When Cable TV Came to Our Neighborhood

In 1982 we watched the utility guys string up the first cable TV in our neighborhood. The company was called Preview...I think. I'm old now, so I can easily confuse facts as my brain is becoming unkempt. Anyway, as Jim, Mike and I watched, we scoffed at the idea of buying television as it was free over the air anyway. Guess what the rapacious price was for full cable TV back then? $11.99 a month. I can even remember when cable came to New England. I was watching Frank Coletta say that they were wiring up the Cape for cable as the Boston stations came in fuzzy there. Since they were paying for it, no commercials would be shown and none were.

The first person in our group to get cable was Jim. He begged his mother for it. We sat down to watch it one day and it did have some movies that you couldn't see on regular TV. The other channels seemed to be local access programming from Secaucus, NJ. There might have been 20 channels tops.

The programming changed interestingly at 12 midnight though and I discovered the reason Jim begged so hard for cable, soft core porn.

The show opened up with this old man who was wrinkled, crusty and looked like he was falling apart. He sat in one of those wicker chairs that have that huge round back to it and was wearing a white seersucker suit with a Panama hat. He promised the next two hours would provide great entertainment and then leaned forward as the camera zoomed in and says: “Come, let's watch...and let's see if I can tingle your dingle!”

Mr. Carradine

That was John Carradine, the patriarch of the entire Carradine clan. To give you a little background on the Carradines, the whole damn family were freaks and into producing soft core porn. Remember David Carradine? Grasshopper from Kung Fu? He was John's son and was found not too long ago in a Hong Kong hotel, hanged, in a full body net stocking with his right hand Vaseline-d up. Auto-erotic asphyxiation. I guess David slipped some. The Carradine family were complete libertines.

Prior to cable, any porn I ever saw at 17 was PlayBoy. Occasionally a Hustler magazine would come to us boys and that was the raunchiest stuff we ever saw. We knew of “stag films” but none of us saw one. You had to be a member of a local Vet's bar or be invited to a bachelor party to see one. We knew of the XXX theater in Providence but most of us barely ever left the confines of Pawtucket for much of anything and none of us had the balls to go that theater.

Cable TV introduced us to porn in a weird and shocking way. No, it wasn't hard core at all, but the way they produced it stunned us and made us laugh.

Carradine's show opens with some guy, filmed from the waist up, dressed in this cheap Medieval joker's costume, against an equally cheap cardboard castle stone wall and he's moving a lot. Carradine narrates, reciting this:

Little Jack Hornier

Stood in the corner,

Porking a Christmas pie;

He put in his schlong,

And pulled out a plum,

And said 'What a good boy am I!

As Carradine is narrating this, the camera pulls back and we see this. The guy is naked from the waist down, holding a pie while he's schtupping it with his dick.

We all looked at one another and busted out laughing. “What the FUCK was that!” Mike yells.

The next installment was well done. Carradine comes on and say's “It's 11:56 PM...and Cinderella will turn into a peasant girl soon!”

The scene switches to Prince Charming boffing Cinderella, who's bent over a table. Both are in those silly costumes and Cinderella, who's looking up at a cuckoo clock says: “Oh GOD! Hurry! I only have a few seconds more to cum!” Of course, being porn, both characters explode with overacting orgasms. The clock strikes 12 midnight and Cinderella changes back and runs off. Prince Charming then goes on a search with a glass vibrator to find Cinderella saying “this only fits the ONE girl!”

The next scene show the Carradine brothers, in a meadow, porking each other's wives, girlfriends and a cantaloupe. This was the only live action segment.

When it was all over, old Carradine, back in his high backed chair, wipes his brow with a handkerchief and promises another installment the next time. Two women, in Girl Scout uniforms holding over sized lollipops, come onto the set and walk him off.

We again, just sat there..staring at the tube and then at each other. I'm sure “What the fuck!” was said about 48 times during the entire show. We've NEVER seen anything like it in our 17 years living in Pawtucket. Most of us, at 17, probably have maybe, kissed a girl or made out with one. One member of our crew actually laid one to the astonishment to the rest of us when we found out. We boys then really were horrible at dating and understanding girls.

And this was our introduction to cable and the Big Adult World, Fairy Tale Porn.

At one time, we young boys thought this was the hottest thing ever. 

Yeah, I know this is nothing compared to the internet porn you find today. Around 1998, I dated this girl who had two boys, around 12ish and they had the then new AOL on their computer. One night the boys are on the computer and AOL chirps to say, “You have mail!” The two boys, almost in unison yell out, “You have PORN!” To them it was nothing, it was normal, pedestrian and common.

Next I'll tell you of rotary phones!