Bear in mind when you read this article, please, that the sixties were many years ago. I simply cannot remember everything I saw, and in any case from 1961 to 1967 I was at secondary and tertiary educational institutions. I had to do rather a lot of study and didn't have the opportunity to become a teenage tv addict. My early afternoon viewing was limited to black and white showings of The Mickey Mouse Club, and even though television had been introduced into high school as an aid to learning, the reaction of the class I was in was mainly to crack up with laughter at the idea of 'the box' ever being anything more than entertainment. I can remember clearly one laughable demonstration of a chain reaction, with ping pong balls being tossed into a crate of set mouse traps. Very amusing! Nowadays school kids tend to feel deprived if there are no computers in their classrooms, let alone TV sets.
When television first began in WA in about 1960, the majority of the programs shown were of American origin. Before my family actually bought a television set, we would visit relatives weekly and after dinner we all sat down and watched 77 Sunset Strip. This would have to be one of the first shows I can actually remember. I remember also, that afterwards I was afraid of being murdered - murders tended to be common occurrences on that show! I have memories of Efram Zimbalist jnr, Roger Smith and Eddie Byrne. There was also a charming French receptionist and a cigar smoking horse racing fanatic. This was one of a stream of private eye shows, and probably one of the more successful.
The show after 77 Sunset Strip was boring in the extreme to me. It was called Top Pro Golf. Well, those of us who have watched The A Team know HM Murdock's views on the cruelty involved in belting poor innocent little white balls around golf courses, don't we? My opinion at the time was that it was cruel in the extreme to subject me to such boredom. Nobody listened. (sob)
Most of the shows I can remember from this period were American productions and on the whole not science fiction. I did however catch a couple of black and white episodes of a show called Star Trek. This came rather later in the sixties than 77 Sunset Strip and Top Pro Golf. It was better too! I can recall watching The Corbomite Manoeuvre and Object: Annihilate! That's the one with the pancake creature clinging to Spock's back while he grits his teeth and announces - trying with Vulcan logic to convince himself - 'There is no pain. There - is - no - pain.' Then, I think, he collapses in a heap.
I've got only the vaguest memories of early Dr Who episodes. We didn't watch that, either. But in 1984 there was a smallish Star Trek convention held in Perth, and then I was able to see those first episodes (An Unearthly Child).
We were inundated with American shows when television was young. On some channels we still are! There were the Westerns, the medical shows and the private eye shows. For variety we had In Perth Tonight, while the rest of the country doubtless had similar versions. Musically we were entertained by Bobby Limb and Dawn Lake, and then by The Mavis Bramston Show, which was marginally naughty, although pretty tame by today's standards. There was one Western show called The Virginian, and in a send up of said show on Mavis Bramston he introduced himself as 'the Virginian, Tex for short - there ain't nobody goin' t' call me no virgin!'
Speaking of changing standards, one Australian production during the 1960s was a series called You Can't See Round Corners. In one scene the main male character made an attempt to put his hand up his girlfriend's skirt. She however was determined to have none of that sort of thing till he'd married her, and she rebuffed him. The result however was that the channel concerned received a storm of complaints that such an 'explicit' scene had been showed, when children might have been watching! In contrast, just watch even the news, when kids and adults alike are glued to the set, and you'll realise how mild such a scene was, compared with the topics on today's television. Even the comparatively tame A Country Practice touched on sensitive sexual and social areas. But, at that one scene, we were all shocked!
The private eye shows included the one I've already mentioned, also Surfside Six, Hawaiian Eye, Bourke's Law and of course, related to these was the courtroom drama of Perry Mason.
What's known by the ghastly term of 'sitcom' was also fairly dominant during the early days of tv. It's a variety that seems to be making a comeback today. We had such shows as Father Knows Best, Leave it to Beaver, Dennis the Menace, I love Lucy, My Three Sons, Grindl, Hey Jean! and many more. There was Jackie Gleason in The Honeymooners, Phil Silvers in McHale's Navy, Gomer Pyle frustrating the US Army, Fury, with a heroic black stallion and Mr Ed with the talking variety, and many many more. Not to be omitted are Rin Tin Tin with a heroic army dog and Flipper, the intelligent dolphin.
My preference at the time however was for the Westerns. Like many other teenage girls I drooled, almost literally, over the three sons of Ben Cartwright in Bonanza. My favourite was Adam, played by Pernell Roberts. Later, with less hair and more girth, he played the title role in Trapper John MD. Dan Blocker, who played Hoss, died tragically, while Michael Landon continued, from his role as Little Joe, through Little House on the Prairie to Highway to Heaven, until he succumbed to cancer. Lorne Greene transferred universes to Battlestar Galactica.
Other Westerns I can recall include Wagon Train, Sugarfoot, Cheyenne, Maverick and Rawhide. This last is notable for the appearance of one Clint Eastwood, as the fresh faced Rowdy Yates. Then we had Have Gun Will Travel, with Richard Boone and its catchy theme song. Others in the Western variety included Rifleman, Gunsmoke (can't forget that one), Tales of Wells Fargo, Wichita Town, the aforementioned The Virginian and The Travels of Jamie McPheeters, which introduced Charles Bronson in a typical 'tough guy' role.
