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If the Fifties were the innocent childhood of television, the
Sixties were definitely the period of rebellious adolescence. Just
as the world underwent dramatic social and cultural change, so
television led the way in reflecting the Swinging
Sixties.
In the USA until 1965 - and in England until 1967 - television
was in black and white (if you wanted colour you went to the cinema
and watched a movie) and everyone was learning on the job. Viewing
hours were also limited.
TV did not broadcast 24 hours a day. It did not even broadcast
continuously. There were scheduled breaks throughout the day and
during the sixties there were many unscheduled breaks as well during
which a piece of cardboard would be slung in front of the camera
urging "Please do not adjust your set.".
 Colour TV was introduced to England on July 1st, 1967 - The first
transmission in colour was the Wimbledon Women's Singles final. Only
a few shows a week (five hours worth) were broadcast in colour at
the time, with a full colour service commencing on BBC2 in December,
and BBC1 and ITV switching to colour in November 1969
The drama series on TV can be traced back to crime shows (notably
Dragnet) and kids westerns (The
Lone Ranger) on television in the early 1950s, to film noir
and the cowboy movies, and to all sorts of pulp fiction.
But its growth in American television (and therefore ultimately
the Western world), was initially a response to the needs of the ABC
network. This third-ranked network sought to improve its finances
and stature by scheduling programs with more punch than previous
efforts.
An alliance with Warner Brothers brought to television such adult
westerns as Cheyenne and Maverick,
as well as glamorous detective programs like 77
Sunset Strip and Hawaiian Eye. The most violent of
the shows, The Untouchables, came from Desilu where the
initial work was supervised by Quinn Martin, who would later produce
The Fugitive, The FBI, and The Streets of San
Francisco, though none so full of gun play.
ABC's rivals responded with their own brand of mayhem and
westerns and detective dramas quickly became the top-rating TV
genres. Such a glut led to burnout, and the wave of westerns
receded, eventually disappearing from TV in the next decade.
Even so the networks did experiment with new kinds of drama
series': war dramas (notably ABC's Combat), the cult hit Star
Trek, and spy stories like I Spy. Never again would
action-adventure drama programs dominate the TV schedule as it had
in the Sixties.
But the popularity of action-adventure did revive, especially in
the early 1970s when crime shows became all the rage.
The 60s was also the decade in which some major soap operas were
created. In Britain in1960, Granada TV launched Coronation Street,
a representation of daily life in a Northern working class
community. The series originally screened in the north west but was
soon to be networked across the country. It remains at the top of
the audience ratings to this day.
In 1964 ATV introduced the highly popular Crossroads, a
soap set in a Midlands motel, which ran for 24 years.
Until 1985
when the BBC introduced the highly successful EastEnders the
non-commercial channel did not fare well with its soaps.
Two were
experimented with: Compact was set in the offices of a
magazine, and The Newcomers presented the story of a London
family that moved to a country town.
 Making its debut in the late 60s was Star Trek, which
followed the adventures of 23rd Century space voyagers, boldly going
"where no man has gone before". It was (quite literally)
ahead of its time, and though the show fared only moderately well in
the ratings during its three years of existence, the crew of the
starship Enterprise grew enormously in stature during the
1970s, thanks to a symbiotic combination of televised re-runs and
fan conventions.
Still, the show had enough of a cult following during its
original run that three of its cast members - William Shatner
(Captain Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (Mr Spock) and Nichelle Nichols
(Lieutenant Uhura) - all enjoyed brief recording careers.
Although Nimoy and Nichols could actually sing, Shatner's album The
Transformed Man (which featured unintentionally hilarious
recitations of songs like Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and Mr
Tambourine Man) was easily the most memorable release of the
bunch.
In the 60s, family variety entertainment and kids shows dominated
the TV schedules, so even the most happening of 60s beat groups
would troop on to Crackerjack and Hey Presto, It's . . .
Rolf before heading off to do Sunday Night At The London
Palladium or The Morecambe and Wise Show.
The most successful family variety show was probably Juke Box
Jury, in which four panellists predicted whether newly released
records would be a Hit or a Miss. The other three big pop shows of
the day were Thank Your Lucky Stars (1961 - 1966), Top Of
The Pops (1964 - 2006) and Ready Steady Go! (1963 - 1966)
which quickly latched on to the R&B and Soul music that the
emerging Mods loved so much.
The format on Juke Box Jury was simple. DJ David Jacobs
would play a new record and a panel of four would vote on whether it
would be a hit or a miss. In the event of a tie, members of the
audience would help. Thank Your Lucky Stars, hosted by Brian
Matthews had live appearances plus a panel of youngsters, choosing
the hits by giving marks out of five. This made a minor celebrity
out of panellist Janice Nicholls, whose Brummy way of saying 'oil
give it foive' caught on as a national catchphrase.
This mid-flurry of concerts, one-off specials and pop
documentaries such as A Boy Called Donovan (1966) were signs
that the old formats were breaking down, and TV bosses didn't know
what to do next.
