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Bellhop
Some stations in the US did play reruns of "The Goon Show". The humor would fly ...
David Ashton
How It Was: Fiddling and twiddling with the TV controls
Clive Maxfield
2/2/2012 11:12 AM EST
There used to be a comedy program called The Goon Show on the radio when I was a kid in England. It was originally broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, which means it actually finished when I was three years old, so they must have broadcast repeats after that because I remember listening to it with my dad.
It’s hard to describe the Goon Show – the script was incredibly zany, the humor was surreal, and the programs were jam-packed with bizarre sound effects – you had to be there. Prince Charles loved it, and it was cited as a major influence by folks as diverse as the Beatles and the members of Monty Python.
The key members of the cast were Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers, and Michael Bentine. As an aside, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe first met and became friends while serving in the Royal Artillery during World War II. Both must have been young men in their early 20s at the time. Milligan's artillery unit accidentally allowed a large howitzer to roll off a cliff. Secombe, who sitting in a small wireless truck at the bottom of the cliff, describes what happened as follows:
The “idiot” asking the question was Spike Milligan. Secombe immediately responded “What colour was it?” (This must have been one of the greatest comebacks of all time – it makes me grin just thinking of the two of them meeting in this way.)
Two of the characters in the Goon Show were called Bluebottle and Eccles. A snippet from one of the programs in which Eccles is trapped in a cellar (as I recall) sticks in my mind to this day. It went something like this:
Well, it made me laugh… but that’s not what I wanted to talk about… I was thinking of the way televisions were and how you had to twiddle and fiddle with their knobs to make them work… and it was this that caused the Goon Show to pop into my mind.
These days we're used to seeing incredibly thin, flat television screens in the form of LCDs (Liquid Crystal Displays), plasma displays, OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) displays, and so forth. Also, the electronics systems inside today’s television sets are based on digital logic implemented using solid-state silicon chips.
The end result is that modern televisions are extremely reliable, the full-screen picture appears almost instantly when you power-up the TV, and the picture remains rock-steady...
...things weren't always this way...
When I was a young lad, the display portion of the television was a huge phosphor-lined, heavy-duty glass vacuum tube called a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT). [I’m spelling everything out for the younger folks who really may not have seen a CRT in their lives.] Meanwhile, the electronics systems inside the set were based on vacuum tubes (called valves in England), which – if you took the back off the set and peered inside – sort of looked like dimly-glowing light bulbs.
As a result, there were certain characteristic features associated with the early television sets that would be unacceptable to a modern viewing audience, but were simply regarded as a "fact of life" in the early days...
When you first turned the set on, for example, the picture didn't immediately appear. Instead, a small version of the image appeared in the center of the screen, and over the course of a few seconds it gradually grew to fill the screen. (In my "mind's eye" I'm visualizing a black-and-white television picture because that's what we had, but the same thing happened with color sets).
Similarly, when you turned the television off, the picture didn’t simply disappear. Instead, it gradually shrank toward the center of the screen, growing smaller and smaller until – eventuality – you were left with only a bright white spot in the middle of the screen (this dot subsequently faded away into oblivion).
But wait, there's more, because things began to deteriorate over time. After a few years in operation, your television set was no longer as "robust" as once it was. For reasons too complicated to go into here, the vacuum-tube based electronic systems began to "drift" such that the image might not exactly "fit" the screen.
Thus, on the back of the set (almost invariably to be found in the most inaccessible location) there would be a collection of knobs that allowed you to adjust the width and height of the picture. Also, there would be a knob to move the entire picture up/down and another to move it left-right. (Since folks at that time were generally unused to any form of electronics (outside of things like radio sets and record players), the vast majority of users regarded these controls as being the equivalent to the cockpit of a commercial airliner.)
In some cases – possibly depending on ambient temperature and humidity, or possibly depending on your television's sheer contrariness – the picture might start to rotate in a vertical direction. This would begin with the picture gradually moving up (or down) the screen such that the upper portion of the image disappeared off the top of the display and reappeared at the bottom. (Imagine watching an episode of I Love Lucie where the cast's legs are walking around the upper half of the screen while their heads, shoulders, and torsos appear on the bottom.)
If left unattended, the image would start to rotate from top to bottom, or vice versa, which was a bit like watching one of the dial's on an old-fashioned slot machine just after you had pulled its handle. Thus, there was also a knob to control the "vertical hold" on the back of the television set.
