Too cheap to purchase a television set, Ralph and Norton pools their cash to purchase the set. It gets ugly when Ralph and Norton's friendship gets jeopardized when they fight over which tel... Read allToo cheap to purchase a television set, Ralph and Norton pools their cash to purchase the set. It gets ugly when Ralph and Norton's friendship gets jeopardized when they fight over which television show to watch.Too cheap to purchase a television set, Ralph and Norton pools their cash to purchase the set. It gets ugly when Ralph and Norton's friendship gets jeopardized when they fight over which television show to watch.
- Director
- Writers
- Marvin Marx
- Walter Stone
- Jackie Gleason(uncredited)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaCaptain Video and His Video Rangers (1949), the show which Edward loves, is an enigma of pop culture. It was an immensely popular show in the 1950s, a kind of proto-Star Trek (1966), with numerous references in other shows, movies, and the comic essays of Dave Barry. It is also a "lost show". Despite its popularity, the show's studio tapes were wiped around 1970, and only 8 complete episodes are known to exist, making Captain Video something of a "Library of Alexandria" in the history of science fiction television.
- ConnectionsFeatured in TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All-Time (1997)
Featured review
An early TV show about watching TV
Watching an old TV show like this is almost like time travel. No, I did not watch it when it originally aired, but I do remember the Fifties, and the countless reruns of The Honeymooners, and old black & white TVs with rabbit ears.
The TV set they got was an unusually big one, and probably would have cost the equivalent of $1,000 to $2,000 today, so it was not a casual purchase. As mentioned, many people bought on an early form of credit, involving weekly or monthly payments to the store. This episode is listed as No. 1, season 1, on IMDb, yet the show is listed as running from 1953 to 1956, with this episode airing Oct. 1, 1955, which seems a bit odd. Perhaps it actually aired in 1953?
While electronic television transmission and reception was first demonstrated by Philo Farnsworth in 1927, scheduled TV broadcasting took a long time getting to America, largely because of obstructionist patent lawsuits by RCA, which owned NBC. The first non-experimental broadcasts began in 1939, but then World War II interrupted them.
People had been hearing about the impending arrival of television since the 1930s. But not until 1948 did the FCC begin issuing new TV station licenses around the country. So, by 1955, TV was becoming more commonplace, but whether to buy a set would have been a big, long-anticipated decision for some, especially outside big cities like New York, that had limited broadcast fare.
This episode mentions watching The Late Show (no, they were not tuning in to a very young David Letterman), and the Late, Late, Late Show. Back then, The Late Show probably began around 11 p.m. or midnight on WCBS TV in NYC, and consisted of old movies, introduced by Leroy Anderson's The Syncopated Clock (also used on final Jeopardy). It was followed at roughly two-hour intervals (determined by the length of the movie) by The Late Late Show, consisting of even older movies, and possibly The Late Late Late Show, consisting of antediluvian (but not silent) movies, or so I have heard, though few stayed up late enough to watch these movies while awake and still remember them. The episode mentions a Charlie Chan movie, which probably would have been from the Thirties. That old Late Show was where I, and many other New Yorkers, gained our familiarity with old B&W movies.
There were three network TV stations in NYC: CBS, NBC and a sickly ABC, along with three independent stations; there was a public TV station, too, but I'm not sure when it started. This episode was from the old DuMont network, which would have been one of the stations.
Watching Ralph and Ed stay up late watching TV brought to mind the early days of internet web surfing; you could often tell when someone had begun going online because they would come in to work bleary eyed. When Alice talks about being home alone with nothing to look at but the walls of her apartment, it does suggest what life was like before TV, but would be a slight exaggeration, as there was radio, and she wasn't exactly living on a farm. But it was the beginning of our modern addiction to constant media and electronic bombardment, that has since reached a saturation point.
While there were some clever lines in the show, the acting was surprisingly unpolished, in retrospect. Of course, they didn't have videotape, yet, so they probably shot this on film in one take, with most other shows broadcast live, so it wouldn't have looked so different.
Ultimately, shows like this were drivel, so why did we watch them? To relieve boredom, for one. And when you spend big bucks on a TV set, you want to get your money's worth, so you would watch a lot. Back then, people got addicted to TV, and some still are. Having been among the first generation to grow up with TV, yes, I watched plenty, but I also played outside a lot. I was never TV deprived, I don't recall my parents nagging me to stop watching TV, and perhaps this made it easier for me to largely give it up as an adult.
