Steven John Kosareff
It’s TV Time!Strap on your beanie, spin the propeller, and travel back in time when the first television sets invaded American homes. It’s 1952 and you’ve heard of television. You’ve even seen a demonstration at a county fair-but you don’t own a television set. You’d have one-except for one little problem: there isn’t a television station in your town. Fortunately, the FCC has just lifted its freeze on new television stations and your city is planning to be the first out the gate with television. Unfortunately, so does every other city in the United States. The television set gold rush is on!Unlike anything before it, including the radio, telephone and telegraph, the television set transformed the American home forever in ways both good and bad. It altered family relationships, both within and without the family. Lives were now scheduled around favorite television programs which, unlike today, could only be seen during their original broadcasts. Visiting with friends and relatives took a backseat to viewing television either, in avoiding other people, or inviting them in to commune in front of the television set. Early owners hosted planned, and sometimes spontaneous, television parties. Many people believed television would be the end of polite conversation and, worse yet, civilization. Television sets were a national conduit for conversations on child rearing and education; provided respite for people who were physically challenged; and even tested one’s vision before sending them to the optometrist for glasses. Television sets acted as channels for conspiracists who thought their sets were watching them or receiving signals from outer space. Broken television sets tested men’s electronic repair abilities and provided more than one lonely housewife a repairman to pay her attention. The one thing all these early television set owners had in common was that, no matter how hard they may have tried, they couldn’t live without their television set. The Glass Eye Invasion had conquered America.
