As a kid in the 1960's I remember tv being known as a vast wasteland by the adults (parents and teachers) it was colloquially called The Idiot Box.

@KathrineJKozachok

9 күн бұрын

We went from the Boob Tube to KZread.

@BradenWalker1

9 күн бұрын

I honestly wouldn't call it a vast wasteland. Vast? Ya only had a few channels 😂

@jdee3421

9 күн бұрын

@@BradenWalker1 A teensy weensy wasteland.

@dannydoom3969

9 күн бұрын

And yet it was their life

@dawnelder9046

7 күн бұрын

And most started at ten and ended at ten.

The sad thing with Boomers is talk radio and then things like Fox News warped a lot of these Boomers. The once loving parent that you had in the 80's and 90's sadly turned into the bitter, angry, and fearful. Luckily my parents never got into the Fox News trap.

You know, nobody ever seems to notice how good the video editors were back then.

@shaider1982

7 күн бұрын

Yup, they literally have to cut and paste the film.

I watched everything you mentioned in the video and I think people would be surprised to find out Elvis was only filmed from the waist up due to his gyrations. These were some weird times. loved every minute of them.

As an elder Millennial (I’m 42) I absolutely grew up on cable tv. Still watch it, but not like I used to. Now it is one of the apps usually.

I grew up as Gen x without power and all of the technology that most of my peers take for granted. Personally I see a correlation between the saying “You are what you eat” to You are what you feed your brain. The brain can only eat up and store a certain amount of information so be careful what you feed it.

@jesusislukeskywalker4294

9 күн бұрын

👍🏻 definitely, very true “energy flows where attention goes” ….. i haven’t watched TV in years .. i can’t stand all the negativity 🙈

@MicahScottPnD

6 күн бұрын

Nice!❤

Nice work, David. At age 5 I saw the Beatles on Sullivan, and I watched Wyatt Earp in the early/mid-'60s when a local station aired reruns of it in the afternoon. When I was in elementary school they would wheel a projector into the classroom and show us 16mm educational films, many of which were made in the '50s and looked just like the doc you've included in this vid. For us this was a treat, regardless of what the film was about. Plus, it got us out of doing classwork. Very cool that THIS doc inspired you to pursue your career. 😎

As much people say TV screwed us baby boomers up, the internet and social media along with smartphones did far more damage to the current young generations 😅

@BradenWalker1

9 күн бұрын

We now live in the age of information. With TV it was controlled by a handful of companies giving you only the media they wanted you to see. Now we have hundreds of thousands of independent content n media companies. How is this not better? Your generation believed in fake things like ghosts, Jesus , aliens , gods, voting , winning the lotto n Sasquatch.. think about that for a few minutes n get back to me

@someguycalledCh0wdah

9 күн бұрын

I dont know. Typically the younger ones can tell the difference between fake images and news while it's the older generation that is regularly targeted for scams and hacking because they're gullible and give away theur personal info really quickly and easily.

@andreathompson-bg4hl

9 күн бұрын

My grandmother didn't leave her bed or couch because she watched TV nonstop. My life goal is to not be like her.

@tylerboothman4496

9 күн бұрын

Seems to have ruined Boomers. Again. You ever been on Facebook?

@dannydoom3969

9 күн бұрын

The answer is still yes

Back then we had to decide what to watch as it was all live. If there were two different shows at the same time, it was one or the other. When our B+W television broke some time in the seventies the repair shop had the guts for some time. We weren't even bothered by not being able to watch. The guts never came back, so we had this big cabinet with the picture tube in it. Eventually we got a second hand television from someone else (still no colour). Don't know how we finally disposed of the old cabinet, but I still have the 1/4 inch thick piece of plate glass that was on the front of it. Makes a great tabletop. Dave, I'm glad you were inspired to go into making films and documentaries.

@karen4you

9 күн бұрын

We made a storage cabinet out of the old tv cabinet but our family recycled furniture and found stuff in the alley. Good wood cabinets. Used to walk to the drugstore to buy new tubes for the TV when I was a child.