The sad thing is that once you started playing with these knobs, you knew in your heart-of-hearts that "the end was nigh" for your television. Tweaking one knob seemed to subtly affect the other settings. Thus, although things might appear to be "tickety-boo" by the end of your current session, the next time you turned the set on the picture could well be "all over the place", thereby requiring you to perform a new, more radical set of "tweaks".
And remember that these controls were on the back of the set, which meant you had to drag the whole thing away from the wall and squeeze behind it to be able to access the small, ill-marked, hard-to-reach knobs.
Now imagine the frustration of "tweaking furiously" to achieve the "perfect picture", returning the television to its usual location, sitting back down in your seat ... only to see the picture start to roll around again!
Before long, you were spending more time adjusting the picture than you were actually watching the television programs.
Ah... the good old days... (grin)
Click Here to see other articles in this "How it was..." series...
Editor's Note: It would be great if – in addition to commenting on my articles – you took the time to write down short stories of your own. I can help in the copy editing department, so you don’t need to worry about being “word perfect”. All you have to do is to email your offering to me at max@CliveMaxfield.com with “How it was” in the subject line.
I can post your article as “anonymous” if you wish. On the other hand, what would be really cool would be if you wanted to add a few words about yourself – and maybe even provide a couple of “Then and Now” pictures – for example:
On the left we see me as a young sprog – I was still a student at this time, poised on the brink of leaping into my first position at International Computers Limited (ICL). On the right we see me as I am today – a much older and sadder man, beaten down by the pressures of work and bowed by the awesome responsibilities I bear (grin).
If you found this article to be of interest, visit EDA Designline where – in addition to blogs on all sorts of "stuff" – you will find the latest and greatest design, technology, product, and news articles with regard to all aspects of Electronic Design Automation (EDA).
Also, you can obtain a highlights update delivered directly to your inbox by signing up for the EDA Designline weekly newsletter – just Click Here to request this newsletter using the Manage Newsletters tab (if you aren't already a member you'll be asked to register, but it's free and painless so don't let that stop you [grin]).
It’s hard to describe the Goon Show – the script was incredibly zany, the humor was surreal, and the programs were jam-packed with bizarre sound effects – you had to be there. Prince Charles loved it, and it was cited as a major influence by folks as diverse as the Beatles and the members of Monty Python.
The key members of the cast were Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers, and Michael Bentine. As an aside, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe first met and became friends while serving in the Royal Artillery during World War II. Both must have been young men in their early 20s at the time. Milligan's artillery unit accidentally allowed a large howitzer to roll off a cliff. Secombe, who sitting in a small wireless truck at the bottom of the cliff, describes what happened as follows:
"Suddenly there was a terrible noise as some monstrous object fell from the sky quite close to us. There was considerable confusion, and in the middle of it all the flap of the truck was pushed open and a young, helmeted idiot asked 'Anybody see a gun?'”
The “idiot” asking the question was Spike Milligan. Secombe immediately responded “What colour was it?” (This must have been one of the greatest comebacks of all time – it makes me grin just thinking of the two of them meeting in this way.)
From left to right, Sellers, Milligan, and Secombe
Two of the characters in the Goon Show were called Bluebottle and Eccles. A snippet from one of the programs in which Eccles is trapped in a cellar (as I recall) sticks in my mind to this day. It went something like this:
BLUEBOTTLE: Why don't you open the door?
ECCLES: Okay, I'll open... how do you open a door?
BLUEBOTTLE: You turn the knob on your side.
ECCLES: I haven't got a knob on my side.
BLUEBOTTLE: On the door you idiot!
Well, it made me laugh… but that’s not what I wanted to talk about… I was thinking of the way televisions were and how you had to twiddle and fiddle with their knobs to make them work… and it was this that caused the Goon Show to pop into my mind.
These days we're used to seeing incredibly thin, flat television screens in the form of LCDs (Liquid Crystal Displays), plasma displays, OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) displays, and so forth. Also, the electronics systems inside today’s television sets are based on digital logic implemented using solid-state silicon chips.
The end result is that modern televisions are extremely reliable, the full-screen picture appears almost instantly when you power-up the TV, and the picture remains rock-steady...
...things weren't always this way...
