David Hoffman | Did TV Mess Up Baby Boomers? Say Many. Is It True? @DavidHoffmanFilmmaker | Uploaded June 2024 | Updated October 2024, 4 hours ago.
You are watching a film made to excite folks to join the television industry when it was new. I am David Hoffman Filmmaker and I saw this film back then and it convinced me to go to NYU Summer Film/TV school.
Back in 1960 and the TV Industry was growing like crazy. To understand this moment time which is the time I decided to become a television show maker/filmmaker.
Classic television like it was needed a big production team and equipment. Cameramen. Sound man. Technical director. Assistant. And the director.
And they told us that we would have to join the union and the process of becoming a director took five years. You started off as a page in one of the networks if you got the job. That wasn't for me.
I picked up the camera and made my first movie. It ran on prime time on national educational television, the forerunner of PBS.
Since many of you are younger than me I want to reflect for a minute on what TV meant to us at that time. They told us that it was the most powerful thing influencing families that ever existed. It was so powerful when it entered our home. It was a family experience that older people will remember.
I saw where food was grown. I saw the deserts. I saw California, which was quite amazing. Mountain climbing. Canada. And all way better than what I was learning in school. My parents saw it as useful education. It's the first time I saw how other people lived.
I saw the president. I saw bluegrass and country singers, not just on the radio.
I saw car advertisements for fancy cars driving in wonderful places.
I saw lots of westerns and game shows. The Lone Ranger was one of the earliest TV Westerns, television brought other Western heroes into American homes
Cowboys and lawmen such as HOPALONG CASSIDY, WYATT EARP, and the CISCO KID
Like THE LONE RANGER or ZORRO, most programs of the early 1950s drew a clear line between the good guys and the bad guys. There was very little danger of injury or death, and good always triumphed in the end.
I saw the Coronation of the King/Queen in England. Revolution in Egypt. Tribal life in Africa.
Just imagine seeing all that for the first time.
You invited other people over, and as kids, we got to hear our parents talking about things that they saw on the TV. We could learn about them and how they thought.
And when you went to school the next day, everybody talked about what they had seen. Just a fun fact, during the commercial breaks, water consumption in the United States shot up as every viewer went to the toilet. There was no DVR for ability to delay live TV.
TV was family time for real. My parents watched game shows with great enthusiasm.
The $64,000 Question (a million dollars today).
We saw sports. And Broadway quality theater. and comedy — as a family.
Most familes watched domestic comedies like Father Knows Best – idealized family life which I and many others feel, is part of what caused the 60s generation to rebel and explode against the clear dishonesty of these Idealized family experiences.
And comedy? Our family laughed together with Sid Caesar, Milton Berle & Jackie Gleason
Lucille Ball's new baby brought 44 million viewers to her show . TV Guide soon became the most popular periodical in the country
Ed Sullivan's variety show provided entertainment ranging from the rock and roll to goofy scenes with trained animals. Ed Sullivan called it “a really big shew.” Although Elvis Presley had appeared on other shows in the past, it was his performance on The Ed Sullivan Show that grabbed the headlines.
My sister watched The Howdy Doody Show" — “Its Howdy Doody Time……
TV then was mostly live. All kinds of mistakes happened. When you watched the box, unlike going to the movies, you felt like you were watching reality right in your own home.
And of course, I saw commercials. Most people hated them from the start, having no idea how they were affecting us. Television sponsors ranged from greeting cards to automobiles, and the most advertised product was tobacco. Do you remember Be Happy Go Lucky? A study show that the more times they mentioned the product in one minute, the more likely consumers were to buy it.
Researchers studied its effect on the family. At the time and even today, some people think it was negative. Some parents thought that TV caused violence. Some parents thought it hurt their children's eyes. Some parents thought that it caused eating disorders. Some parents only allowed TV on Sunday when the cartoons ran. Some parents saw it as bringing the devil into the home. Some parents refused to have a TV in their home so my friends would come to my house to watch TV. My parents saw it as useful education.
Then there is the issue of race. At first, we didn't see any black people, except in Hollywood movies.
