Television gets a bad rap. As early as 1961, President Kennedy’s FCC chairman, Newton Minow, famously characterized most programming as a “vast wasteland.” Today, everyone from pediatricians to self-designated protectors of public morals point to TV as a cause of . . . well, you name it: childhood obesity, political apathy, high murder rates, low literacy rates.
It sometimes seems that, in many minds, every societal ill is somehow tied to the tube. So be it. But we like television. We like it a lot. Here, LIFE offers a photo gallery celebrating, without apology, what is arguably America’s true national pastime: watching TV.
Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.
Radio Corporation of America (RCA) executives watch a brand new invention called television, their New York offices before introducing the product to the public, 1939.Carl Mydans—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesWriter Russell Finch enjoys a smoke, a bath and a TV show in 1948George Skadding—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesMen gather to watch TV through a store window in Pennsylvania in 1948.Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA boy watches TV in an appliance store window in 1948.Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesSisters at St. Vincent's Hospital in Erie, Penn., watch a program on a new local TV station, 1949.Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesWatching a Western on TV in 1950.Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA group of swimmers at an indoor pool watch the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Jacob Malik, filibustering in the UN Security Council in 1950.George Skadding—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesGrade school kids in Minneapolis watch a video "classroom lesson" on TV while the city's public schools are on strike in 1951.Francis Miller—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA rapt audience in a Chicago bar watches the 1952 World Series between the Dodgers and Yankees. (The Yankees won.)Francis Miller—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesSix-year-old girls use a "Winky Dink" drawing kit on their home TV screen as they watch the kids' program, 1953. The show, which aired for four years in the 1950s, has been cited as "the first interactive TV show," especially in light of its "magic drawing screen" — a piece of plastic that stuck to the TV screen, and on which kids (and, no doubt, some adults) would trace the action on the screen.Walter Sanders—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA performing chimpanzee named Zippy watches TV in 1955.Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesAn adopted Korean war orphan, Kang Koo Ri, watches television in his new home in Los Angeles in 1956.Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesMilwaukee fans watch the 1957 World Series, when their Braves beat the Yankees in seven, behind three complete-game victories by the gutsy Lew Burdette.Francis Miller—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA railroad worker's family watches TV in a trailer at a camp for Southern Pacific employees in Utah in 1957.Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesAn awe-struck baseball fan is seized with utter delight as he watches the Braves win their first and only World Series while based in Milwaukee in 1957.Francis Miller—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA traveling businessman watches TV in a hotel room in 1958.Nat Farbman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesTenant farmer Thomas B. Knox and his family watch Ed Sullivan and ventriloquist Rickie Layne on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1958.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesPicketing workers watch TV in a tent outside the gates of a U.S. Steel plant in Gary, Indiana, during a strike in 1959.Francis Miller—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesVice President Richard Nixon and his wife, Pat, watch the 1960 GOP convention in Chicago from their hotel suite.Hank Walker—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesThe Kim Sisters — a Korean-born singing trio who had some success in the U.S. in the 1960s — watch television in Chicago in 1960.Robert W. Kelley—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesEventual VP candidate Lyndon Johnson watches TV during the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles.Thomas D. McAvoy—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA "Three-Eyed TV Monster" created by Ulises Sanabria which permits simultaneous two- and three-screen viewing, 1961.Francis Miller—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesAstronaut Scott Carpenter's wife, Rene, and son, Marc, watch his 1962 orbital flight on TV. Carpenter's was NASA's second manned orbital flight, after John Glenn's, and lasted nearly five hours.Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesDie-hard New York Giants fans watch the 1962 NFL championship game against the Packers outside a Connecticut motel, beyond the range of the NYC-area TV blackout, December 1962. Green Bay won, 16-7.John Loengard—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA crowd watches John F. Kennedy address the nation during the Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962.Ralph Crane—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesFrank Sinatra watches his son, Frank Jr., 21, emcee a TV show, 1964.
John Dominis—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesDifferent CATV (Community Antenna Television) stations available to subscribers in Elmira, New York, in 1966.Arthur Schatz —The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesActress Diahann Carroll and journalist David Frost watch themselves on separate talk shows. Carroll and Frost were engaged for a while, but never married.Bill Ray—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