When I was a young lad, the display portion of the television was a huge phosphor-lined, heavy-duty glass vacuum tube called a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT). [I’m spelling everything out for the younger folks who really may not have seen a CRT in their lives.] Meanwhile, the electronics systems inside the set were based on vacuum tubes (called valves in England), which – if you took the back off the set and peered inside – sort of looked like dimly-glowing light bulbs.
As a result, there were certain characteristic features associated with the early television sets that would be unacceptable to a modern viewing audience, but were simply regarded as a "fact of life" in the early days...
When you first turned the set on, for example, the picture didn't immediately appear. Instead, a small version of the image appeared in the center of the screen, and over the course of a few seconds it gradually grew to fill the screen. (In my "mind's eye" I'm visualizing a black-and-white television picture because that's what we had, but the same thing happened with color sets).
Similarly, when you turned the television off, the picture didn’t simply disappear. Instead, it gradually shrank toward the center of the screen, growing smaller and smaller until – eventuality – you were left with only a bright white spot in the middle of the screen (this dot subsequently faded away into oblivion).
But wait, there's more, because things began to deteriorate over time. After a few years in operation, your television set was no longer as "robust" as once it was. For reasons too complicated to go into here, the vacuum-tube based electronic systems began to "drift" such that the image might not exactly "fit" the screen.
Thus, on the back of the set (almost invariably to be found in the most inaccessible location) there would be a collection of knobs that allowed you to adjust the width and height of the picture. Also, there would be a knob to move the entire picture up/down and another to move it left-right. (Since folks at that time were generally unused to any form of electronics (outside of things like radio sets and record players), the vast majority of users regarded these controls as being the equivalent to the cockpit of a commercial airliner.)
In some cases – possibly depending on ambient temperature and humidity, or possibly depending on your television's sheer contrariness – the picture might start to rotate in a vertical direction. This would begin with the picture gradually moving up (or down) the screen such that the upper portion of the image disappeared off the top of the display and reappeared at the bottom. (Imagine watching an episode of I Love Lucie where the cast's legs are walking around the upper half of the screen while their heads, shoulders, and torsos appear on the bottom.)
If left unattended, the image would start to rotate from top to bottom, or vice versa, which was a bit like watching one of the dial's on an old-fashioned slot machine just after you had pulled its handle. Thus, there was also a knob to control the "vertical hold" on the back of the television set.
The sad thing is that once you started playing with these knobs, you knew in your heart-of-hearts that "the end was nigh" for your television. Tweaking one knob seemed to subtly affect the other settings. Thus, although things might appear to be "tickety-boo" by the end of your current session, the next time you turned the set on the picture could well be "all over the place", thereby requiring you to perform a new, more radical set of "tweaks".
And remember that these controls were on the back of the set, which meant you had to drag the whole thing away from the wall and squeeze behind it to be able to access the small, ill-marked, hard-to-reach knobs.
Now imagine the frustration of "tweaking furiously" to achieve the "perfect picture", returning the television to its usual location, sitting back down in your seat ... only to see the picture start to roll around again!
Before long, you were spending more time adjusting the picture than you were actually watching the television programs.
Ah... the good old days... (grin)
Click Here to see other articles in this "How it was..." series...
Editor's Note: It would be great if – in addition to commenting on my articles – you took the time to write down short stories of your own. I can help in the copy editing department, so you don’t need to worry about being “word perfect”. All you have to do is to email your offering to me at max@CliveMaxfield.com with “How it was” in the subject line.
I can post your article as “anonymous” if you wish. On the other hand, what would be really cool would be if you wanted to add a few words about yourself – and maybe even provide a couple of “Then and Now” pictures – for example:
On the left we see me as a young sprog – I was still a student at this time, poised on the brink of leaping into my first position at International Computers Limited (ICL). On the right we see me as I am today – a much older and sadder man, beaten down by the pressures of work and bowed by the awesome responsibilities I bear (grin).
If you found this article to be of interest, visit EDA Designline where – in addition to blogs on all sorts of "stuff" – you will find the latest and greatest design, technology, product, and news articles with regard to all aspects of Electronic Design Automation (EDA).
Also, you can obtain a highlights update delivered directly to your inbox by signing up for the EDA Designline weekly newsletter – just Click Here to request this newsletter using the Manage Newsletters tab (if you aren't already a member you'll be asked to register, but it's free and painless so don't let that stop you [grin]).