@MicahScottPnD

6 күн бұрын

😂🤣😂 memories ❤

You know what I remember? How extremely crisp black and white TVs were. As a kid in the early 1980s we of course had a color TV in the living room. But I was gifted a late '60s Zenith TV and was allowed to split the cable from the living room and have "my own TV" in my bedroom. That B/W Zenith TV had some of the best high definition I've ever seen. Later I got a small color TV for Christmas, and while it was amazing to have my own color TV, the crispness of that ol' black and white was just never there.

As a Millennial, I don’t watch as much TV as I did when I was much younger.

It certainly shaped public opinion on crucial issues. I also think that most music radio stations that geared towards Boomers of the era aired news on the hour in between rock music and zit cream commercials.

I await to see how the internet ruined generations.

@BradenWalker1

9 күн бұрын

Probably can't ruin generations more than television. Same companies that controlled the TV are trying to still control the media on the Internet. Same ol Same ol.

@Bourbon_Bound

9 күн бұрын

I don’t think we really have to wait to see that. There’s Gen Z people in their mid-20’s now.

@user-dh6bj2me5p

9 күн бұрын

It's obvious. They can't speak the language let alone write it.

@AydanM

9 күн бұрын

As someone who is in the trenches, it's pretty grim out there

@BillLaBrie

9 күн бұрын

You get to see it live, happening now.

This was most fascinating David; I could sit around for hours on end listening to you Sir. 😉 I recall documentary on the birth television those in the film industry from the late 1940's and early 50's felt that television would just be a passing fad. As you know and pointed out television has become a powerful media. I recall when television stations would sign off at night or wee hours in the morning. Thanks again David Hiffman. 😊

I remember the first time I realized that commercials were kinda fake. I saw a G.I. Joe tank on a morning cartoon and begged my parents to get it for me. At the end of the summer after mowing the lawn all summer they bought it for me. Probably $10. Anyways it wasn't remote controlled like I thought it was in the commercial. Was quite a disappointment

@Kurt1969

8 күн бұрын

Lol. I was always dissapointed when bringing a new toy home after watching an action packed commercial with a GI joe or whatever. For some reason I couldn't re create that excitement from the commercial. Yet, I would buy more toys like that. And one thing that is crazy is picking up some of my old toys today. Real wood and metal, these toys were built like tanks!

@timothyryan8390

6 күн бұрын

Stretch Armstrong was fun to destroy. Or Gumby n pokie. My brothers liked to switch heads on the girls Barbie dolls and ken lol.

And part of the baby boomers. And if I have to admit it TV has probably messed me up. I have spent many hours entertaining myself and not being protective. To the east of Albuquerque is a place called Tinkerville. There is a Ford truck covered in pennies. There's two signs with it. One says I turn my phone into a Lincoln. The second sign is part of the Tinkerbell experience. This man built an impressive display. The sign says"I did all this while you were watching TV"

@MicahScottPnD

6 күн бұрын

That's a really interesting addition to this conversation! ❤

i remember watching lost in space as a 3 or 4 year old in about 1974 and it scaring the pants off me 😳

@MicahScottPnD

6 күн бұрын

That creates a context I hadn't thought of before, that's quite interesting ❤

Certainly shaped people’s lives beginning at an early age. Remember Colonel Bleep, Farmer Gray, and especially Warner bros. cartoons? I didn’t know it at the time but was appreciating radio stars, humor, and animation from the 1930s and 40s, from the greatest hard edged studio. Will always be thankful and today enjoy those radio programs over the internet.

Living in New Zealand it opened up the world to this rather isolated country, it was a good thing. Delia Morris

Zenith, the quality goes in before the name goes on. Timex, takes a licking and keeps on ticking. The honeymooners was family viewing while we ate homemade pizza which we all made together beforehand. Exercise shows for ladies. The tonight show. A time lost but not forgotten.