I'm sharing all this because for those of you who are younger, I wanted to give you a sense of what the TV experience was like and why it seemed so amazing to me and other young “filmmakers”.
You are watching a film made to excite folks to join the television industry when it was new. I am David Hoffman Filmmaker and I saw this film back then and it convinced me to go to NYU Summer Film/TV school.
Back in 1960 and the TV Industry was growing like crazy. To understand this moment time which is the time I decided to become a television show maker/filmmaker.
Classic television like it was needed a big production team and equipment. Cameramen. Sound man. Technical director. Assistant. And the director.
And they told us that we would have to join the union and the process of becoming a director took five years. You started off as a page in one of the networks if you got the job. That wasn't for me.
I picked up the camera and made my first movie. It ran on prime time on national educational television, the forerunner of PBS.
Since many of you are younger than me I want to reflect for a minute on what TV meant to us at that time. They told us that it was the most powerful thing influencing families that ever existed. It was so powerful when it entered our home. It was a family experience that older people will remember.
I saw where food was grown. I saw the deserts. I saw California, which was quite amazing. Mountain climbing. Canada. And all way better than what I was learning in school. My parents saw it as useful education. It's the first time I saw how other people lived.
I saw the president. I saw bluegrass and country singers, not just on the radio.
I saw car advertisements for fancy cars driving in wonderful places.
I saw lots of westerns and game shows. The Lone Ranger was one of the earliest TV Westerns, television brought other Western heroes into American homes
Cowboys and lawmen such as HOPALONG CASSIDY, WYATT EARP, and the CISCO KID
Like THE LONE RANGER or ZORRO, most programs of the early 1950s drew a clear line between the good guys and the bad guys. There was very little danger of injury or death, and good always triumphed in the end.
I saw the Coronation of the King/Queen in England. Revolution in Egypt. Tribal life in Africa.
Just imagine seeing all that for the first time.
You invited other people over, and as kids, we got to hear our parents talking about things that they saw on the TV. We could learn about them and how they thought.
And when you went to school the next day, everybody talked about what they had seen. Just a fun fact, during the commercial breaks, water consumption in the United States shot up as every viewer went to the toilet. There was no DVR for ability to delay live TV.
TV was family time for real. My parents watched game shows with great enthusiasm.
The $64,000 Question (a million dollars today).
We saw sports. And Broadway quality theater. and comedy — as a family.
Most familes watched domestic comedies like Father Knows Best – idealized family life which I and many others feel, is part of what caused the 60s generation to rebel and explode against the clear dishonesty of these Idealized family experiences.
And comedy? Our family laughed together with Sid Caesar, Milton Berle & Jackie Gleason
Lucille Ball's new baby brought 44 million viewers to her show . TV Guide soon became the most popular periodical in the country
Ed Sullivan's variety show provided entertainment ranging from the rock and roll to goofy scenes with trained animals. Ed Sullivan called it “a really big shew.” Although Elvis Presley had appeared on other shows in the past, it was his performance on The Ed Sullivan Show that grabbed the headlines.
My sister watched The Howdy Doody Show" — “Its Howdy Doody Time……
TV then was mostly live. All kinds of mistakes happened. When you watched the box, unlike going to the movies, you felt like you were watching reality right in your own home.
And of course, I saw commercials. Most people hated them from the start, having no idea how they were affecting us. Television sponsors ranged from greeting cards to automobiles, and the most advertised product was tobacco. Do you remember Be Happy Go Lucky? A study show that the more times they mentioned the product in one minute, the more likely consumers were to buy it.
Researchers studied its effect on the family. At the time and even today, some people think it was negative. Some parents thought that TV caused violence. Some parents thought it hurt their children's eyes. Some parents thought that it caused eating disorders. Some parents only allowed TV on Sunday when the cartoons ran. Some parents saw it as bringing the devil into the home. Some parents refused to have a TV in their home so my friends would come to my house to watch TV. My parents saw it as useful education.
Then there is the issue of race. At first, we didn't see any black people, except in Hollywood movies.
I'm sharing all this because for those of you who are younger, I wanted to give you a sense of what the TV experience was like and why it seemed so amazing to me and other young “filmmakers”.
