I’d like to talk a little about radio and television.
Okay.
People who were born many years after I was probably don’t give much thought to radio. They may not even have a personal radio. They rely on TV only. On the other hand, I have several radios.
It’s important to you?
Right. I grew up with radio. TV sets weren’t common in my neighborhood until I was 16 or 17. And we were one of the first to get one. In 1947.
Before then?
Before then radio was often called The Theater of the Mind.
The pictures were in our heads. But after TV came on the scene the comedies, dramas, and variety shows that used to play in our imaginations were shown on our TV sets. And radio was left largely with disc jockeys
and talk shows.
However, the cost of the shift to TV was considerable. It became expensive to build the sets to show a building and hire the extras for a crowd scene.
Radio, on the other hand, was able to create the illusion in one’s mind with simple sound effects of echoes in a large room and crowd noise.
I’ll leave you with this. Art Linkletter was a radio and TV personality who enjoyed talking with kids.
The story goes that one time he asked a young boy which he liked better, radio or TV. The boy said radio. Linkletter asked why. The boy answered, “Because the pictures are better.”