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Bar-Rollin
2/2/2012 12:30 PM EST
And being on the back of the TV, like adjusting an outside antenna, one might want a "spotter" to tell when sufficient adjustment had been done (though making small adjustments and reexamining the picture would be easier than, say, climbing down from and up to the roof).
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Max the Magnificent
2/2/2012 2:10 PM EST
That's right -- my dad would be leaning over the TV tweaking the knobs while my mother happily confused the issue by mixing up lefts and rights and ups and downs (grin)
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Max the Magnificent
2/2/2012 2:11 PM EST
I mean my mother was giving my dad directions but not ones that were as useful as he might have wished for :-)
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zeeglen
2/4/2012 12:34 AM EST
TV repairmen always had a "spotter", they called it a "mirror".
Did you ever see the cartoon joke where the guy is dangling upside-down from the roof rain gutter by one foot with the TV antenna in his hand, and his wife in the house hollers "That's it - the picture is perfect now!"
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David Ashton
2/2/2012 3:08 PM EST
I posted this before somewhere I think, so forgive me if you've seen it before, but it was so apt for this topic.
TV repairman gets called to a lady's house, and shown an old TV of a good make. "I want you to get it like it was when it was new" says the lady. "Money no object."
The repairman gets in, changes a few valves, tweaks some adjustments and gets a pretty good picture, Calls lady back. "Yes, I can see that's much better," she says, "But not as good as when it was new."
"OK" says repairman, and changes some more valves and other parts, brings out the CRT rejuvenator (remember those?) and tweaks some more. He astounds himself with the picture quality from such an old set. Calls the lady back. "How's that now?"
"Well I can see it's very good" she says, "but it's still not quite as good as when it was new."
"OK" says repairman, and reaches round the back and knocks the vertical hold out. "When you see a picture you like, tell me and I'll lock that one in."
"That one!" So he locks the vertical hold and goes off with a fat fee and a smile on his face...
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Max the Magnificent
2/2/2012 3:35 PM EST
Good one!
That reminds me of a computer from long ago -- you could buy it running at one clock speed and then when your requirements increased you could pay for a technician to come round and swap out your mother board for one that went 2X faster (Wow!)
What the technician actually did was to take your board out and replace it with a new board .. .then when he was in the parking lot he would remove the "Run at 1/2 speed" jumper from your board, which would now become the "superspeed" board as far as the next customer was concerned (this is a true story)
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zeeglen
2/4/2012 1:03 AM EST
Or the one about the repairman coming to the customer's front door with his tube-caddy toolbox and noting several birds perched on the rooftop antenna. Inside, the picture is snowy, so the repairman jokes to the customer that the problem might be the birds. The customer leaves the room.
The repairman slides the TV out from the wall and sees the 300 ohm twin lead (balanced pair they used before coaxial cable) has one wire fallen out from its terminal screw. He re-attaches the wire, perfect picture.
Then he hears a "BLAM". The customer comes back in with a smoking shotgun - "Got rid of them damn birds. Did that fix it?"
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Max the Magnificent
2/5/2012 11:08 AM EST
Do you know, I bet this must have really happened at least once...
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zeeglen
2/4/2012 1:04 AM EST
On a less humourous note was the rumour of the TV screwman who would plug the "cheater cord" (opening up a TV would remove AC power through the back panel safety interlock, the cheater cord supplied AC to the pair of interlock terminals) into the heater terminals 1 and 12 of the old 12 pin CRT base. Of course 120 VAC would pop the heater open, he could then "truthfully" tell the customer that the picture tube was shot and get a profitable shop repair job out of it.
I learned a new trick from a magazine tip - sometimes those old CRT heaters would appear open but could be restored by applying fresh solder to the base pins. I had a few very happy customers who saw their TVs come back to life after this treatment, and from then on they always called us for the next time their TV needed repair.
Another very problem area was the tuner, a mechanical monstrosity that rotated a series of 12 tuned circuit strips on a turreted drum to select channels 2-13. Periodically the multiple gold-plated contacts needed cleaning, which could be done in the home. I still remember one lady when I told her the tuner needed cleaning, she said "It was just cleaned." The slightest touch on the tuner knob caused the picture to bounce all over, I asked who cleaned it. "My husband's friend, he's a car mechanic."
