Got A Quarter? Then Settle Into Your “TV Chair!”
Sometimes I miss the “good old days”, when you could pass your “waiting” time at an airport, train or bus station by watching a coin-operated TV!
Talk about an invention “of its time!” As you watch Netflix or any other of the myriad of TV channels on your phone or portable device, let’s remember a time when watching TV wasn’t so easy – and involved a lot more pocket change!
Most airports had a section of “TV chairs” that featured coin-operated televisions which would provide 30 minutes of local programming for 25 cents.
That’s right, imagine settling in to enjoy this!
Wow! A simpler time to be sure…but in a time before cable, video games, iPhones and iPads, this was a way to kill time when traveling!
It reminds me of an earlier era – like when I was growing up and this guy was selling clams on TV:
Ivar Haglund made a fortune in Seattle, Washington by “owning” the clam business at his wildly successful “Ivar’s Acres Of Clams” restaurant – and that meant doing some wacky stunts like this:
That’s right – this was real!
Click here to find out about some of his most outrageous stunts!
Coin-operated TVs and Clam Nectar warnings take me back to an earlier time….when food like this was served in homes all across America!
Time For A “Spam Bake!”
I keep threatening to make this for my wife Alex – because these were the party foods of the fifties!
See more of them here!
Speaking of retro food, how about a can of this iconic dish:
Who hasn’t eaten this out of a can? Well, a restaurant in Las Vegas made a cool version like this!
Click here to see our entire retro menu!
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Categories: Art, Exotic Travel, Funny Pictures, Memoirs, Pop Culture, Technology, Travel, Travel Memoir
johnrieber 
Haha, this is so great
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I never saw one of these back in the day.
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A simpler time to be sure – thanks for the comment!
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Oh, I love and miss those simpler times. You’re welcome, John.
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I heard about these when I first started flying abroad, in 1975. But I never found an airport where they existed. I should have gone to America!
Best wishes, Pete.
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I saw them in our bus stations as well Pete…I was a small kid and of course begged my parents for a quarter to use them!
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omg I love this
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And we’re the generation who can’t put down our phones. Yea, right. Our mothers and fathers took their TVS on the road with them. Ha, ha. I love it. I vaguely remember traveling to a bus or train station as a kid and seeing these and thinking that I wanted to sit there. Ha, ha.
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Yes, that’s where I saw them: the Greyhound bus station in Seattle1
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I don’t remember those chairs, but I sure wouldn’t mind having one!
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I do not recall those TVs but I was not very flyworthy back in the earlier days…..SPAM now there is a wonder meat….and the hundreds of flavors….fascinating….the ‘Os’ now there is something I ate a bunch….great post chuq
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Thanks for the comment!
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You are very welcome and thanx for the stroll down memory lane. chuq
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Those airport TVs are hilarious. I don’t recall seeing them. But I didn’t actually fly on an airplane until the late 70s so they may have been gone by then. I loved Ivar’s. The best clam chowder ever!!
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