 This is the SF Productions podcast network You cube from the pop culture bunker. I'm Mindy. I'm Mark You can check out our auto podcast how I got my wife three comics on iTunes or on our website SF podcast network comm So with 500 channels on cable boxes today, it's hard to remember when cable or where it actually began It was a way for people with poor TV reception to get their local stations if they lived in valleys or things like that They would literally put an antenna up on the tallest peak and run a cable down to you And this was a decent market for the early days of cable, but there was a need to advance And how do you do that when the 500 channels don't even exist yet? Yeah, you know, you can't really You know provide Channels for a market that doesn't exist yet. Right. So you have to create that market So in 1977 Warner cable my all-time Warner created an interactive cable system called cube And that's Q you be Q you be yes premiered in Columbus, Ohio and this was in an era when It was your biggest technology was a hundred and ten bond modems I mean this was early early days of the of home computers So there were multiple components involved with cube. There was a remote. It was big was clunky and Did I mention it was wired? Yes, not even a wireless And a lot of these big physical buttons on it. Mm-hmm. There were three sets of ten channels each on this system There were ten pay-per-view channels. So this is early early pay-per-view There were movies there were sports there were events and there was also a porn channel Of course, there was because porn drives new technology And there were ten local and regional channels just broadcast Channels remember there are no cable channels at this point that exist and Then there were ten interactive channels, which we'll get to in a bit Along with response buttons and buttons to pick which of the three channel sets to use So you had to go I want this one hit this button and then hit this thing. Yes As channels changed Warner would send you a new paper insert that you would stick into the thing So I plugged into this big brown metal box about the size of a desktop PC That had two cable runs going back to Warner cable. That was your cable box at the time Yeah, and this is what you needed for two-way communication. So one was up and one was down Warner built a local station in Columbus to create local interactive programming and It was over on Allen Creek Road. I actually directed an episode of a public access show In the same studio at one point. I think all American cable owned it. I don't know what it's being used for now So here is some of the programming that was available on this Talent search with local performers. It was produced by Robert Morton who later produced Letterman's NBC show Celebration a local talk show Pinwheel a kids show similar to Sesame Street Which went on to be the flagship show with which what became Nickelodeon? Hmm. This was the The Petri dish of the cable industry Flip-o's magic surf guess where a local TV clown got an interactive show a game show called how do you like your eggs a Game show hosted by Bill Cullen Where contestants try to guess how the viewers answer questions It was sort of like an early family feud except it was a lie. Yes Because you would literally at your home with your with your huge remote go. I picked number three And then they tabulated and then the people in the audience people there had to figure it out There was screen test a game show about movies and there was bananas a teenage variety show and even had live auctions So like the things they do on PPS except it'd be like here's this old chair and who wants to bid this much for it Hit the button. Nope, and I mean what's who goes who goes 165? But then how would you pay for that? Well, it was all tied into your cable account Oh, it's like they would know that you bid on the old chair and bill you on your cable bill essentially So this was Amazon 20 years before Amazon existed Remember no internet internet was DARPA net at this point and only being used by education at best email And so for all these shows you could vote via your remote on various questions They'd like they'd stop everything and go should we go to this thing? Should we do this now? I wonder how many people were actually voting Um, I've seen some stuff on online that actually showed day one And there was like a few hundred people voting. Yeah Cube eventually spread to other markets Houston, Milwaukee Dallas Cincinnati St. Louis and Pittsburgh. I do not remember it You know growing up in the Milwaukee area, but maybe I'll ask my dad about it because you know, maybe he did do it I don't know. Yeah, so cube lost money from day one The infrastructure was incredibly expensive because you had to run two cable runs out to the house these big huge cable boxes The equipment was very finicky They had to keep coming out apparently and constantly tweaking it to get it to work at all The programming although it was very primitive cost money as well So american express bought out warner cable in the early 1980s And cube was phased out at that point Warner cable continued using the equipment for years to amortize it So even though you weren't using the voting aspect or anything they still used it as a cable box, right? When I moved to columbus in 1987 This was five years after they essentially shut it down When I first got cable. I had the big brown box behind the tv That's what I know about they had already moved on past the wired remote at least But I knew people in town who still had the huge wired remotes So It you know, it was a success or a failure. What was it? Well Warner used cube to get local cable contracts around the country turning them into a major player And that's why time Warner is so huge right now because they were like we have interactive cable Do you want this in your market? And they got into all these markets because of it The cube alumni went on to create or produce MTV espn qvc Nickelodeon the jerry springer show and letterman So again this this petri dish of the industry they did All these shows that ended up becoming cable channels Well, that's interesting and you know to think it all started from this Stupid thing. Yeah Now you can see some cube programming on youtube And I also want to thank cube dash tv.com for some of the photos that I've been putting up throughout this this video Um, and by the way, you can actually see day one of cube, which is fascinating because Is flippo the clown flying in in a helicopter and a marching band Serenades him into the studio This is all happening over on the east side of columbus and this would have all had to have been live to oh absolutely Oh, it's all live It had to be this interactive it had to be I don't think they could have kept that up for very long. No. No I'm glad we don't have to do things live Well, yeah record everything and you can check out our audio podcast How I got my wife to read comics on itunes or on our website as the podcast network.com from the pop culture bunker I'm indy. I'm mark. Thanks for watching and enjoy cube