Events that crossed my radar and memories, these many years later. This effort is aided and abetted by reviewing Wikipedia’s listings of each year’s events, in this case, 1965 and 1966.
The Sound of Music film debuted in early 1965 and we probably saw it that summer when we returned to the States for vacation. We also got the soundtrack and knew all the songs. It was a competition with My Fair Lady for which soundtrack would be played more often; My Fair Lady would usually win in our house, but I think we generally preferred the Sound of Music film. We were big Julie Andrews fans.
I started to have a vague notion of who Martin Luther King, Jr. was and that he was leading marches all over the place, but the Civil Rights movement was a bigger deal for Laurie and Sue (vs. Dad and Mom) than it was for me. I also had a vague idea that a war was growing in Vietnam, but no real notion of its significance. We would watch the news in Aruba, but it was filtered through a Dutch and Aruban lens; I don’t think we got direct American news broadcasts, but we did get some news in English.
I remember being able to see Ed Sullivan and the Wonderful World of Disney in Aruba, waiting to see them on the TV we set up in one of the air conditioned bedrooms at our home. Other than that, I have few recollections of actually watching TV in Aruba. I gobbled up what I could when we went back to the States for vacations. New TV shows in 1964 that became hits with me included The Man from UNCLE, Flipper, Bewitched, Gilligan’s Island, and Gomer Pyle. Big shows for me that started in 1965 included I Spy, Get Smart, the Wild Wild West, Hogan’s Heroes, Lost in Space, Green Acres, I Dream of Jeannie, and the FBI.
In 1965, NASA’s two-man Gemini missions began and made a big impact on me. I watched and read assiduously about the flights from liftoff to splashdown and dreamed of being one of the astronauts. The first space walk in June 1965 was a very big deal.
In summer 1965, the Beatles movie Help! was released and I’m sure we must have been back in Florida (and/or getting the girls into school in Boston) at the time and saw it. We played the soundtrack all the time. I also watched the Beatles cartoon show regularly (maybe beginning in summer 1966 once we moved back), even though I knew it was pretty second rate. I remember coverage of the Beatles’ Shea Stadium concert in August 1965 — it was the biggest outdoor ever, at the time. Rubber Soul came out late 1965 when I was back in Aruba, so I probably didn’t hear much other than radio play until I saw Laurie and Sue in summer 1966, but I remember it as one of the earliest full albums I actually listened to on my own.
I heard some of the other British Invasion music in 1965 and early 1966 on the radio or via the Ed Sullivan Show, but not a lot of it made a huge impression. Herman’s Hermits songs were too bubblegummy, even then. The Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” was a cool song (and riff) but the rest of their stuff was mostly too grimy. Bob Dylan had become too whiny (and dissonantly electric); the Byrds were doing his stuff better. The Supremes, Temptations, Four Tops and other Motown acts were huge and a lot of fun, but we never owned any albums in the house. The Beach Boys were hanging in with some fun songs. Dad played a lot of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass to go with his Broadway shows and classical music. The Beatles were really still on top of my musical world and setting the pace, but then again I was only 8 and music was in the background, not the foreground of my world. Television shows fed much more directly into my veins and brain when I could see them.
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