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I kept cable for about 6 months and decided it wasn't worth it. That was about 30 years ago, and have never had it since.
LOL, I remember taking care of a home for my parents friends. Part of my reward was getting to see cable. They had two stations: HBO was one of the stations and it was not even broadcast 24 7.
I did not get the need for cable way back then. That was our area anyway. I realize that other parts of the nation may have been different.
And the Playboy Channel, which was encrypted. But as it was analog, if you played with the dials enough you would get a few seconds that it was unencrypted. And the audio wasn’t scrambled...
Yes, its amazing what lengths we went to at this age, just to see some nudity, not to mention, really really bad quality! These kids today with instant access to video porn on the internet have it easy!
Ah yeah. The days of MTV hooked up to the TV and stereo. I was in my 20's then and friends would climb the pole and connect it. I had free cable for years.
my family got cable in 1987. Thanks to NESN I was all of the sudden able to watch every Red Sox game instead of the 1/3 that were on the local UHF channel
I grew up in the 1950s in Aberdeen, WA, which had, I believe, the second cable system in the nation. Astoria, OR, had the first, starting in 1948, and Aberdeen/Hoquiam the second, in 1950. We didn't get a set (a portable) until 1956. I remember we had eight channels, mostly from Seattle/Tacoma (4/KOMO/ABC, 5/KING/NBC, 7/KIRO/CBS, 9/KCTS/Public, 11/KTNT, 13/KTVW), a Portland station (6?), and for awhile a local station (2). We might also later have received one of the Canadian stations (2?).
I remember we were able to watch both Patterson/Johanson fights live, which were only shown in a few places nationwide. The hydroplane races, which were preceded by two or three hours of cartoons, were also a very big deal back then (Miss Slo-Mo-Shun IV, Miss Thriftway, Shanty II, Miss Wahoo, Miss Bardahl, Hawai Kai III, etc.). We also watched the national kid's shows: Howdy Doody, Soupy Sales, Captain Kangaroo, Mickey Mouse Club, etc. We also had local kid's shows: Sheriff Tex, Stan Boreson, J.P. Patches, Captain Puget, Brakeman Bill (and Crazy Donkey), Wunda Wunda.
Who remembers going from three or four networks with an antenna to getting at least double that with cable?
I'm glad I cut the cord with cable TV. It was a rather time sink having to set up the tape recorder, or otherwise be around when a show/movie started.
That said, did enjoy having friends over to watch Battlestar Galactica as it aired, as well as random stuff on Comedy Central like The Daily Show, and various comedy shows. I myself enjoyed History Channel and MTV, back when they still had history and music respectively
I do. I remember when I was about kindergarten age going to my grandmother's house in town and she had a channel that got Blinky the Clown and I remember these clown hands playing the xylophone. I didn't realize that was cable TV - I just thought because she lived in a different part of town they got different channels there. It was several years later before we got cable - I'd guess I was maybe 12 or so. But I don't remember it seeming like a huge deal at the time - I think most people were still primarily watching the main networks and there wasn't a whole lot on other channels that had big audiences. I remember seeing Disney cartoon shorts on some cable channel - might have been HBO - and I remember MTV actually having music videos and people talking about the music videos in school.
But I still remember playing with the UHF dial trying to see what weird channels I could pick up, adjusting the antenna etc. I remember figuring out if I set it in between two channels way up at the end of the dial, I was hearing half of a conversation and eventually figured out I was picking up cordless phone conversations but only hearing one side of it. I enjoyed that a lot, felt like quite the spy. I had never seen a cordless phone at the point so they must not have been too common in my neighborhood yet.
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