@cheri238

8 күн бұрын

🙏❤️🌎🌍🌏🌿🕊🎵🎶🎵

The downside of TV is making people passive. It was also easy for adults to use as a way to keep their kids entertained - basically a babysitter. I remember my parents limiting television for us kids to Friday evening, Saturday evening, and Sunday evening. I can remember watching Saturday morning cartoons and parents kicking us out of the house to go outside and play. With regard to the passivity of TV, I think this continues with computer gaming - people are being drawn into an artificial world and the real world is becoming more distant. This is amplified by people being on their phones so much of the time wherever they go and becoming how they socially interact.

Tea left teapots and started coming in little bags. Quick brew on station break.

@MicahScottPnD

6 күн бұрын

Interesting tidbit! ❤

Thank goodness air conditioning was also an invention. Better in the house might as well watch TV. Although we’re GenX parents with two teenagers and don’t even have a working TV. Lots of other screens.

Did radio have an affect on the greatest Generation?, Did the Telephone have an effect on the Lost Generation? How about the telegraph, and of course smoke signals. On smoke signals it's important to get the little curl at the bottom just right or you can screw up a whole paragraph. And lastly is the knee bones connect to the shin bone?

@jdee3421

9 күн бұрын

The tin can telephone really messed things up. We're still trying to recover.

@user-ho4nw5sf3w

9 күн бұрын

@@jdee3421 I grew up privileged. We used paper cups. But we drank out of the hose.

@jesusislukeskywalker4294

9 күн бұрын

@@user-ho4nw5sf3w😂

@MicahScottPnD

6 күн бұрын

I like what you're saying 👍

@jamessilver6429

4 күн бұрын

​@@jdee3421caused a botchalism epidemic if I recall correctly?

Wow. I love hearing your experience, Mr. Hoffman. I wish my mom was here so I could pick her brain about all these shows you mentioned and about her experience with TV. I wanna hear more about what you thought when you saw Indigenous, Black, and other non-white people for the first time on tv.

I got to meet Duncan Renaldo (Cisco Kid) in 1959. He had a really cool horse.

@3beltwesty

9 күн бұрын

He was at the Hospital for an event when I was born and my 2 older brothers got to meet him

@MicahScottPnD

6 күн бұрын

That had to be amazing! ❤

As a kid, I loved having a tv even though it was black and white. After school,I was outside playing but Saturday mornings were the showsI loved. And tv was free then but only 4 stations. Like you, I loved The Lone Ranger! I saw places too I'd never seen before. I watched tv with my dad whereas my mom didn't. I loved the ending of Walt Disney. Watched baseball with my dad-- he started taking me to live baseball games and still love baseball to this day. Notice that every single tv show had a tune to go with the beginning? I had World Books but tv taught me much! So many shows then were live. As a teacher I had to learn how to thread a film projector and worse was the filmstrip projector that got overheated way too much! And those films were old even then. Having a VCR in my room was used only for certain things as was the tv. Technology has proressed so much-- maybe to the point that I miss how it was from the get go.

@madtownangler

9 күн бұрын

We had a teacher that saved videos for during deer season when he had a substitute teacher. One time was my dad when he still had a current teaching certificate

@EmperorSigismund

9 күн бұрын

@@madtownangler I like to imagine him walking out of the classroom dressed like Elmer Fudd with a rifle and a giant backpack.

@madtownangler

9 күн бұрын

@@EmperorSigismund except this guy was a good 350 pounds. He was the golf coach at our school. My dad went deer hunting with him and his friends one year. They mostly just drank and didn't hunt.

I watched a movie in early 60s and next day saw a kid who looked like the evil kid in the movie. I started to hurt him. I can still remember him saying 'what are you doing?' then I snapped to my senses. True story. Also saw Superman's cape, and jumped off a high porch with a dish towel around my neck. My knee still hurts. Yes I was a stupid kid. But I can see how young minds can be influenced.

