Story by Jon Stalnaker AKA The Studebaker Dude
I was born in the early 50s and life was so much different back then. They call us boomers because WWII had just ended and all of the surviving GIs that came home were glad to see the girls they left behind and, well, let’s just say that there was a lot of making up for lost time going on, and birth control was yet to be readily available. Families were bigger back then. I was the fifth of five children and I had many friends that had a similar roster of siblings. Life was simpler back then and television was in its infancy. I don’t remember sitting around listening to the radio, but I do remember getting our first television set. We had 3 channels to watch thanks to the rabbit ears TV antenna on top of the set. We often had to adjust the antenna to get a better signal and being the youngest, I was usually the one to get up to turn it until the signal was better. Improvements came along and before long the antennas were on top of the roof and controlled by a remote box that replaced the rabbit ears. I can remember when the UHF channels came along and suddenly, we had 4 channels to watch. Broadcasting did not go on all night long either. The stations signed off at night and came back on in the early morning hours with information for the farmers.
Technology continued to grow by leaps and bounds and by the time I was finishing my senior year of high school, I was watching the first man step on the moon. We had many more channels to watch and the TVs were broadcasting 24/7. Our phones were still attached to the walls and computers were huge machines that filled up entire buildings. There was no internet, we did our research through encyclopedias and libraries. There was no technology that fit in your pocket. War was going on in Viet Nam and military service was not voluntary. You could enlist but if you didn’t, you took the risk of being drafted. Most of us served at least 2 years, I did 3 years, 8 months, and 9 days.
After completing my tour of duty, I came home with the intention of getting a job as a mailman. It took a few months but I did get in. Starting as a clerk on the swing shift, I would get off work at 11 pm and get home early enough to watch a little late-night TV to wind down my mind. There was a brand-new show called Saturday Night Live and I watched it from episode 1. It was like nothing else on TV and they pushed the boundaries set by the censors far beyond what had ever been attempted in the past. They had unusual but cool musical guests and I was hooked on that show.
I watched it when I could, but job schedules and children took over as priorities so I missed a lot of them. But I would turn it on from time to time throughout the last 50 years. I was a regular viewer during the years of the original cast. I didn’t love everything about it but there was plenty of content I did like to keep me tuned in. I could have done without the Killer Bees and the Coneheads but the music was great and the Blues Brothers was the best. I was delighted the first time I saw Eddie Murphy doing “Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood” and his Buckwheat impersonations. I have mixed feelings about Will Ferrell but the Cow Bell sketch was one of the funniest things I ever saw. I should say, it was Christopher Walkin who made that sketch epic, but it was the brainchild of Will Ferrell. So many awesome cast members, too many to list here, but I have been enjoying watching the build-up to the 50-year reunion show that has been on TV for the last few weeks. This weekend they are going to play the original first episode and I look forward to watching that. I watched it for the first time when it originally aired and I don’t intend to miss it this time either.
I have watched SNL a few times in the last few years and I must say, it isn’t what I remembered and loved so much in my youth. That is probably because I come from another era when things were different and the things the youth of today find funny, not so much for me. That’s okay because I am now an old man and I have a different sense of humor. I expect to see plenty of the good stuff that I still remember and hopefully, they will show a cross-section of the humor that has been their brilliant showcase of what is going on in this world. It’s a different world than it was in the early 70s and it was their job to keep it relevant. So many brilliant people have started their claim to fame on Saturday night and we can all enjoy the portion that meant so much to us back in the day. I’m sure many young people today will not understand what tickled our funny bones in the 70s, and that’s okay.
