If you were born in 1976 like me, congratulations: you are officially a card-carrying member of Generation X. We are the bridge generation. We are the last humans on earth who know what a dial tone sounds like, how to fix a cassette tape with a pencil, and most importantly, the sheer, character-building agony of watching television in the 1980s.
Whenever I look at how kids consume media today, I feel like a grizzled war veteran. Kids today have an iPad shoved in their hands with instant, 4K access to every piece of visual media ever recorded in human history. They tap a screen, and boom—instant gratification.
I look at them and think, “You know nothing of patience. My patience was forged in the mechanical groaning of a motorized roof antenna.”
Let’s take a trip down memory lane and look at how TV used to be for those of us growing up in the analog trenches.
The Single, Immovable Object
Back in the day, there was no such thing as "a TV in every room." There was exactly one television in the entire house. It wasn't a sleek, paper-thin pane of glass mounted elegantly on a wall. No, this was a massive, wood-paneled, cathode-ray behemoth that weighed as much as a small car. It sat in the corner of the living room like a revered household deity.
And a remote control? Please. That is science fiction talk.
If you were the youngest person in the room, you were the remote control. "Hey, go change the channel to the news," my dad would say. You had to physically get up off the couch, walk over to the warm, humming box, and push a heavy, clunky button that made a satisfying THUNK sound. If the volume was too loud, you were walking back. We didn't need Fitbits in the 80s; we got our daily steps in just trying to watch a movie.
The Great Roof Antenna Protocol
But simply pushing a button didn't mean you instantly got to watch a different channel. Oh, no. That was just the beginning of the ritual.
Because we lived in a world before digital cable, our television's lifeblood was a massive metal antenna perched on the roof. But it wasn't a static piece of metal. It was a motorized antenna.
If you wanted to switch from watching a domestic channel to a foreign one, you had to press the channel button, and then… wait. You would hear this faint, mechanical whirring sound echoing from the roof as the antenna slowly, dramatically rotated itself to catch the right signal frequency floating through the European airwaves.
You would sit there, staring at a screen full of fuzzy static (we called it "snow"), watching the ghosts of the broadcast slowly materialize into focus. It was a suspense thriller every time. Is the wind blowing too hard? Did a pigeon land on it? Will we get to see the show?
And the bounty of channels we had access to after this agonizing wait? A grand, staggering total of about 11 stations:
2 Belgian channels: For the local news and serious programming.
3 Dutch channels: Usually slightly more entertaining.
3 German channels: Where we watched horribly dubbed American action shows.
2 BBC channels: For the fancy British programming that felt like it was broadcast from another planet.
That was it. That was the entire universe of entertainment. If there was nothing good on those 11 channels, you went outside and played in the dirt.
The 5:00 PM Miracle
Here is a concept that is absolutely terrifying to anyone under the age of 25: The TV went to sleep.
Television was not a 24/7 all-you-can-eat buffet. On weekdays, there was absolutely nothing broadcasted during the day. If you stayed home sick from school, you didn't get to binge-watch cartoons. You got to stare at a "Test Card" (het testbeeld)—a bizarre, colorful geometric target with a clock in the middle, usually accompanied by a high-pitched, brain-melting tone or some incredibly bland elevator music.
We would literally sit on the carpet, staring at a clock on a TV screen, waiting for the magical hour of 17:00 (5:00 PM). At 5:00 PM, the TV gods would flip a switch, the test screen would vanish, and actual moving pictures would appear! Children's programming had officially started, and it was a glorious 90-minute window of pure joy before the adult news took over and ruined everything.
The only exception to this rule was the weekend. Sometimes, if the stars aligned, there would be sports broadcasted on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. A cycling race or a football match would grace the screen, giving us a rare midday glimpse into the moving world.
The Ultimate Irony
Fast forward to today. We have Smart TVs that connect to the Wi-Fi, run software updates, and stream in ultra-high definition. We have Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, YouTube, and thousands of live channels. The motorized roof antenna is a dusty relic of a bygone era. We have voice-activated remote controls that listen to our every command.
And yet, what do we do?
We sit on the couch for 45 minutes, endlessly scrolling through a catalog of 10,000 movies and shows, complaining, "Ugh, there is absolutely nothing to watch."
Sometimes, I miss the simplicity of those 11 channels. I miss the anticipation of the 5:00 PM start time. And honestly? I kind of miss the dramatic tension of waiting for the roof antenna to turn.
Are there any other Gen Xers out there who remember the motorized antenna dance? Drop a comment below and tell me I'm not the only one who functioned as their parents' remote control!
Cheers,
Peter