@MicahScottPnD

6 күн бұрын

Thanks for adding that. That's an important and often overlooked subject. 💙

Thanks for these uploads. Very educational . I love watching and learning especially from the past.

I really missed not watching TV with my daughters like I used to with my dad and brother.

Technology and technological progress is fantastic. Who knows where it will head 100 years from now

The blue box. It changed the world for sure. The 1st time people saw murders and deaths, live.

TV was awful. Social media is awfuller. But what’s done is done.

My grandmother still says "Watching television". She'll be 93 years young in a few weeks.

One of us kids always sat close to the tv so we could adjust the vertical hold control when a plane was flying over. BTW, I still have that first family TV. RCA chassis with a 10 inch kinescope, and it had channel 1.

@MicahScottPnD

6 күн бұрын

☺️👍

I watched the news,sports,cartoons,and pbs

TV is to Boomers what tiktok is to Gen Z

@MicahScottPnD

6 күн бұрын

Nice equation. Myself, I think it's equations like yours that are going to help get us all somewhere. 👍

I hate commercials...Yet Love The Price is Right.....which is essentially one huge hour long commercial, including the commercials

Television and TV shows, news, etc. etc. were what today smartsphones are and social media, but worse.

I cannot even remember the last time I watched cable tv XD

My dad was always concerned about the radiation emitted by the old tube TV sets. He stressed I sit so many feet away from the screen. At one point he even rented a Geiger Counter to measure the amount of radiation coming off the TV screen! I was addicted to TV as a kid, but almost all the shows I watched would be part of the Escapism variety, along with any Cartoons. I remember lots of talk about the violence TV promoted especially Saturday Morning Cartoons, and how after watching them kids would destroy their toys--something I did pretending I was one of the monsters I saw on TV. A lot of the things they used to say about TV, they now say about Social Media, what goes around comes around, but one thing that was proven was TV put your brain in the same state as hypnosis did. After they proved that in the 1970's, TV went from being Escapism to Indoctrination, which is why I quit watching it. There doesn't seem to be a show on TV anymore that isn't promoting the Gay Agenda, BIOPIC values, or Fake News. TV isn't a vast wasteland, it's a Godless wasteland.

Thanks David for another wonderful film of the 40's onward. I remember when we got our first TV back in the 40's! in NYC....people would come over to our house to see this miracle medium....I only remember that there were only about two stations on the air....WPIX being one of them. (Ex New Yorker) Walt in Miami.

I remember our portable black & white TV, and how you had to "warm it up" for a few minutes before watching it. The vertical hold (younger people probably won't understand what that is) would go awry, and we learned to stomp on the floor to get it to return to a picture. When we turned off the TV, the picture would reduce to a small white dot in the middle of the screen, that would eventually fade away. There were only 5 channels (one of which was educational, and had mostly TV College on it), but TV was free, other than the cost of the electricity to run the set. Nowadays everyone is watching something different, but back then we could talk about whatever show we'd seen the night before, and be fairly sure that our classmates had watched the same show.

I'm at the end of the baby boomers and I watch maybe two hours of television a week mostly the X-Files reruns and days like today when it's hot as heck out I'll watch KZread. Until I was disabled I would have been outside in the morning and at night when it wasn't so hot out, now I unfortunately spend a lot of time on KZread when I'm not with retiree friends

this reminds me of the first time i saw dial up internet waaaaaay back in the nineties

Whatever television did to Boomers , every generation since has been affected worse. Especially the television helicopter parenting combo.

