Ranch Party - Patsy Cline (1957-58)

Regional television shows have always fascinated me. Ever since my family took a trip to Washington, DC in the early 1960’s when I became aware that TV was different when you went elsewhere. The simple explanation is that television transmissions are short in length and so don’t travel very far. But as a kid I just thought of it as a kind of magic which took place when you were transported out of town.

Of course that regional type of thing is all but dead. Shows like “Ranch Party”; which featured the latest and greatest in country entertainment at the time; are gone forever. They don’t make enough money to compete with the networks; let alone the cable channels. But you can still catch up on the ones you missed via You Tube.

“Ranch Party” began as a show called “Town Hall Party”, which was on radio and television in Los Angeles. In 1953 Tex Ritter; John Ritter’s dad for you young folks; appeared on it and later in 1957 he made it his own, renaming it “Ranch Party.” He had already achieved some success with a show called Ozark Jubilee on ABC in 1955. In some ways, these shows were the inspiration for Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand.” He just “fine-tuned” the idea at a time when antennas were still being “fine-tuned” themselves.

   

"Ranch Party" with Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline (1957)

Here’s another example of the weekend entertainment which we missed in the city when I was growing up. Where we had Sullivan, they had Tex. And I think they may have gotten the better part of the deal!

Tex Ritter; John’s father; was a staple of the country music scene in the 1950’s. He was there at just the right time, too. He was showcasing acts that were changing the face of music, like this show with Johnny Cash. We didn’t even hear him on the radio in New York until a few months after the record was a hit all over the interior portions of the country. (I was very young, about 3 years old at the time, so I had to look that up.)

And Patsy Cline was another example of where the city was now sometimes lagging behind the more rural areas in entertainment. Up until then it had always been the big city setting the pace via the radio.

The point is that with the growing influence of the mass media, we were becoming more homogenized as a nation. Soon, what was considered to be “hillbilly” music would become rock and roll, taking the world be storm, and ushering in the 1960’s; one of the most mercurial decades this nation has ever known.

I love looking at these old shows, especially now, living down south in North Carolina. They are windows back into time which let me see what the people who are native to this state were seeing at the time. In turn, that gives me perspective on who they are today.