What Happened (Part 29)

Since it is a Monday, Pop must watch Gunsmoke, his long-standing favorite, and the last holdout of the serious cowboy shows.  Westerns don’t hold much interest for me, but if the episode is a comedy one or features Festus as the story focus, I may give it my attention; the dramas or love stories, not so much.  We might wander in and out, waiting for it to end, but most of the time one of the younger boys stays snuggled up in the chair next to Pop, just for company and love.  Gunsmoke trumps anything that may be on any other channel, and that includes animated specials.  This can cause dissension in the kingdom, but with the acquisition of a small red portable black-and-white set an imperfect solution is reached. 

What we kids really love for evening viewing are comedies and variety shows.  To give a mere list of examples, for comedy shows there were The Beverly Hillbillies, The Lucy Show, Mayberry RFD, Bewitched, Gilligan’s Island, Family Affair, My Three Sons, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Gomer Pyle, Green Acres, I Dream of Jeannie, Hogan’s Heroes, and Petticoat Junction; I remember when there were still new episodes of the original run of The Flintstones that were aired early in the evening. Variety shows were usually named after the star who hosted them.  We watched the Red Skelton Hour, the Jackie Gleason Show, the Carol Burnett Show, the Glenn Campbell Goodtime Hour, the Jim Nabors Hour, and Rowan & Martin’s Laugh In. For adventures we watched Batman, Flipper, Daniel Boone, and Lost in Space.  I recall clicking through channels once and passing by a scene of what I now know to have been Kirk and Spock running through the Enterprise’s corridor while a red alert was sounding. I remember being discouraged to linger, and so had one fleeting glimpse of Star Trek while it was still new.