TABLE OF CONTENTS
Click on year or subject (ie 1957, 1969, Elvis, Barbie, Manson, JFK assassination, Beatles, Jimi at Woodstock etc.) in the index below to land on the proper page of this book.
Page…….Chapter
1………….About
2………….Dedication and Thanks
3………….Forward
4………….Introduction Mass media fluff replaces written history
6………….1) - The Early Fifties Young parents buy TV sets to babysit Boomer brats. Programmers stumble upon the first reality TV with an exciting live event: the US vs. the Mob hearings. Enormus ratings produce the law and order genre. Twice as many kids in each home…parents demand family sitcoms. Rock & Roll finds its Johnny Appleseed in Alan Freed.
8…………2) - The Mid-Fifties The Golden Age and The Dark Ages…Communists and Body Snatchers…Monsters of the Id (Forbidden Planet) in Richard Nixon and Tailgunner Joe McCarthy
11……………… 1955 TV offers the American Dream, Instant Wealth programs for young parents, and Kiddie Pap for Boomer children. Hollywood delivers Rebel Without a Cause to War Baby teens. Alan Freed plays race music for WASP kids on AM
12……………….1956 …and then there was Elvis. Parents are overcome with Rock Hysteria. Jukebox Musicals and The Bad Seed hit the silver screen
15………..3) - 1957 The Second Decade: The entertainment industry offers role models: Leave It to Beaver for Boomer kids and American Bandstand for War Babies. Most teens passed on the latter. African Americans ask, “How do I fit into the new American Dream?” Elvis vs. Pat Boone. Sputnik crashes the party
20………..4) - 1958 America cracks down on rebel teens. Stronger law and order shows on the tube, I Was a Teenage , Frankenstein, Werewolf, Caveman, etc. on the big screen. Elvis is drafted. White Flight to the suburbs.
24………..5) - 1959 Baby Boomers hit teenagedom and cause a national panic. Quiz Show Scandals…Payola…Clean up America! The day the music died: Teen Idols and Barbie. Castro and the Twilight Zone.
29………..6) - 1960-1 First Wave Boomers reach high school and crave Puberty Pop. U-2 Spy Plane and Candid Camera. Dick Clark is praised…Freed crucified in Payola hearings. First birth control pill is released and the role of wife/mother disappears from new family sitcoms. Restless America turns to JFK.
32………..7) - 1962 Camelot and West Side Story (a non-WASP Teen Dream). Wall of Sound. The Cuban Missle Crisis inspires Bob Dylan.
34………..8) - 1963 The oldest Boomers become high school students and flock to the beach. Trouble ninety miles off the shore as Dylan sings, The Times They Are A-changing. America’s greatest salesman (TV) is suddenly struck dumb. (“Don’t you know) It’s the End of the World (it ended when I lost you”) is the Top Forty number one hit for seven straight weeks (just before the death of JFK!)
37………..9) - 1964 Amateur 8mm film of Kennedy’s assassination…repeated over and over…gave American a taste for violence. Slo-mo and instant replay debut on TV sports. First Wave Boomers graduate high school and the Baby Boom ends exactly nine months after JFK died. A non-incident at the Gulf of Tonkin…the draft…TV’s campaign to sell war…The Beatles assassinate Brill Building Pop, Teen Idols, Wall of Sound and Folk with one appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show…GI Joe (the hottest new Boomer boy toy) debutes in time for Xmas.
41……….10) - 1965 ML King and Selma rain on LBJ’s parade, and the cost of Vietnam cuts deep into social programs. TV tries to sell War Is Fun, but young Boomers turn to Folk Rock for amusement and protest. Rock & Roll becomes their official language and Teen Utopia sheds its dead skin on SoCal beaches and slithers up the West Coast to San Francisco. The FCC accidently creates FM Radio.
45……….11) - 1966 The year is an emotional rollercoaster for teens. Forced to choose: Green Beret or He’s a Real Nowhere Man? Many drop out of the Great Society, turn off TV, mainstream Hollywood and Top 40 radio. Boomers tune into underground music on small FM stations, cheap antihero flics and counterculture newspapers.
50……….12) - 1967- The Third Decade Flower Power. America: Love it or Leave it or Make Love, Not War. A meeting of the hippie tribes at Monterey (where Boomers discover Jimi). Sgt. Pepper confuses AM. Abbie. The Great Society attacks the Rising Tide of Hungry Freaks, Daddy (Zappa). Hippies ridicule traditional American symbols and hold a Death to Hip ceremony.
57……….13) - 1968 Hippies died and Yippies! take their place and head to Chicago. Lyndon quit and everybody runs for president. Hair invades Broadway. TV cancels all War Dramas, but adds Gomer Pyle . The oldest Boomers become eligible to vote…Antiheroes flood the big screen and riots in Chicago and assassinations of MLK and RFK inspire ultraviolent flics.
62……….14) - 1969 A year of miracles: Americans on the moon, Tommy (the first rock opera), Woodstock and the Amazing Mets…but also, a year of nightmares: Manson, Altamont and Lt. Calley at My Lai. Rock & Roll becomes the official Boomer religion TV gives up on teens and aims at younger siblings as Hollywood cranks out more antiheroes and ultraviolence.
68……….15) - The Early Seventies When did the Sixties end? The Beatles break up and most supergroups follow. Many Boomers heed Paul’s advice: Get back to where you once belonged. Boomer teens turn on TV again. Welcome to the Me Decade and the Era of Corporate Rock.
73……….16 - The Mid-Seventies TV becomes slightly more relevant , but offers weird superheroes. Hollywood offers disaster and conspiracy flics, but the public demands nostalgia. This leads to Rock & Roll’s darkest hour: Disco. 1976 Birthdays: America’s 200th and ex-Berkeley freshmen, (who in 1964 warned, “Don’t trust anyone over thirty!”)…turn thirty.
75……….17) - Coda and Preview of Puzzling Evidence Part Two (1977-2006)