When TV was new, it was a lot different than it is today. But so was the world.
And one of the "Pioneers of Primetime" featured in the PBS special that airs tonight at 7 on Ch. 7 thinks that changes in one caused changes in the other.
"Television brought an awful lot of things to our lives," said Sid Caesar, "but one thing it brought to our lives was the remote control. That changed everything.
"I mean, before we had remote control, if you wanted to change the station, you got up and you had to walk across the room."
But there was more to it than just that, said Caesar — a true TV legend whose comedy on "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour" is as hysterically funny today as it was in the 1950s.
"The remote control took over the timing of the world," Caesar said. "That's why you have road rage — you have people with no patience because you got immediate gratification."
Immediate gratification, perhaps, but to his way of thinking, a lot of people are missing out on a lot of good TV along the way.
"You got click, click, click, click. If it doesn't explode within three seconds, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click — 'Ah, nothing on,' " Caesar said. "You just went past 15 wonderful shows, but you didn't have the patience."
"Pioneers of Primetime" looks back half a century at the people who were on TV when TV was new. Mixing classic clips and new and old interviews with the likes of Caesar, Milton Berle, Red Skelton, Bob Hope, Steve Allen, Sammy Davis Jr., Buddy Ebsen, Donald O'Connor and Rose Marie, it's a look at the people who came to television from vaudeville and burlesque and created the medium.
In the special, Caesar says, "When we started in this business, there was nothing to copy." But after the advent of the remote control, "everything speeded up. I mean, 'Get out of my way. I've got to make that red light.' It changed everything.
"That's why, today, kids are impatient. They want to grow up immediately. There's no time to grow up."
ROSE MARIE is best known for her role on "The Dick Van Dyke Show," but she was a star long before that. "I started in show business when I was 3 years old," said the 82-year-old. "I didn't do much before then. I was just crawling around the house."
At the age of 5, she had her own national radio show on NBC as Baby Rose Marie. "I was a so-called phenomenal thing, because I had the same (husky) voice that I have now. And I sang the same way," she said.
But because some in the radio audience thought Baby Rose Marie was "a midget," she went on a national tour. "And I learned almost everything I know from the people in vaudeville. It was the greatest thing in the world," she said.
Which is a far cry from later child stars who complain about their "terrible childhoods."
"I had the most wonderful childhood in the world," Rose Marie said. "I traveled all over the country. . . . I mean, I read everything that I should have learned in school. I was doing it on the road."
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com