The 50's, Trivial or Not?

By Jeff Little

When most people think of the 50's they think of fun. Hoola Hoops and hooped skirts, rock 'n' roll, doin' the stroll, duck tails, drive-ins, seeing how many people would fit in a phone booth and every other harmless bit of behavior that was popular at the time.

But like any other decade, the fun was offset by the serious. The major landmarks were accompanied by the trivial.

The events that occurred between 1950 and 1959 could obviously fill countless books.

But since all that reading might cut into valuable television watching time, let's instead take a quick look at a condensed history of the decade.

In 1950 The Korean War began, but so did the Beetle Baily comic strip.

And for those who wanted one-stop shopping for both comedy and tragedy, there was the beginning of "The Red Scare" with not-so-genial host Joseph McCarthy.

1951 saw the television premiere of Dragnet as the U.S. continued to "police" Korea (where President Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur of command the same year).

Not to be outdone in the "Bad Boy of 1951" department, the world of publishing introduced Dennis the Menace.

Making debuts in 1952 were TV's The Today Show, The Abbott and Costello Show and "The President Dwight D. Eisenhower Show". But we were still in Korea…for the time being.

Mere months after President Eisenhower's inauguration in 1953 The Korean War ended but an unrelated boom in commercial electronics began.

Color televisions became available for the first time near the year's end at a cost of about $1,200.

1954's most important news was, thankfully, good. The year saw the country's first mass polio vaccinations in Pittsburgh and the world's first successful kidney transplant in Boston, while further upbeat health developments concerned the ears.

1954 was the year Bill Haley and His Comets recorded Rock Around the Clock.

Rock Around the Clock became a hit in 1955 when it was used onscreen in the film Blackboard Jungle.

Both the song and the film (along with a flood of similar tunes coming from varied sources) effectively brought a musical form into mainstream culture that was rapidly becoming known as "rock 'n' roll".

Strengthening the impact of rock 'n 'roll, a song called Heartbreak Hotel became the first #1 hit for a young singer named Elvis Presley in 1956.

Also exploding into history the same year was the first airborne test detonation of a hydrogen bomb.

Flying high in 1957, The Wham-O Company produced the first Frisbee.

Not to be outdone, The Soviet Union launched Sputnik I into space.

Playing catch-up with the Russians, the U.S. creates NASA in 1958.

Also looking toward space in 1958, James Van Allen discovers The Van Allen Radiation Belt.

Marking the close of the decade was the close of three performers' lives in 1959.

On February 3, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson ("The Big Bopper") died in a plane crash. But the 50's never really died.

Ripples from "The Rock 'n' Roll Era" still reverberate throughout everyday life.

The 50's never passed away. They merely stepped aside from a stage that had been set for the 60's.

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