The big pop shows were looking dated, and although the chirpy
style of Merseybeat had fitted well into variety programs like The
Billy Cotton Band Show, long haired R&B and psychedelia were
a different matter entirely. Almost none of these shows lasted
beyond the Summer of Love.
One striking thing about the period is the bewilderment shown by
most adults towards pop. Time and again on old TV clips we see and
hear plummy BBC interviewers treating pop figures as if they were
from another planet, asking questions like..."and why do you
have to grow your hair so long?", or..."Your music is so
loud how can anyone possibly understand the words?"
Even in the late sixties, there were two cultures in the media.
The established one tried to carry on much as before, offering us
the same old showbiz formats, and ballad singers, and making no
concessions at all to changing styles and culture. The big bands
played on as if the fifties never went away, and pop culture was
only presented to the public as a curio, a passing fad not to taken
seriously.
There were exceptions of course. In the late fifties Jack Good
had brought many artists to the attention of the British public.
Good, unlike many of his contemporaries, realised the enormous
appeal and potential that pop music would have and produced such
shows as Six Five Special and Oh Boy!
The 1966 Musician's Union ban on miming finished off Thank
Your Lucky Stars, and the explosion of pirate radio made TV less
vital. Family variety also became impractical, due to the increasing
diversity of rock & roll. By 1967, no self-respecting teenager
cared less what Thora Hird thought about that week's new releases .
. .
News coverage came of age in the Sixties. On 14 April 1961,
viewers saw the welcome of Soviet cosmonaut Major Yuri Gagarin in
Moscow - broadcast from Tallinn, Estonia, picked up at Helsinki and
fed into the Eurovision network in cooperation with Russian and
Finnish authorities.
Then came the 'instant special', a new form of documentary which
dealt in depth with events that had occurred only a few hours
before. The biggest daytime audience in history saw Alan Shephard's
fifteen-minute ride in a rocket-powered capsule from Cape Canaveral
on May 5th.
A number of series were initiated in the UK during the 60s which
continue to this day. ITN created the first half-hour evening news
bulletin, News at Ten, in 1967; Granada TV's current affairs
series World in Action was first transmitted in 1963; the
BBC's science series Horizon began in 1964 and the BBC's
science futures program Tomorrow's World started in 1965;
while the BBC's seasonal weekly football magazine Match of the
Day was first broadcast in 1964.
It was also the decade of the major, solemn documentary series
such as The World at War, The Ascent of Man and Life
on Earth.
For the youngest viewers, Watch With Mother continued to
show many of its favourites from the 1950s; Andy Pandy, The
Woodentops, The Flowerpot Men and Rag, Tag and Bobtail.
Then the creations of Hanna Barbera took over: Huckleberry
Hound (1959 - 1964) with Yogi Bear and Mr Jinks the cat both
featuring in their own right. The Flintstones (1961 - 1966), Deputy
Dawg, The Jetsons and Top Cat (known as Boss
Cat in the UK) all arrived in Britain in 1963.
Gordon Murray Puppets created the animation of Camberwick
Green in 1966 with a string of characters like Windy Miller and
Mr Tripp the milkman. This was followed by Trumpton in 1967.
The Magic Roundabout first appeared in 1965 with Dylan the
rabbit, Dougal the dog, Brian the snail, Ermintrude the cow and
Zebedee, Florence, Mr MacHenry and Mr Rusty. For older children
there was no escape from Dr Who and the Daleks (1963) with
William Hartnell playing Dr Who until 1966 and then Patrick
Troughton until 1969.
And the ultimate patron saint of British children's television in
the 1960s was Gerry Anderson and his Supermarionation team. Having
produced the TV puppet series The Adventures of Twizzle in
1956, Anderson went on to create many more puppet adventures in the
sixties; Supercar (1961), Fireball XL5 (1963), Thunderbirds
(1965), Captain Scarlet & The Mysterons (1967), and the
boy wonder Joe 90 in 1968.
The big television sensation for kids in America in the late 60s
was Batman, a campy live-action interpretation of the popular
comic book. Adam West and Burt Ward starred as the "caped
crusaders" Batman and Robin, whose seemingly endless supply of
villainous opponents included The Joker (Cesar Romero), The Penguin
(Burgess Meredith), The Riddler (Frank Gorshin), and Catwoman
(variously played by Julie Newmar, Eartha Kitt and Lee Merewether).
Television is undoubtedly an important influence in children's
lives. One that helps to determine their taste, attitude and
knowledge of the world. There are people who would argue we watched
too much television as children - that TV corrupted us and destroyed
our childhood in some way.
While that argument may have some credence in the 21st century,
just how corrupted could we have been by Pinky and Perky, Andy
Pandy, Sooty and Sweep or John Noakes (well, ok, apart from that
last one!). In the good old days of The Flowerpot Men, Wacky
Races and Daktari, all was right with the world.
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