most people still talked that way back then.

And although Leave It To Beaver showed the first toilet on television, just the tank was shown where Beaver kept his pet alligator.

Wait, what? Beaver? On TV? Beaver of course meant something much different in those days as did the “pearl necklace” that Beaver’s mother June Cleaver always wore while doing her housework.

We didn’t look to TV for sex in the 50s or 60s. (That’s what our fathers' Playboy magazines were for.) Instead we watched TV for its real value of the day - the violence on the cowboy, cops and robbers and war shows.

- 30 -

Comments

Post a Comment

Stuff others read

Obituary: 173 Big Bay Point Road

Image
- jim Young “You can’t go home again.” - Thomas Wolfe. There isn’t much that is more exciting to a 7 year old boy than hanging around a construction site. Once the vivid imagination of a young boy begins to stir, the excavation for the basement will take him on a journey to China, the cement blocks of the foundation transform the hole in the ground into a formidable castle, scrap pieces of wood cut at a 45° angle become the bulky sails of a sailboat, the studded walls, as they are erected become prison bars that the young lad can escape through and rafters, when hung, will serve as monkey bars. At least that’s how it was for me. Most children are denied this experience today for the sake of safety. But in 1960 these opportunities were more readily available. And when your grandfather was building the house, even more so. That your grandfather might be building that house for you, well, that was the icing on the cake. I remember my grandfather letting me help him “build” our house. Und
More... »

Facebook Imposters - A Form Of Identity Theft

Image
- jim Young “My bank balance is a constant reminder that I am safe from identity theft.” - anon DEFINITIONS Scammer: a person who deceives another into parting with their money or confidential information for personal gain. This can be done through personal contact, by phone, through the post office, by email or on the internet. Hacker: a scammer who uses computers and technology to gain unauthorized access to data. Facebook Imposter/Clone: a scammer who clones someone else’s Facebook account with the intention of hacking or scamming. Most often their intended target is not the owner of the Facebook account that has been cloned, but rather their friends. The Facebook Imposter Up Close & Personal I would imagine that in the hierarchy of scammers, hackers and Facebook Imposters, the Facebook Imposter is the lowest on the scale. If I were a hacker I would be embarrassed that these scumbags even exist. Of course I would also be embarrassed at my own existence as a hacker but the Fac
More... »

Another Dougie Doozie

Image
- Jim Young “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.” - Grouch Marx In April 2023, in an attempt to reduce their environmental footprint, the LCBO announced they would quit issuing paper bags to their customers, later that same year. The plan was to eliminate 135 million paper bags from the LCBO per annum. Calculated to save 188,000 trees each and every year thereafter, it was also estimated that 2,665 tonnes of waste would be diverted from landfills annually. Miles ahead of most other retail operations, the LCBO had already voluntarily eliminated plastic bags 15 years prior to that, shortly after the turn of the century. Even so, the LCBO’s decision to stop providing even paper bags to their customers altogether was not a novel idea. Many other retailers have stopped offering free bags, encouraging their customers to bring their own bags or purchase reusable bags which are said to be more environmen
More... »