TV was also very new in the 1950's to most people.  My aunt recollects that the first public demonstration she can remember seeing was a Cleveland Indians game set up in an auditorium on the second floor of the Mair Building on Front Street in 1948.  We got our first set, an RCA with a round screen in a rosewood cabinet, in 1953.  The stations available locally were:  VHF channel 3 ( KYW/ NBC), channel 5 (WEWS/ CBS), channel 8 (WJW/ ABC) and UHF channel 49 (WAKR/ independent).  VHF reception required a rooftop antenna and 300-ohm flat lead wire; the most common antenna was a two or four bay conical, for you technical folks, and it didn’t require a rotor since all of the signals came from the same direction.  They were usually attached to the chimney, and I suspect that working on those slanting slate roofs to install them was sometimes pretty scary.  UHF reception only required a small loop antenna, but since earlier sets were VHF only a converter attached to the VHF terminals was also required for those sets.  My grandmother was very concerned about possible lightning strikes on the antenna, even with the installed “lightning arrester” and made everyone turn off the TV and stay at least three feet from the set during a thunderstorm.  She was also convinced that attempting to watch programs from other cities that sometimes arrived via “skip” during the summer nights would strain the set and cause its demise.

  The early stations operated with finicky transmitters that required constant adjustments and had limited operating hours, so if you tuned in after 10 PM and before 8 AM, you likely saw either snow or a test pattern which incorporated the call letters of the station along with rays and concentric circles to help the engineers align their equipment.  I remember the WEWS pattern as having a lighthouse in the center.  When programs were on, they were often locally produced before the networks got geared up for the new medium.  WAKR, with no network affiliation, was forced to come up with a lot of independent programming and often featured concerts by local high school choirs at Christmas and local school sports.  

  Morning fare on most stations was aimed at children, with cartoons or educational shows like Ding Dong School and Romper Room.  For the housewives, cooking shows were a staple, also variety shows like The Paul Dixon Show (Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear) and Mike Douglas.  Noontime, local kids programming included Captain Penny for many years.  Afternoons, the networks provided a continuation of the old radio soap operas- Molly Goldberg, One Man’s Family, etc.  Evenings were news and drama programs, many again adapted from radio.  Most shows were a half hour in length, with some of only 15 minutes.  

The last local product I want to mention came in the 60s, and changed late night horror movies forever.  Ernie Anderson, frequent “surprise” visitor in the Carol Burnett Show audience, was given a shot at producing a night time movie show on WJW that would appeal to teenagers.  Using new special effects equipment in the local studio, the character of Ghoulardi was born.  The movies were very bad (and, therefore, cheap to acquire) and the budget was low, but Anderson and his crew hit just the right mix of humor and sight gags to turn the films into an asset by mercilessly lampooning them.  When the hunters were on the trail of the vicious t-rex, who would be seen at the end of the line but the host, attired in pith helmet and armed with pop gun, projected into the film and exhorting the actors to watch out, all to no avail (chomp!).  His use of hip slang and jibes against other air personalities (particularly serious news analyst Dorothy Fuldheim) broke up the fans.  Splicing old bits of odds and ends together, they created their own short feature film, Bridge on the River Kwaiahoga.  They insinuated that all of the inhabitants of Parma were polka-crazed and made them the butt of endless jokes.  Hey, if you don’t like it, COOL IT!