THANK YOU, master-storyteller, for your passion (and for getting that Bolex camera! ❤)

That description is an amazing piece of writing, if you ask me. It captures the feeling of the leap forward that it was! TV at, its best, has been a very positive influence in my life, and, at its worst, not very negative. What jumps out at me about my own experience is the communal nature of it; the shared experiences, from times of watching tv together with family during dinner and laughing together to getting together to watch a big game, etc. The internet is in fact its own ball of wax. Each of us can tailor our own "tv" in our own hands to what each individual wants it to be, our "own station". Gathering around a tv, however, at least everyone got the same information, even if each person has a different interpretation. At least the starting point is the same. ❤❤ By the 80s, television's reputation was surely cemented by then. But there was this Black Flag song called "TV Party" ("we're gonna have a tv party tonight, alright! we're gonna have a tv party alright, tonight!"), which probably contains sarcasm but was surely not entirely sarcastic. In fact it truly made a tv party sound like fun! So a decade or so later, I actually gave it a try, I hosted a tv night. And it honestly was incredibly enjoyable! Now honestly, I love a tailor made experience, custom fit, but sometimes it's very enjoyable to know that what I experienced is exactly the same as what you experienced.❤

the lead paint exposure is what makes boomers act like big babys

i still have that bolex, still runs

@MicahScottPnD

6 күн бұрын

😉👍

There was a down side to some of its offerings. There were great things offered as well. But I’d bet me money it wasn’t nearly as destructive as the screen time projections into the minds of the babies who were handed smartphones in place of pacifiers.

Fortunately Hazel exists. This show, taught civics, freedom, ...morals as should. In those days, the snobbery was very destabilizing, low worth, rich are better than the poor. Hazel addressed snobbery. She gets free trip to a beauty Spa in Arizona.

Oh the CaptainKangaroo years I miss the TV guides. My parents only spoke ill of it when I didn't do homework or clean etc, ie: if I wasn't glued to that "boobtube" so much I could get stuff done! But it also was our encyclopedias coming to life, it opened up possibilities, much like. The internet today, it could be bad or good depending on how you use it.

@MicahScottPnD

6 күн бұрын

Yep👍

They don't call it Television (Tel a Vision) Program for nothing

if repetition sell more products it would seem possible that repitition of violent imagery and ideas would sink in deeply and at least partially mold behavior. I also have heard that repeating a lie over and over can convince many that it is true (including the liar!)

Right from the start TV was phenomenal! Very powerful and exciting for a long time, it's amazing to think David that you were there from the beginning, even watched as it evolved into such a powerful force, and in your profession you personally helped shape a portion of it! (How cool is that?) But sadly looks like we're all here for its decline, and ultimately I think it's done way more good than harm, can't imagine where any of us would be today without it? But I suppose the future holds something very different, hopefully we're off to bigger & better! 😊📺📺☮✌

@drewpall2598

9 күн бұрын

@JWF99 Jim I hope this make sense I know we have no say in the matter when we are born, I was just thinking about David Hoffman being born in the early 1940's it seems to have been the right time for Mr. Hoffman having parents who lived through the great depression and WW2 grandparent who lived in the late 1800 and turn of the 20th century and WW1 David seeing firsthand the birth of television, the birth of Rock N' Roll, the race to space, Cuban missile Crisis, the cold war, the civil right movement, the Vietnam conflict, the birth of the world wild web/internet, cell phone smart phone, and the new age of digital media and high tech. Mr. Hoffman sure seem to have found his calling in life as a documentary filmmaker and cameraman. Take care Jim. 😊💛✌

@JWF99

9 күн бұрын

@@drewpall2598 Well, I think that in a really weird way Drew some things were just simply meant to be.👍

@drewpall2598

9 күн бұрын

@@JWF99 Thank Jim and letting me ramble on so.🤣

@JWF99

9 күн бұрын

@@drewpall2598 You're certainly welcome Drew, and hey not to mention some of these virtual friendships born right here on David's YT ch between his subbs, and all bc of his efforts, no judgements, no preconceptions, just good people with similar interest, it's been one of the coolest things I've experienced, can't tell you how much I appreciate it, and somehow yet again it all just seems meant to be as well. ☺☮✌

@drewpall2598

9 күн бұрын

@@JWF99 Well said Jim. 😊👍💛

We can all agree that TV is nothing compared to TikTok. I always thought TV is already stupid and a waste of time. But TikTok takes it to whole new level. Now it’s not enough to become dumb passively, now it’s the age of actively engaging into mental degradation.