Now we have so many media alternatives, and can be more selective. Yet some people just leave the set on all day, even when it is nothing more than cable drivel fare. The episode seems to have anticipated this: a drivel TV show about people's obsession with watching TV, even when it is drivel. Many people are still watching drivel, now in living color on your 1,000 channels of cable, streamed over high speed internet, on your phone, your tablet computer, your DVD, maybe even your antique VCR. We are drowning in a sea of treacle drivel, and loving every minute of it.
I think I'll sit down and read a book on my Kindle.
The TV set they got was an unusually big one, and probably would have cost the equivalent of $1,000 to $2,000 today, so it was not a casual purchase. As mentioned, many people bought on an early form of credit, involving weekly or monthly payments to the store. This episode is listed as No. 1, season 1, on IMDb, yet the show is listed as running from 1953 to 1956, with this episode airing Oct. 1, 1955, which seems a bit odd. Perhaps it actually aired in 1953?
While electronic television transmission and reception was first demonstrated by Philo Farnsworth in 1927, scheduled TV broadcasting took a long time getting to America, largely because of obstructionist patent lawsuits by RCA, which owned NBC. The first non-experimental broadcasts began in 1939, but then World War II interrupted them.
People had been hearing about the impending arrival of television since the 1930s. But not until 1948 did the FCC begin issuing new TV station licenses around the country. So, by 1955, TV was becoming more commonplace, but whether to buy a set would have been a big, long-anticipated decision for some, especially outside big cities like New York, that had limited broadcast fare.
This episode mentions watching The Late Show (no, they were not tuning in to a very young David Letterman), and the Late, Late, Late Show. Back then, The Late Show probably began around 11 p.m. or midnight on WCBS TV in NYC, and consisted of old movies, introduced by Leroy Anderson's The Syncopated Clock (also used on final Jeopardy). It was followed at roughly two-hour intervals (determined by the length of the movie) by The Late Late Show, consisting of even older movies, and possibly The Late Late Late Show, consisting of antediluvian (but not silent) movies, or so I have heard, though few stayed up late enough to watch these movies while awake and still remember them. The episode mentions a Charlie Chan movie, which probably would have been from the Thirties. That old Late Show was where I, and many other New Yorkers, gained our familiarity with old B&W movies.
There were three network TV stations in NYC: CBS, NBC and a sickly ABC, along with three independent stations; there was a public TV station, too, but I'm not sure when it started. This episode was from the old DuMont network, which would have been one of the stations.
Watching Ralph and Ed stay up late watching TV brought to mind the early days of internet web surfing; you could often tell when someone had begun going online because they would come in to work bleary eyed. When Alice talks about being home alone with nothing to look at but the walls of her apartment, it does suggest what life was like before TV, but would be a slight exaggeration, as there was radio, and she wasn't exactly living on a farm. But it was the beginning of our modern addiction to constant media and electronic bombardment, that has since reached a saturation point.
While there were some clever lines in the show, the acting was surprisingly unpolished, in retrospect. Of course, they didn't have videotape, yet, so they probably shot this on film in one take, with most other shows broadcast live, so it wouldn't have looked so different.
Ultimately, shows like this were drivel, so why did we watch them? To relieve boredom, for one. And when you spend big bucks on a TV set, you want to get your money's worth, so you would watch a lot. Back then, people got addicted to TV, and some still are. Having been among the first generation to grow up with TV, yes, I watched plenty, but I also played outside a lot. I was never TV deprived, I don't recall my parents nagging me to stop watching TV, and perhaps this made it easier for me to largely give it up as an adult.
Now we have so many media alternatives, and can be more selective. Yet some people just leave the set on all day, even when it is nothing more than cable drivel fare. The episode seems to have anticipated this: a drivel TV show about people's obsession with watching TV, even when it is drivel. Many people are still watching drivel, now in living color on your 1,000 channels of cable, streamed over high speed internet, on your phone, your tablet computer, your DVD, maybe even your antique VCR. We are drowning in a sea of treacle drivel, and loving every minute of it.
I think I'll sit down and read a book on my Kindle.
helpful•1010
- dimplet
- Nov 7, 2011
Details
- Runtime30 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
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What is the broadcast (satellite or terrestrial TV) release date of TV or Not TV (1955) in Australia?
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