1950s Television Quotes

I was born in 1950, so there were tons of Westerns on TV by the time I was 6, 7, 8 years old. In terms of television, 'Maverick' and 'Have Gun - Will Travel.' But filmically, classics like 'High Noon' and 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance' - that's one of my favorite films.

I was born in 1950 and watched science fiction and horror movies on TV and was always really fascinated by them.

Joey, my older brother, had his own TV show in the '50s, along with Cathy Callahan.

Back in the fifties I was the hot, young comic on CBS and a regular on 'The Ed Sullivan Show.' I was also starring in shows on Broadway and acting in dramatic programs on television. Those were the glory days of television. It was like theater. It was live. If an actor forgot a line, he improvised. There was an immediacy to it.

Why does 'I Love Lucy' still make people laugh? Because she's a specific character who has real reactions.

I always loved Sid Caesar and all the people on his program.

I loved Lucille Ball growing up.

Why, on my mother's birthday, am I thinking about 'Father Knows Best?' At our house, mother knew best at least as often as father did, but then the title of the old sitcom, a homogenized portrait of American family life, was meant to be slightly sardonic.

There were some television sets back in the '50s, but they were expensive. People would gather at the rich guy's apartment down the hall to watch Milton Berle on his 10-inch black-and-white screen.

Well, when I was growing up it was Ozzie and Harriet on TV - nobody's parents were like that.

Everyone from Pullman porters to hostesses at swank New York parties will tell me they always watch 'Miss Brooks' on Friday night.

For some reason or another, 'Richard Diamond, Private Eye,' still sticks out in my mind. I don't think I particularly liked that show, but for some reason, he sticks in my mind.

You know I grew up watching the TV series The Rifleman.

[My] dream writers room: "'Naked City.' Because it still holds up as the absolutely quintessential New York pure cop procedural."

Every weekend he'd have me come down to work on Dragnet, which by now was on television as well as radio.

'Leave It To Beaver' is a fairly famous show in America, but I don't think it travelled. It was one of those typical '50s family comedies. I was in the pilot episode as sort of the dark presence: my character was called Eddie Haskill.

If one were to go back to the '50s, the most popular TV genre on the air in the United States were Westerns. You could go turn on ABC or CBS on any night and you'd almost have three full hours of everything from 'Bonanza' to 'Rawhide' to 'Wanted Dead or Alive.'

When my generation, those early days of television - I know I've been thinking about this lately - my two flashes of me as a little boy. One, I'm standing in front of the radio freaking out that Nat King Cole's singing 'Lady of Spain', just this stuff coming out of the radio, and Guy Williams singing 'Wild Horses' coming out of the radio.

It's amazing, the quality of good work that happened in the fifties when a series would have to turn out 30-some episodes a season - it's amazing that 'I Love Lucy' was as good as it was!

I'm the age where we didn't have television as kids. So when I saw my nieces and nephews watching Howdy Doody, Kukla, Fran and Ollie, and so forth, I thought the world had gone mad.

Next up [new TV stars] was [Dean] Martin and [Jerry] Lewis on 'The Colgate Comedy Hour.'

'I Love Lucy,' the first classic, really belonged more to the Wacky Woman genre than the domestic sitcom; 'My Little Margie' and 'I Married Joan' were among the shrill, coarse imitations.

Of the many guests we welcomed to the Mickey Mouse Club, my absolute favorites were the Lennon Sisters.

Fred Rogers was a children's-TV host, but he was not Captain Kangaroo or Officer Joe Bolton. He was an ordained Presbyterian minister who was so appalled by what he saw on 1950s television--adults trying to entertain children by throwing pies in each other's faces - that he joined the medium as a reformer.

I remember watching 'I Love Lucy' from an early age, 'Laverne & Shirley.'