Davy Crockett

 We were relatively late in getting a tv.  I remember other kids at Tonti coming back from lunch, almost all kids went home for lunch, seems so odd nowadays, and talking excitedly about Uncle Johnny Coons, and The Little Rascals, and wondering what the wonder was.  People next door got one before us, we used to sneak up onto their porch and watch it through the window.  And then finally our uncool, unhip, parents got one.

It was so cool,we sat around all evening, me with my back against the register, hogging the heat until I was chased from it and watched.  I knew what was on every channel every hour of every day of the week and that was not unusual.

And then the word came down that a new show was going to be taking to the airwaves, The Mickey Mouse Club.  Wowie zowie, a show just for us kids.  How cool was that?

In addition to the mouseketeers walking around and dancing or singing and whatever (and Annette Funicello's little breasts budding) they showed like cartoons and shows, and one of the first shows was Davy Crockett.

I suppose they could have used Daniel Boone, but we kids had already heard about Daniel Boone in school, one of the pioneers, and frankly pioneers were boring, but Davy Crockett here was a brand new hero.

And along with Davy Crockett came a whole range of merchandise, coonskin caps of course, but even stuff like Davy Crockett yoyos, anything. 

And here is a thing I've read about, but not done proper research on, it was the first emergence of the boomers.  Before this if a kid got anything it was because their parents got it for him,  Kids didn't have any money and generally they were happy with whatever they got.  But now we had television, the social media of the day, and we could see our own shows, and we were maybe a little spoiled I think.  The times were fat after the war and maybe our folks splurged a bit on our allowances.  

And Madison Avenue, those hucksters, thought why not skip the parents and sell directly to the kids?  In the toy section of the store half of it was given over to Davy Crockett merchandise.

We grew up listening to our parents' music, Snooky Lanson and The Hit Parade, rather lame music in retrospect but that was all we had, until Elvis.  Suddenly we had our own music, and best of all possible worlds our parents hated it,

And then came the war, and instead of marching off dutifully as those before us had done, we didn't like it and tried to end it, and so on and so on, spoiled self-centered boomers ruling everything, and even now have Depends ever been so popular?

And what of Davy Crockett, the guy who started everything, though he was more likely effect than cause, we hardly ever think of him,