During World War II, the American public had to cut back on many things to which we had become accustomed. New cars were not available. Tires and gasoline were rationed. Men's trousers could no longer sport cuffs. Sugar and meat were severely limited for civilian use. And, there was an item we had not been able to acquire as yet but for which our collective mouths were watering – the wonderful world of television.

We knew it existed – this exciting technology of moving pictures, complete with soundtrack, piped right into our living rooms. We'd seen or read about lab experiments which showed it could be done. Our expectations were great. Even Dick Tracy's famous wrist radio was no longer enough high tech magic for us. Suddenly the iconic wrist radio sported a moving picture that would soon be available to everyone. But, the war must be won first.

In the aftermath of that war, many other wondrous things were quickly available for which we'd longed throughout the long years of war's deprivation. Although you had to wait in line to get one, sparkling new cars were rolling off the assembly line. You could once again choose from a large selection of men's suits, and even have cuffs on the trousers if desired. You could pull up to a gasoline pump and tell the attendant to "Fill 'er up, please."

But... alas, the one thing missing for which we'd waited impatiently was not immediately available. We had all heard about this great new electronic device that we could have once the war was over. But no, there was no television for 99% of the American people. Most of us had not considered that in order to have television, you had to have television stations, supplied by television producers, with television programs, written by television writers and performed by television actors.

None of these could exist without the main ingredient, a television audience who had to buy television sets in enough volume to make all this expense and effort worthwhile. The television buyer will not buy unless there is assurance he will have something to watch that is worth such an expensive toy.

The upshot of all this was that television was indeed coming — but much more slowly than we had thought. In my little corner of the world at that time (Lubbock, Texas) it was slower than for most. But it finally came. I was working at the time writing for a local radio station when the word was buzzed that a television station would soon start broadcasting in our area and they were looking for television writers. Just up my alley I decided.

They called us "continuity writers" which meant we were supposed to write material bridging the network-fed material with the local programming, which included the local newscasts and, of course, the local commercials. What it did was launch a great adventure and comedy of errors for the station's lower tier of employees and Greek tragedy for management and owners. Hundreds of citizens raced to the stores to buy a television set. Fortunately, this army of television viewers had no idea of the chaos that lay behind what they were to watch nightly on the "telly."

We knew absolutely nothing!

I take that back. We did have one young director who had been to a television school in New York City. He knew a little terminology and had a slim concept of how to put basic programming together, But, I assure you it was bare bones at best.

We started each early morning with the network and our local program in perfect sync, meshing together in beautiful harmony, from a sign-on prayer at 7 a.m. until we got into the morning, about two 30-minute programs deep. We lost four minutes here, six minutes there. There soon opened a gap between our two segments of program that could be measured in hours not minutes. This led to a lot of improvisation from a crew who had only an inkling of the workings of the medium, which in turn, led to a series of disasters — and a few minor triumphs.

So, under the watchful eye of a cheapskate management, we worked up a series of station and program promotions with clumsy animation and fake shots such as in a program promotion in which we shot only the bottom half of our art director who represented the star of the show to whom we had no access.

It was crude — especially as we were allowed the use of only one camera, no splicing of video tape (it wore out the playback machine more quickly) and it could only be done when there was absolutely nothing else scheduled to be produced. As I implied, management was super cheap. However crude, we could generally slip it past our naive audience who thought it was cool stuff. The same product would be hooted off the screen by today's more sophisticated viewer.

There was the time a huckster came through town selling a product in a spray can which it was said would change the color of upholstered furniture quickly, easily, and beautifully. Just spray it on and let it dry -- voila!

"That's great," we said, "just show our in-house announcer how it works and he'll put it on the air for you."

"Oh no," the man said, "I'll do that myself."

Nothing would dissuade him so we scheduled him a time slot and waited. As the live camera zoomed in on him, he gave it his toothiest smile, pointed at the chair we had set up for him and pressed the trigger. Unfortunately, he had the can turned backwards and a full load of fabric spray hit the man full in the face. Frantically, he spun away, leaving a broad streak of color (actually plain black) across the backdrop (which every viewer was by now visualizing as their living room wall). We turned off the camera and "went to black," a full emergency setting. Sales from the exhibition were nonexistent.

He took his inventory and disappeared down the road. I only hope he learned to use an aerosol can before he tried it again.

Almost unbelievable how such an all-powerful medium grew from these and similar clumsy beginnings. We finally got our "magic box" and look what it's come to now.

Don Johnson is a nonagenarian who lives in Palestine in East Texas. He writes articles that illuminate the human condition and frequently show the contrast between our lifestyle of today with that of yesterday. He welcomes your input at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

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