TV in the Old Days

I miss TV in the "old days".  We would head back to school and there would be TV ads for upcoming shows starting mid-September.

If you were like me, you wrote down the ones that looked interesting, and waited for next week's TV guide to arrive so you could plan your tv watching week.  If you were lucky, there would be an article about one of the shows, giving you an inside look behind the scenes!

There was a regular pattern and flow to how the series went. It started at 22 or 23 episodes in a season, which carried it to May, then reruns all summer and it started again in September. 

We had our favorites and some are very memorable.  Sunday after dinner it was Mutual of Omahas Wildlife Kingdom and then a Disney movie. What a great lineup for a chunk of family time before a busy week started the next day!! 

Stations were actively putting shows in the right time slots to keep viewers tuned in. Take for example Happy Days, followed by Laverne and Shirley, Three's Company and Taxi.  A solid comedy lineup that kept us glued to our TV.

There were so many wonderful, classic TV shows in the 1970s and 1980s.   But with all things, change is a part of it. To be honest, I don't look forward to many regular prime time shows any longer. 

Doesn't mean I don't enjoy TV, I just happen to like being able to watch on my own time!! 

But I still miss those old days where life was more of a surprise.  And planning your TV week allowed for structure, a plan, your TV watching felt like it was done with purpose. When your show was over, you went back to doing other ordinary things.  With streaming, how easy is it to unintentionally binge hours worth of TV? 

Sometimes, I miss TV in the old days.