Number 694

The new TV

This funny story from The Kilroys #13 reminds me of the first TV set my dad and mom bought in 1950. As the character, Natch, says to his dad, "They don't cost so much. Only about four or five hundred." I'm not sure how much that would be in 2010 dollars, but probably a few thousand at least. Some people were willing to pay exorbitantly to get in on the new technology. In other words, things haven't changed a bit! You iPad buyers know that.

Like most new technology, the curious stood back and watched as people who had to have it bought a television. Just as in the story they'd invite themselves over to watch. My dad and mom, who nobody ever just dropped in on, solved the problem. Dad put up the aerial in the attic. We got great reception, but no one in the neighborhood knew we had a set.

I'll be getting into The Kilroys more in the future. I think it was a great comic, well illustrated by Bob Wickersham, and script credit given at times for Hubie Karp. There aren't any credits on this 1948 story, but whoever wrote it was in touch with the social phenom of the postwar era, the neighborhood television

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Here's where artists get their inspiration (swipes). Al Hartley did these "Kollege Kapers" from this issue of The Kilroys in 1948. The Barbasol ad had appeared in Life magazine a year earlier.