To return to Bonanza, there's one thing I remember very clearly. You could be so sure, whenever one of the main characters fell in love, that something was going to happen to the poor girl involved. She'd either die peacefully or be killed not so peacefully, or she'd go off with someone else. Falling for one of the Cartwrights was the quickest way to an exit. And we always knew that whatever sticky or potentially fatal situation one of our heroes got himself into, he would always somehow get out of it - alive and in one piece, too! Killing off one of the main characters was definitely against the rules. It just wasn't done, not then.
Compare this with what happened in Blake's 7, one of my favourite science fiction TV series. (And much later on the scene, too.) First Gan died, then Blake and Jenna disappeared - and Blake was brought back again just so we could all see the blood when he died - not that it convinced all of us by any stretch of imagination. And as for the finale - well, Terry Nation would never have got away with that in the 60s!
Mind you, at that time we wouldn't have had people like that portrayed as heroes, either. The Establishment (ie Law and Order) ruled. Times have changed. Robin Hood, of course, was an exception. But then Robin Hood has always been a Hero. This show was one of my all time favourites. I had always loved the legend and the book I owned, I almost knew off by heart, I read it that often. My brothers and I used to eat half of our meal Sunday night, then hurry into the living room to watch Robin battle through whatever nastiness the sheriff had in store for him, to emerge triumphant (and thereby permit my brothers and me to finish our meal in peace and satisfaction). Now, when many people regularly eat in front of the TV, that does sound rather archaic. Another of the British adventure programs was The Buccaneers.
Definitely not to be forgotten was an excellent British science fiction series called A For Andromeda. It involved an attractive, although sullen, rude and arrogant computer expert. Does that sound somehow familiar? If you watched the previously mentioned Blake’s 7, I think so! There was also a sinister secret agent, a beautiful blonde (Julie Christie, actually, later to be seen in Dr Zhivago), not to mention a Cyclops in a tank. It was followed by Andromeda Breakthrough (yes, they went in for sequels even in those days), with M'amselle Gamboule, who I am sure was the predecessor of Servalan in Blake’s 7. It's very likely those two series were my first real introduction to media ie tv sf.
And then of course there were the movies, great old films with such stars as Bette Davis, Alan Ladd and so on. Notably I remember Portrait of Jenny, a tale of shifts in time, and This Gun For Hire, with Ladd as a villain, a role he played so well.
Several other shows I recall include The Naked City, The Roaring Twenties and The Untouchables, with Robert Stack as the incorruptible Eliot Ness. We also saw fast talking Broderick Crawford in Highway Patrol. There were plenty of such shows featuring cops 'n' robbers and gangsters of all kinds.
When we in Australia got round to making our own television programs, we didn't do too badly. There were some about the early settlers (The Emancipists, I think, was one) and also a sf series called The Stranger, with Rod Haddrick. There was Skippy, of course, and nightly Bob and Dolly entertained us with Pick A Box. Of the myriad series shown of this era, both Australian and from overseas, many have sunk without a trace.
My favourite Australian television series of the late 60s was Hunter, which dared to have the villain as one of the most interesting characters. Gerard Kennedy played the role of Kragg - and I have to admit he was (initially, anyway) a nasty piece of works who went around bumping people off left, right and centre. (Hmm, on thinking about it, mainly right and centre; Kragg was after all a communist agent.) Through some quirk of fate - or maybe just the commonsense of the writers and the good taste of the female viewers - he became more popular than the hero, played by Tony Ward. So the villain defected and became a good guy. Interesting idea. Unfortunately I never did get to see the episode in which Kragg changed sides. Gerard Kennedy went on to become a regular in Division Four, had a couple of parts in Homicide, and has through the years played a number of roles, both as heroes and villains and occasionally (rather less successfully, I think) as a comedian. The role he played in The Flying Doctors as an AIDS sufferer was a highlight of his career. Then later, he returned in the casual role of Luke Mitchell in the same series.
To finish, a few other series I can recall include Superman (Truth, Justice and the American Way - urgh!!), The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Dick Powell Theatre, William Tell, Sea Hunt (with Lloyd Bridges, father of Beau), Danger Man (starring Patrick McGoohan, also seen in The Prisoner), Hong Kong with Australian Rod Taylor and beautifully spoken Lloyd Bochner, The Avengers and Spyforce. That last, I seem to remember, starred Jack Thompson and Peter Sumner. We had helicopter heroics in Whirlybirds, a beautiful lady in a bottle in I Dream of Jeannie and a very female robot in My Living Doll. There was a daytime show called Concentration, some alien creepie types in The Invaders and of course the old master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
The doctor shows included Ben Casey and Doctor Kildare, while Combat portrayed American soldiers saving Europe in World War ll. In Australia we produced Homicide, Matlock Police and the long running Bellbird. And how could I forget the antics of F Troop and My Favourite Martian? In the sf line I recall episodes of The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants.
There didn't seem to be the same emphasis on news, sport and current affairs as is nowadays. There was a decided thrill however in being able to watch the moon landing (although I seem to remember we saw it after the event) and our cricket teams in action at home and abroad.
By today's standards, the television of the 1960s might seem dull and even corny, with black and white transmissions the order of the day, but oh, the nostalgia in just sitting and remembering what we used to watch... and enjoy....
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