1977: A Madman Turns 40: 2017- Day 185

    For today's look at 1977, I'm examining something that didn't happen exactly 40 years ago today. But it did happen in my birth year!

     I was scrolling down my Facebook feed when I saw something interesting from one of the pages I am a member of. The group is called Pop Culture in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. It's a public group. For someone like myself who is a student of pop culture- it's a great nostalgic site.

Apparently, the company delivered your TVs
in cherry red gremlins...

     Well, someone posted a commercial from '77 for a service I had never heard of: TV rental! I've head of services where you could rent out your entire home, like rent-a-center. But a company that only rented out TVs?! How was this economically feasible? A very short answer is that the service was British.

In the UK, the athlete to win
Player of the Year received a year's subscription
from Granada as their reward!

      The name of this company is called Granada (originally Red Arrow.) Apparently in the 1950s, the only way to get a TV set in the UK was you had to rent them. I guess since the government owns the broadcast stations (The BBC), this was how you had to get a TV. Actually, the same applied for radios starting in the 1930s and eventually morphed to TVs. Later on, Granada was also where you rented your VCR, DVD, and video gaming systems.

     Granada went over the pond in the 60s to Canada and trickled down to some Northern states. But it didn't get popular enough in the US to come South to states like North Carolina. However, this idea did become popular enough to inspire those rent-a-center like companies.

Granada's current logo.

      Now I know the concept of having to rent a TV through government agents might seem odd to you. But until I was 5 or 6, I remember having to go to the Ma Bell at the mall in order to get your phone. Back then you had only 3 choices: the black phone, the red one, or the Mickey Mouse version. No Kidding! Plus, living in North Carolina, we can't just go to the Citgo to buy hard alcohol. We have to go to ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Control) stores, run by the state to purchase whiskey, vodka, and other spirits. 

I always wanted one of these.
But, Nooooooo! We had to get the day-glow yellow model.

   Well, that's my look at 1977 for today. Before I go, here's the TV commercial from 1977 that inspired the article. Enjoy: