William E. McIntosh Oral History Project
Interview with William E. McIntosh
Date of Interview: November 7, 2004
Interviewer: Matthew S. McIntosh
Transcriber: Matthew S. McIntosh
MATT: It is the 7th of November, 2004. My name is Matt McIntosh and I am here interviewing my father, Bill McIntosh about his life and about his early uses in media. This is an oral history project for one of my communications classes at Brigham Young University.
MATT: Hello Dad!
BILL: Hey...
MATT: I guess what we will do here is... I'll just ask a some questions and you feel free to answer however you like. The longer the better seeing as I have to have like... eight pages of something. Let's see... Can you give me a background on yourself... like when you were born and where you have lived?
BILL: Well, I've pretty much lived in California my entire life. I was born in Whittier, California in 1955 and grew up most of my life in Crestline, up in the mountains. I joined the church early in my twenties and started going to institute, and there I met Mom, and you guys came along.
MATT: How many brothers and sisters do you have?
BILL: Let's see, I have only one sister. Virginia. She lives in Alpharetta, Georgia right now. And I guess I have a couple of halfs hanging around.
MATT: How many children do you have?
BILL: I have two children, You and Billy. Billy is getting married the December.
MATT: Which one do you like the most?
BILL: Depends on the moment...
MATT: Hmmm... What do you do for work?
BILL: I started out working for a bank called Home Savings of America, they got bought out several years ago and now I work for Washington Mutual. Don't even ask me what I am supposed to do... most of the time I'm not really sure of that myself.
MATT: Do you remember any groundbreaking advances in media. When was the first time you guys got a color TV?
BILL: I'm trying to think... do you remember the year they started getting color TVs? I remember that my Grandparents got a color TV first, and I think that was the first time that I had really watched one. I cant really remember when my parents first got one. But I do remember sitting around watching and I remember the color peacock thing that would come up.
MATT: A peacock?
BILL: Yeah, they would put up this peacock up on the screen. I was told that the reason that they did it was for people to make sure that there color sets were working.
MATT: What kinds of TV shows did you guys watch?
BILL: Lets see... I remember that I was big into Popeye when I was a kid. I used to watch that. Me and your Mom used to watch MASH pretty much every week when that was still on. You probably remember watching that. Cheers. We used to watch the Johnny Carson show all the time. That was hillarious. Do you remember watch Red Skelton?
MATT: I think. Don't we have a tape of him somewhere.
BILL: Yeah... I think Mom gave it to me for Christmas a while back.
*************** INTERMISSION ***************
MATT: Did you guys listen to the radio a lot more back then? Like... sit around and listen to radio broadcasts at night? Or was that before your time?
BILL: I think they used to do it a lot more in my parents day. But we did sit around and listen to the radio more then we do now. The radio then is sort of what the TV is now. I remember when I was a kid I was really into Dr. Demento. He was a disk jockey and he sort of collected all sorts of weird skits and songs and would play them on the air. He had the "Monster Mash"... or songs like "Does You Bubblegum Lose It's Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight." I even have a couple records of his that are really funny.
MATT: Did you listen to records a lot.
BILL: I was pretty much a record freak. I used to hang out with a couple disc jockeys when I was in high school. You don't even want to know how many I used to have. That was pretty much the thing that I spent all of my money on. I had all of the Beatles alblums. Jefferson Airplane. We still have a record player, I will have to pull that out for you.
MATT: What about the newspapers, are those any different now then they were?
BILL: Let me think... Newspapers are pretty much the same as they were when I was little. The advertisments have changed a little bit. But I think for the most part they have stayed pretty much the same. What I have noticed thought, is that people read the newspapers a lot less now. Or at least it seems like it. Take the election that they just had. When I was younger, you didn't really find out who won until the posted in the newspaper the next day. I guess they started having some stuff on TV, but a lot of the news stuff they all had in the newspaper.
MATT: Do you remember where you were during the JFK assassination?
BILL: Yeah, I was actually in Elemetary school when it happened. It was in Anaheim. It happened when I was in school. I just remember the teachers coming in ant that they were crying. They called us all in sort of an assembly for the whole school and they explained to us what had happen. Then they told us that we needed to go home. I remember that it was on TV pretty much non-stop. Me and my parents were watching it for hours. It was kinda like 911, where everyone just sat around and watched TV. They broadcast the funeral and everything.
MATT: Did you see on TV when Lee Harvey Oswald was shot?
BILL: I don't think I was it when it actually happened. But I remember seeing things about it. It was heavily televised.
MATT: Do you remember where you were during the Martin Luther King assassination?
BILL: Not exactly. It was similar to JFK. But I don't really remember where I was or what I was doing while it happened.
MATT: Do you remember where you were during the Eagle Landing? I guess we are doing a lot of these Where Were You questions now...
BILL: I don't remember...
MATT: What about the Challenger disaster?
BILL: I was in San Bernardino working. I remember that they but a TV in the breakroom so that everyone could watch the reports. It was kind of interesting how that whole thing worked. When they first started the whole space thing, it was really big on the news. By by the time of the Challenger they had really stopped reporting on them at all. They had already launched so many rockets and everything that they didn't really show it any more. So this was the first time in a while that they had even talked about space and the moon, at least that I could tell.
MATT: That's kinda weird. I guess that is kinda the way that it is now. We don't see on the news very often anything about NASA programs.
BILL: All these things are really similar to 911. Right afterward almost all the new coverage was about 911 or terrorists and everything. But after a while it begins to die down.
MATT: What kinds of media do you think that you use the most?
BILL: Right now we are really into DVDs. Me and your Mom came to a conclusion a while back that if we go to the movie, we are going to spend close to 30 bucks by the end of the night. What, with tickets like 8 dollars or something. And then after popcorn. We just decided that it would be more worth it if we just went to Best Buy and bought a couple of DVDs and then watched them at home. And then we can watch them as many times as we want.
MATT: So movies are a lot more expensive now then they were when you were a kid?
BILL: You remember how much it used to cost when you were little. It was 3 or 4 dollars then. When I was a kid it was even cheaper.
MATT: What about movies in the theater? Do you ever remember seeing any newsreels?
BILL: That was more in my parents life. But they do have stadium seating in all the theaters now. That is different. Star Wars was the biggest movie that I ever went to. I remember the first time that I went to see it, the line was wrapped all the way around the theater a couple of times. It was the first time that they had ever done anything like that.
MATT: So... overall, do you think that media has changed a lot in your lifetime?
BILL: I think that it has changed. I mean, look what we have now. I remember the first time that I had a television. The box was absolutely huge and it had this little tiny screen. Now they have big screen, flat panel. They have high definition. They have satelite radio now. Look at the technology that they have in movies now. I think that media is always changing. Partly because there is so much money available there.
MATT: Do you think that that change is coming faster and faster?
BILL: Maybe. I think it is accelerating a little bit. The internet has accelerated things a lot. Just the access of information that a person can have.
MATT: Hmmm... well thanks for sitting down and talking with me. Can you think of anything else about media that might be interesting to know?
BILL: Ummm... I don't know exactly what else that I can say about media. I've used it a lot throughout my life. I think it's very important to pay attention to everything that is going on and the media is the way that that happens.
MATT: Well, I cant really think of anything else to ask. Thanks for helping me do my project and everything.
BILL: You're welcome.
