I never went to daycare. Come to think of it, I don't even believe daycare centers even existed in my section of NC growing up. So my Pops would usually drop me off on his way to work and I spent my preschool days at with my Grandma. This was pretty cool, because since it was just the two of us during the day, I could basically commandeer the TV while she slept off the remnants of her 3rd shift. I'd inhale Cheerios and watch Sesame Street, Julia, and The Munsters reruns. But around 1pm, I'd always have to give up "the box"[1] cause it was time for Grandma to watch her "stories". Since this was well before the days of DVD players and tv's in every room, I would usually make my way to a nap.
So yeah, I was sorta raised on TeeVee. I guess that explains a lot.
Anyways, I was reminded of all this today as I sat, post-workout, in the locker room. The Gold's Gym video network wasn't playing on the overhead TV as it usually was. Instead, I saw a roundfaced brown woman and a crusty, semi-balding dude. I immediately recognized this as a soap opera, and since I never really liked them back then (though I did occasionally watch with Grandma to pass the time before Sanford & Son and Good Times came on), my Negro Reflex made me turn my head. But lo and behold, I heard a very familiar voice, and looked closer.
Holy Crap! That's Angie and Jesse!
I don't want anybody, to get the wrong idea about me.[2] I did not willingly watch All My Chill'rens. Period. I'm not a soap opera type of dude, despite how much I enjoy the real life human train wreck spectacle that is Gilbert Arenas. Except for Angie and Jesse, and maybe Erica Kaine, I don't recall much about AMC at all.
Still, there's something (I don't know what, but surely something) to be said for Black folks who can somehow manage to pull off the same gig for nearly 30+ years. I mean, Jesse looked like a young Huggy Bear waaay back in the mid 80's. Dude still looks like Huggy Bear, and is still workin'. That's sayin' somethin'. Exactly what it's sayin', I do not know, but it's sayin' somethin'.
Question: Do you remember Angie and Jesse? Did you watch All My Chill'rens? Any soaps? Were you too partially raised by one of those tan Scientific Atlanta boxes or did you go to an actual daycare?
[1] I hope ya'll remember those old school cable boxes with the cord and those pushbuttons. Ok, maybe it was just me.
[2] Name that tune.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
We Owned The 80's: All My Children
Tags Popped: The Evil That Men Do, We Owned The 80's
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HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa
Dude Jessie & Angie and Greg & Jenny raised me and my cousins down in the Queen City, too.
My "big mama" type babysitter used to keep it locked on AMC, One Life To Live and General Hospital.
When I stumbled upon Angie and Jessie getting married the other month I was dumbfounded. I'm glad they are getting paid, but...wow! I was still looking for Tad and Adam Chandler.
Then there were the 80's gameshows. The Price Is Right, $ale of the Century, Concentration, Scrabble, Tic Tac Dough (WINK MARTINDALE!), Press Your Luck and of course daytime Wheel of Fortune. I even remember Nipsey Russell having a gameshow. Love them 80's.
Yeah, the teevee practically raised us.
EG
I was raised on Oprah, As The World Turns and Bob Ross. Well, not exactly raised, my mum stayed at home till I was thirteen and my brother nine. From the day she went to work again me and my brother slipped into a routine of having tea after school with Oprah. I don't like Oprah so much anymore, maybe the formula is getting old, but back then she really gave us a cosy atmosphere.
Our sitter was like a grandma. And yes, I surely remember Angie and Jesse. Love them! And Erica Kane. And The Price is Right. And that crazy gameshow called "Whew!" where a black guy was doing well, started jumping up and down... and the TV went black. Apparently, the guy sprained/broke his ankle and crumbled on the floor. I'll never forget that. LOL
Wilma!?! BOb ROss, my favorite afro painter!?! I loved that dude!
Sesame Street All the Way!! And of course Electric Company.
I don't know anything about Angie and Jessie, but I do know that Debbie Morgan STAY fine!
it is GREAT to see them still working. they were a huge part of that show back in the day. i think tad still gets roles, too and jenny now stars in "army wives".
can i also get a plug for who i see in the background of that clip- that's yaya from america's next top model! she is by far the most succesful contestant from tyra's show, even though she's wasn't the winner. she got beat out by eva. but it's no wonder she's excelling- she's a full package- ivy league grad, dancer and beautiful. go, yaya!!
I was raised on the Street too. PBS was the stuff back then. Mr. Rogers Neighborhood (F--- The Haters!), Square One Television, Reading Rainbow..and a little network called Nickelodeon that used to show a Sesame Street ripoff called Pinwheel.
Then there was Today's Special (I still have a crush on Nerene Virgin), The Little Prince, The Adventures of the Little Koala and then came DOUBLE DARE.
GI Joe, Thundercats, Silverhawks, Transformers, Voltron, Gobots, Bionic Six, The Real Ghostbusters, hell, even JEM in the afternoons.
It's over, ya'll....the 80's had it locked...at least for kids!