(Uh-oh) "What did he clean it with?"
"Sand paper."
"Sorry lady, can't do anything about that now."
Finally there is the joke about the DIY TV fixer who tightened all the "loose screws" in his tuner. The loose screws were actually RF trimmer adjustments.
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phoenixdave
2/2/2012 4:01 PM EST
Ahhh... those wonderful little knobs on the back of the television....trying to synchronize those great flipping screen images, and the "fine precision" on the knobs... Thanks for bringing back those wonderfully frustrating memories that I thought were long gone.
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Max the Magnificent
2/2/2012 4:03 PM EST
My job here is done :-)
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Max the Magnificent
2/2/2012 4:04 PM EST
The funny thing is that all of this really isn't all that long ago ... but to younger folks reading this I can imagine that it sounds like we all lived in the "Dark Ages"...
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phoenixdave
2/2/2012 4:18 PM EST
It just seems to you that it was not that long ago Max... I've been to antique stores that are selling items that are newer than those old TV's.
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Max the Magnificent
2/2/2012 4:39 PM EST
If you are trying to cheer me up ... you aren't doing a very good job :-)
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David Ashton
2/2/2012 4:55 PM EST
Loved the bit about Goon shows as well Max. I also got a taste for them from my dad. They even broadcast repeats on the radio here from time to time, and I have a couple of CDs of them too. My wife thinks Prince Charles is a complete ponce (something to do with choosing Camilla over Diana I think) but I always say he can't be too bad if he likes the Goon Show.
Engineering related quote:
Seagoon: What what what what what???
Grytpype-Thynne: Only 5 whats? That's not very bright....
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Max the Magnificent
2/2/2012 5:00 PM EST
I've got a Goon Show CD lying around my office somewhere -- plus I've got two books of Goon Show scripts... but you really had to hear them to get the full effect...
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antedeluvian
2/3/2012 9:04 AM EST
The goons humour actually continued after the show through individual efforts. Spike Milligan would tour (mostly with an English/South African entertainer, Jeremy Taylor) and was absolutely hilarious on stage. (two lines I remember: "News Flash: The East German pole-vaulting champion just became the West Germand pole-vaulting champion" and "contraceptives should be used on every conceivable occasion"). When interviewed on radio or TV he would disrupt proceedings far more than even Robin Williams.
I believe he stole the show in Mel Brooks' "History of the World Part 1" as Monsieur Rimbault in the French Revolution portion of the movie.
Peter Sellers was a guest artist on Steeleye Span's (an English folk group) song "New York Girls", when in the middle of the song he interjects "Play the modern banjo, Min". I see it actually shows up in the lyrics:
http://www.lyrics007.com/Steeleye%20Span%20Lyrics/New%20York%20Girls%20Lyrics.html
Good memories.
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David Ashton
2/3/2012 10:38 PM EST
Jeremy Taylor was good....didn't know that SM toured with him, that would have been good.
He did a lot of stuff taking the mickey out of the South African way of life. "Ag Pleez Daddy" was about his best but I liked the one about the traffic cop:
Move your car, menheer, jy moenie park in here,
if you argue then you're running quite a risk
'cos your meter has expired
your exhaust has just backfired
yes and where the heck's our new third party disk??
(Menheer = sir, jy moenie = you can't)
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antedeluvian
2/5/2012 7:25 PM EST
He could take the mickey out of the english as well. Try this piece entitled "jobsworth"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz44_Sp0K8A
And I also loved his "Transplant Calypso"
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David Ashton
2/5/2012 7:50 PM EST
Nice....
And apologies.... "traffic cop" is not Jeremy Taylor, it's Pip Freedman. You learn something new every day (in this case by goofing off and watching you tube for half an hour.... :-)
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Bellhop
2/7/2012 3:06 PM EST
Some stations in the US did play reruns of "The Goon Show". The humor would fly right past you and move on to the next thing before you even realized what had happened.
Insanity? When a perfectionist replaced a picture tube and tried to "converge" the new tube to perfection. I usually ended up picking one corner to be the "bad" one (usually upper right) and putting the rest into proper convergence. There were generally 16 interacting controls on a board inside the back cover. You could go to work on them after you threw in the towel on adjusting the yoke magnets. I always wondered how those assembly line girls at the factory managed to do it in 30 seconds....
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