@MicahScottPnD

6 күн бұрын

What if you could do the same thing in the direction of smartness? Thatd be pretty cool!

All the time, coordination, and effort that goes into producing television as depicted in this film, bolstered by centralized industry and institutions for the promise of reaching the grand scale of "millions" of people instead of thousands; an extreme irony that now, any singular person with nothing more than their cellphone, a concept, and a most basic understanding of videography can freely venture to create and broadcast something seen by millions, or by no one at all. As concerns the title question, one thing I've noticed among the older generations is consumption of television with almost the same voracity as today's younger ones with cellphones and the internet. Much of the older generations I've seen in my family (aged between their 50s and their 90s) would watch television endlessly all day if there's nothing else to do, and I wonder if the pre-television era folks ever derided the baby boomers or the greatest generation for "being glued to their screens" once television became universal, and if they pondered the ill effects of media overexposure like people do now. Of particular disturbance to me recently was the decline and passing of a distant relative who had become extremely isolated, maybe paranoid even in her later years, who seldom left the house or socialized after the pandemic began except over the phone sometimes. She had some kind of medical emergency and was hospitalized, and in very short order her mental faculties declined. I drove another relative upstate to see her, and by the time we got there, she was no longer capable of speech, turning towards us and trembling her mouth as if trying to speak, but with no hint that she really recognized us. Briefly she seemed to acknowledge the empathetic gesture of holding her hand, but she turned away and above all else was transfixed by one thing in her hospital room the whole time: the running television. I wondered if the significance of television to her had somehow survived in her failing mind when everything else had begun to shut down and be forgotten, becoming the last vestige of a decaying life reinforced by routine and ritual indulgence year in and year out, developed into a base instinct that outlived the rest of her consciousness; when I got home and looked around at many of my generational predecessors, engaging in mass uncritical consumption of the same synthesized facsimiles of life and isolating themselves from the physical act of it, I wondered if the same fate would befall them. Under some unfortunate circumstance or decline, would they lose their minds and become entirely dissociated from reality, when they might otherwise retain some coherence? Would they too be reduced to husks of themselves, staring blankly at flashing patterns of light in their final days and hours? As I've gotten to see some of my contemporaries binge watching and re-watching show after show, and scrolling through social media endlessly at all times of the day, and my successors wired into brain-occupying media from the earliest ages possible for their parents' convenience, I'm sometimes concerned with what degree and what consequence all of our lives have become supplanted by artificial imagery and routine that no other natural thing knows. -A 26-year-old

I watched more television when my kids were younger but then they became middle schoolers and high schoolers and I can say it was really nice to not have it as often as everyone else I knew you and my grandkids don’t watch it so much either because I always pushed books, outside and on occasion we’ll watch the television together but it’s very minimal and family time is very important to us as parents and grandparents so no television, electronics or cell phones

YES

Cinema addiction is a real thing.

It's hypnotic. And dangerous. A perfect propaganda tool. Gave birth to what were on today. It dumbed us down no matter how much fun it offered.

It started the screen zombies. I was one. Planted myself in front of the boob tube every day after school. I prefer to watch tv still to computers or phone screens

As a late boomer, 1960 , I dont give any pass to the fools who watch crap like fox. Zero excuse for swallowing lies, zero

The constant advertising made TV unbearable. Today, I won’t watch any ads. They make me physically ill sometimes. The only good TV I remember was Twilight Zone and Star Trek. All In the Family was good too.

12:51 Patrick Stewart???

What’s your input on Dorothy Dandridge?

The Tenates of that Apartment Building pet up thair own Antennas.

Blah blah blah, tv this tv that, blah blah social media blah burgh!!!

Slightly off subject but…not joining the union? The union was and is the backbone of this country and the working class. Just my opinion, not being fanatical.

NO. lol.

WORST GENERATION EVER