EG
I remember going to a daycare place called Sugar & Spice back in the day....WAAAAYYYY back in the day. This must have been when Nixon was still in office. I also remember going to a daycare center close to Wayne State University in Detroit too. Don't remember too many details but I remember they were structured and fun.
Cable TV, man oh man AB, you must be an aristocrat....my family never had cable growing up and my parents got cable sometime in the 1990s. I didn't have cable myself until the early 1990s, I think....
I remember my mother watching her stories...Days of Our Loves, and Another World. Seems like the charcters from 'the stories' never really change too often...Hell, Susan Lucci had been on the soap about 2000 years before she won her Emmy...I also remember her watching Yoga, which I thought was the weirdest thing ever....Personally, I remember Seaseme Street, The Pookadot Door, the Electric Company, Capt. Kangaroo...etc.
What I liked best was some of the local stuff, like the Tuesay Creature Feature with Count Scary....they used to play old Japanese Monster movies....I also liked cartoons like Battle of the Planets with G Force....not to mention the superhero shows like Iron Man, Thor, Aquaman, etc....
TV is not what it used to be
aww shucks Bob Ross! That's my dude.
she was crzy good in eves bayou.
I watched soaps, but I cant particularly remember any of them. I know all the old folks like my babysitter and grandpa liked the cbs ones...and my uncle was fond of the abc ones.
but yea, i was a pbs kid. i learned to read, got some G.E.D. lessons, watched Bob Ross paint landscapes, and got some good ol Sesame Street in.
and of course game shows. i shed a tear for my grandpa when ol boy left the price is right.
My little clique of friends in middle school stopped everything when it was time for AMC. This is long after the Angie and Jessie days, but our summers were put on pause everyday at 11am. It was AMC and Guiding Light(diff networks) and then the pool, the mall, the gym, or wherever. We did not play about the soaps.
I envy yall who's grandmothers watched the soaps, I have a Granny who is deeply religious and all we watched were westerns. I would sit out on the stoop for hours waiting for that crap to end, if you weren't watching tv quietly then you were sent outside. My other grandparents were about the news, and my cousin and I lived for 7pm when Wheel of Fortune and then Jeopardy came on. I think that's part of the reason we did so well in school because we got treats when we got the right answers on Jeopardy.(Nana baked scratch cakes and the like every day back then.)
Anyone remember Swann's Crossing?
Your typical "preschool" day sounds just like mine! Good times, good times.
My grandma was strictly a CBS "story" watcher, so after a morning of cartoons and game shows I was bombarded by The Young and the Restless, various shoes that came on briefly at 12:30 (The Bold and the Beautiful was the one that won out and actually lasted) As the World Turns, and Guiding Light. Followed by 1950s sitcoms!
We got cable in 1986, and we didn't have a pushbutton; the box had this slider thing that you had to get up, walk over to the tv, and physically move from number to number to get your channel.
ooh Missgypsyeyes! My grandmama was into westerns, too. I spend waay too much time watching Rawhide and The Lone Ranger and How The West Was Won and such.
And she also liked the local wrasslin' on Saturday mornings.
Where you been at AB?!?!
Angie and Jessie been back for a minute on AMC? Even I knew that!!
But um, nah, never had cable growing up let alone that "Scientific Atlanta boxes" of which I've never heard of. But since you mentioned them as boxes, just remembering if you remember The Box--wayyyy before BET used to be non-stop music videos.
But, yeah, went to daycare and an Afro-centric daycare caled New Concept Development Center on 75th and Cottage on the South Side where we sung songs called "M and M and M--Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King." Learned about Kwanzaa and got a real good handle on what it meant, for me, to be black.
Wasn't raised on no damn TeeVee! LOL! Hell, my mama thought I was too good for Kool-Aid. I only got to have Kool-Aid if I went to a friends house.
Wow, that takes me back... same sort of thing, neighborhood lady who watched kids for the single moms around the subdivision... Silence was mandatory when AMC came on.
@eg:
No whammies... no whammies... STOP!! Press Your Luck, I haven't thought about that in ages. :)
I remember them vaguely, but I watched Days of Our Lives. AMC got a lil whack to me after a while...
I had a nanny growing up and I was one of those kids that played outside till the street lights came on and that's when I went home lol
@spool32
I've downloaded a version of the PYL big board for the PC. The developer doesn't have it online anymore. Let me know if you want a copy of the software.
It's cool, you press the space bar to stop the cursor. And you can either play with the CPU or with 2 other folks.
There isn't a trivia round though.
EG
Hah! yeah, that'd be awesome. The wife will flip out, hehehe...
... and my kids won't know wtf we're laughing about... :)
Thanks!
As an aside...
No TvOne coverage of the DNC--where I didn't have to watch.
Word was that Huggy Lowdown made an appearance.
OMG Huntdaddy! G Force was the ish! (I watched it and Sailor Moon faithfully during freshman year in college)
I too was a PBS baby. First generation Sesame Street. Loved Electric Company. Morgan Freeman will always be "Easy Reader" to me.
My mother, grandmother & aunts (all educators) wouldn't let us watch anything but PBS. I loved Mr. Rogers, New Zoo Review, Captain Kangaroo, Zoom,etc...
