On Ode to Black and White

You could hardly see for all the snow
So you'd spread the rabbit ears as far as they'd go
Pull up a chair to the TV set
"Good night, David; Good night, Chet."

Depending on the the channel you tuned
You got Rob and Laura - or Ward and June
It was oh so good and felt so right
Life looked better in black and white.

Cable was something you used on your car
When the battery was dead, or you didn't get far
Nobody'd heard of remote control
To change the channel you went for a stroll.

Not many channels but always something to see
Until midnight came and no more TV
Just a test pattern that shrunk to a dot
Until 7 am that's all that you got.

I Love Lucy, The Real McCoys
Dennis the Menace, the Cleaver boys
Rawhide, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train
Superman, Jimmy and Lois Lane

Patty Duke, Father Knows Best
Our Miss Brooks and all the rest
Donna Reed on Thursday night
Not a dysfunctional family in sight.

I want to go back to black and white
Everything always turned out right
Good guys always won the fight

In God they trusted, in bed they slept
A promise made was a promise kept
They never cussed or broke their vows
They'd never make the networks now.

But if I could, I'd rather be
In a TV town in '53
Like Mayfair, Pixley or Mayberry

I'd trade all the channels on the satellite
If I could just turn back the clock tonight
To when everybody knew wrong from right
Life was better in black and white.