UHF, VHF, rabbit ears, and late-night television

[The Burgomaster]

Watching bad movies seemed to be more fun when I was a kid. Back in the early 1970s, before cable television, I had only a handful of channels to choose from.

VHF channels:

We got the best reception on these. In the Boston area, I could get great picture quality on channels 4, 5 and 7 (the basic NBC, ABC, CBS affiliates), as well as channel 2 (which was a public television station). I could also get snowy, but watchable, pictures on channels 10 and 12 if I played around with the rabbit ear antenna.

UHF channels:

We got decent, but slightly snowy, reception on channels 38 and 56 (local independents) and channel 44 (PBS again), and I could get a really snowy picture on channel 27 if I screwed around with the antenna long enough. When I got a little older, channel 25 started operating, as did the short-lived channel 68.

I have fond memories of staying up late on Saturday nights and tuning in to either channel 38 or channel 56 and watching creaky old horror movies with commercial interruptions about every 12 minutes. Something about the fact that they were on local, independent TV stations, which showed cheesy late night commercials, and the fact that I had to adjust the antenna to get a good picture, made them even more "cheap looking" and enjoyable to watch.

Cable TV is a great invention, but I still have fond memories of my youth, when I had only 6 or 8 serious programming choices, yet I always seemed to find something to watch, even after midnight. I don't think I would have grown into a B-movie fan if I hadn't been able to watch stuff like THE MUMMY'S HAND and MOTHRA, with snowy picture quality, on a Saturday night.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it . . .

[Susan]

I relive my youth everyday in the breakroom at work with our giant Trinitron tv which picks up 3 channels on a good day. Rabbit ears with foil and unfortunately the best reception is the jerry springer channel. And that my friend is just as scary as monster movies at 2am. (has anyone noticed that everyday it's the same show, two trailer trash women stripping down to nothing and fighting over a toothless man? Ladies and gentlemen..I implore you)

Do young kids today even know what it's like to have a tv without a remote, let alone no cable?  I grew up for awhile where we only had a b&w tv and I am only 29.  I grew up with something far worse than UHF for a time - Filipino tv..heh. Where you too could win a bag of rice, a fan, or maybe even a matress on Eat Bulega!



Post Edited (09-29-03 22:42)

[Ancient Flounder]

When I worked at Taco Bell, we had a TV with rabbit ears.  It could pick up Spanish channels pretty well, and I seemed to be the only one to pick up the networks.  It was nifty, too, since I could pick up MTV2 on a good day and watch some videos while taking my break.  ^_^

[Scott]

We always had about 12 channels in Elmira, NY in the mid-70's. Then I can remember the first year HBO came to our nieghborhood. My nieghbors had the channel and I didn't. They would tell me about a scary movie called BEYOND THE DOOR (might be a variation of this name) or something like that. Can anyone tell me the name of this film. I couldn't find it on IMDB, so it must have a different name. I don't know any details because I never seen it.

[Ash]

I remember back in the early 80's when my family first got cable.

I remember the old cable box....it was big, black with only a large dial in the center with the channel numbers printed on it and it clicked whenever you turned it to the right or left.

Did any of you have a similar device?

[dean]

I can imagine a world without cable



I live in one...

well sort of, we can get cable TV if we wanted to, but we don't, our selection isn't that big [i think it only gets about 30-50 channels] so it doesn't seem that worth it.  I will have to live with just regular commercial TV, with my 5 or 6 channels, but I'm happy; when we hosted some American baseballers for some thing, they were amused to learn we get a lot of the more popular shows that are on cable over in the US but go free to air here, so i guess it could be a godsend: it might weed out all the crap and only get the good stuff!!

:P

but then, what would life be like without the crap?

how else would we know what is good?

[The Burgomaster]

To Scott:

The name of the movie is BEYOND THE DOOR. It is an Italian EXORCIST rip-off from the mid 1970s. It was on video years ago, but it is probably out of print now. If you can find a video store that has been in business for awhile, they might have an old copy hanging around. The movie isn't very scary . . . even the scenes of the possessed woman are pretty lame.

There was also a movie called BEYOND THE DOOR 2, which is a fake sequel. It is really the movie SHOCK, but they changed the title to make people think it was a sequel to BEYOND THE DOOR. I have SHOCK on DVD, and I think it is a better movie than the original BEYOND THE DOOR. In fact, SHOCK was directed by Mario Bava. So, if you're a fan of his films, you might want to get your hands on a copy.

[mr. henry]

i remember staying up to watch Tales From The Darkside on a small little black and white tv my parents let me have in my room. no antanne. maybe some kinda rabbit ears. i can't remember.

[Scott]

I thought that was the title BEYOND THE DOOR. Those early HBO days were something for me. Never had a pay channel till 1984 then I ordered all the pay channels for a few months and got tired of them. Except PRISM from Philadelphi which showed top Pro Wrestling matches from the Spectrum.

I can remember waiting for that free weekend of HBO once a year. As a teenager I remember watching the movie "10" with Bo Derek and Dudley Moore. Strange how I've never watched it since. Another one that I did see at the theater was LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK and couldn't wait to see it at my friends house.

[Susan]

I remember when we first got HBO in the early 80's. I used to get exicted when the HBO song would come up...take you through a tunnel or something and then go into space where the logo turns on it's side and you are propelled into the "o" part (i think). I miss that old song and intro, I think they have a new one now but it's not the same. I'm trying to remember back then, I don't think they showed rated R movies in the daytime, in fact I remember some awful programming like Fraggle Rock. I was quite shocked one day recently to flip by a full sex scene from "Risky business" around 11am one day. To think when i was younger I had to stay up till midnight to catch that kind of movie. ;-)

[dean]

"I was quite shocked one day recently to flip by a full sex scene from "Risky business" around 11am one day. To think when i was younger I had to stay up till midnight to catch that kind of movie. ;-)"

damn kids have it too easy nowadays, i wish watching porn was that easy for me when i was younger...

[JohnL]

>I remember when we first got HBO in the early 80's. I used to get exicted when
>the HBO song would come up

I remember when we first got HBO, it didn't even come on until like 5pm in the evening. They used to show the adult Candid Camera, burlesque shows etc.