Angie & Jesse are the only reason I flipped the channel from the CBS soaps (Young & the Restless, Guiding Light, As the World Turns). My fondest memory was when they got a new Frankie to replace toddler Frankie. One day he was like 3, and the next 11. I was like whose child is that? Is Jesse's little cousin visitng or something?
LOL @ how many of us were raised on the "stories". When I was a toddler nap time always coincided with TY&TR coming on. Too funny! Thanks AB, for the stroll down memory lane.
growing up in nyc i went to daycare from 9am-12pm. i sometimes got home in time for Ryan's Hope. 1pm was for AMC then on to One life to live & then Gen. Hospital.
my summers spent in the Catskills w/my teenage aunt & uncle where some of my best childhood memories.
they where all about Angie, Jesse, Tad & Erika Kane. whenever anything tragic happened w/Angie & Jesse my uncle & aunt would tear up! now, at the age of 35 i can't stand the "storys" as they would call them!
And Wilma I too am a Bob Ross head. Even bought the little painting kit, and would sit down to paint landscapes with him.
Does anyone know about a show called "Sew Whats New", that was hosted by a gentleman named George W. Trippon? It was popular in the seventies, and aired on my local PBS. So far, I've only personally met one other person who has ever actually seen it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RfirsJlfxQ
God knows I love, love, love George W. Trippon. :)
@ ebw: What's the painting kit like? Does it work? One of our local sations now re-runs all the Bob Ross series. It's wonderful, every sunday, on the couch with a cup of tea...but I'm not sure I could paint along. I'm really clumsy and awkward with my hands.
I guess that because the soap operas recycle their stories so much there always will be a point where you just go 'hang on, I've seen this before, this is the sixth time she gets kidnapped/buried alive/abducted...BOOORRRINGG!'
Don't feel bad my Grandma and Grand Paps used to watch Hee Haw when they used to babysit me... Ahhh! that bring back nightmares.
@ EG
I thought I was the only one who remembered Pinwheel! I LOVED that show! I was raised on both a babysitter and a daycare. Drinking strawberry milk (Nestle's Quick) and eating peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches. I had a crus on the guy on Today's Special. Remember Wild and Crazy Kids??? I wanted to be on that show sooooooooooo bad when they were at the water park! Just about all those cartoons you named I watched. Even the "boy" cartoons. Did we even care back then?
But I did not get down with the stories. I still can't. That was my nap time. And I could not stand watching Oprah. She was just there to let me know what time it was LOL. BTW that tune is Cameo Single Life, I've heard it used in a song in recent year(s). Don't ask me what though?
@spool32
(Press Your Luck)
It's only around 6MB, so it should be good to download in the email.
@missjay
Plus and Minus...and the Tweedle Bugs. Pinwheel was good, if you could get past the fact that it was a rip off! LOL!
But I got something that may ring a bell for ya:
Bill Cosby's Picture Pages. Remember those TV shorts with the pen that would make noise when the 'Cos drew with it? I never had one, but I'd have given my left arm to get one when I was a kid.
3-2-1 Contact and Newton's Apple on PBS. Good Lord, what happened to shows like that?!?
AB, Thanks for sparking the memories and lovefest, man.
EG
My grandmother was an NBC soap watcher so I was raised on Days of our Lives- Bo & Hope, Patch (Steve) & Kayla, Shane and Kimberly, Frankie & Jennifer, Victor Kiriakis, Roman (now John) and Marlena, all The Dimeras n' em, the ISA and all that! It was so good in the 80s, even the secondary characters- Mike & Robin, Eugene & Calliope, etc.
Then there was Another World, and Santa Barbara, does anyone remember the short-lived Generations? And Sunset Beach was on for a minute. Then the godawful Passions.
I used to watch Swan's Crossing after school, but then they changed it to mornings I think?
I used to get up early on saturday mornings to watch Kids Incorporated. good times....
WOW KidsINC! I went back and forth on that one, sometimes I loved it and other times I thought my dog (or cat) was much more talented. I was in love with Saved by the Bell though. I <3 AC Slater! And I went through a brief MMC phase.
don't remember those two, my momma was all about guiding light
anyways, [2] Wrong Idea- Bad Azz ft. Snoop
dope track
Wilma, I believe you can still buy the Bob Ross painting kits. Canvas, brushes, paints, and instructions included. Try your local "big box" art supply store or @ Dick Blick. Dick Blick doesn't sell the kit with everything included, but they have a pretty good assortment of Bob Ross products, including instructional videos.
http://www.dickblick.com/vendors/bobross/
I've been a fan of the show since the 80's as well and have been addicted ever since! Thanks for the neat article!
I never was into them shits as a kid. I always thought soap operas were gay (still do really). Thank god I never was tormented with that isht when I was little...1:00 at my grandma's normally meant it was time for Bill Kennedy.
*for those outside of the Detroit area, Bill Kennedy was an old actor who had a show where he would talk about his days in hollywood and he would show old movies.
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