Eldergays: Tell Us About Color TV

Mid-1960's. I don't know which year, but certainly after the Kennedy assassination. That was black and white, all the way.

The first show we watched? Whatever was on when we switched on the television, of course.

It was very interesting for the first few weeks to see things presented in this very different way. Cartoons had all been created in color, but I had not seen them in color. It was great. Then it all became mundane.

This has to be an eldergay creating these posts. No way could a young gayling be this witty and knowledgeable about such things. I cannot be the only one who thinks this....

It was nothing like HD.

We got our first color tv around 1966 or so. It was a Curtis Mathes home entertainment center which also included a radio and record player. Doors closed so it would look like a piece of furniture. The first show I watched in color was Get Smart.

My family inherited one in 1970. The TVs were really shitty, color sucked. But I was a kid and didn't care. But most of the show I liked were B&W - Little Rascals, I Love Lucy, Popeye, Three Stooges etc.

Imagine all the squeals and the ohmygodohmygodohmygods when The Wizard of Oz made its one-time-a-year appearance.

I don't remember B&W TV and I'm 52, even had a colour portable set in my bedroom.

The only non-colour screens I remember was on my first PC.

Those TV screens were so small.

The Wizard of Oz was a big deal. All the kids in the neighborhood looked forward to it for weeks.

Fiddling with the color and tint knobs is something the youngsters don't know about. And something that made we geezergays who we are today.

Interesting trivia: the REAL constraint limiting screen sizes to 26-27" until the early 90s was door and hallway width. Until short-neck picture tubes came out (and McMansions with double front doors became common), a 32-37" CRT would have been too wide, too deep, or both, to fit through a 36" front door and/or hallway... especially when you factored in the weight & absolute need for a mini-forklift to move them.

My parents bought a 34" TV from Sears in 1994, and Sears actually sent someone out first to measure the door & path to the TV's planned location to make sure it would fit. They ended up bringing it in through the sliding glass door in the rear because the alternative would have required temporarily removing the snack bar to get enough clearance to get into the room. That TV was *huge* (width and depth), and was never moved again for 9 years because it was so heavy. It also looked like shit for anything besides laserdisc, because broadcast TV & VHS were *so* low-res.

The Playstation w/S-video looked awesome, but Europeans were luckier because THEY got to have real RGB via SCART. Lucky bastards.

I think it was 1968, so I was 16. A Zenith ("The Quality Goes In Before the Name Goes On.") I don' t remember the size. No remote. I don't remember what we watched first. Before that we had an ancient Motorola in a mahogany console.

When I got my own apartment post-college, I only had a black-and-white. Finally saved up enough for a Sony Trinitron after a year. 15", no remote. $400 in 1975.

For R1:

[bold] Millennials: Tell Us About HDTV

How old were you when your family first got it?

Was it life changing?

A bigger deal than going from HD to 4K (provided you currently own an 4K TV)

How did your family decide who got to watch the HD set (versus the SD ones)?

What was the first show you watched in HD?

^^R2, not R1

We got our first color TV (a big chunky Sylvania piece of furniture that looked like a giant stump with brass handles) in 1969 for Apollo 11 (I was ten). The actual moonwalk was in black and white anyway but the splashdown, etc. was in living color. We also got an "electric antenna" for the roof at the same time that had a remote control for changing its direction for better reception. The Sylvania was a lemon that spent the next five or six years mostly broken with a portable TV on top of it. However when we first got it I was thrilled and it was summertime and I got up early every morning to watch whatever was on while munching on my cereal.

Germany 1970. For the soccer WM. Or 1972 for the Olympic games in Munich. I am not sure. But I remember all the kids from neighborhood came to our place to watch some of the still rare color TV stuff. Color TV was first available in West Germany at end of August 1967.

Probably around 1964 or 5. It was great. One of my set of grandparents had the first color TV I remember before we had one. I recall the first time I saw Wizard of Oz in color after Dorothy gets to Oz- fabulous- and Bonanza on Sunday nights after Ed Sullivan. And the the NBC peacock. Loved it. TV was a treat in our household because we were not allowed to watch it except evenings and even then with limits. When my parents traveled I would watch my favorite monster movies on Million Dollar Movie (Gone With the Wind intro music) because the same movie would loop all day. I was being bad!

1974

Early 1970s when the prices finally came down enough to make them affordable for middle class families. And yes, all the neighbors wanted to come over to finally see The Wizard of Oz in color. The transition in the film from black and while to color was indeed astonishing.

^ Daddy made pancakes and bacon for everybody, which were usually a Sunday morning treat. TWOZ was usually broadcast on the Sunday evening closest to Easter and it remained a family tradition for years for him to make pancakes while we piled around the TV to watch TWOZ, .without the neighbors.

My own personal TV was a 19" b&w TV. We had a Zenith color set by the late 1960's. By the 1980's it was a smaller digital PLL set. It's what we used to watch scrambled porn on. :)

Then I got a 22" color set when i move out of my parents place at 19. Then 9 years later a 27" color set. More recently a 40" HD set. Had to replace the power supply on that baby. Now we've got a dumb 55' 4K set hooked to an antenna and can pull in close to 70 stations. Fuck paying for cable TV.

Yeah, I got rid of cable TV when I got an HDTV antenna which pulls in over 60 channels over the air in better quality than cable. But that's in Manhattan. If I ever have to move back to rural North Carolina, I'll probably have to go back to cable.

Yeah, I got rid of cable TV when I got an HDTV antenna which pulls in over 60 channels over the air in better quality than cable. But that's in Manhattan. If I ever have to move back to rural North Carolina, I'll probably have to go back to cable.

76, the same year we got cable. I quickly became a TV addict for about 5 years, making up for lost time.

For Christmas 1969, our big family gift was a 19" Sylvania. I remember that it cost $269 and the dealer threw in a turkey platter for Christmas sales. My mother still has that platter. I was 8 years old when we got the set.

Watching the Moon Landing that summer in B&W ( as well as the news coverage of Woodstock) convinced my parents that we needed to save money and make the jump to color. The cost of the TV more than their monthly mortgage payment, so my parents saved aside some money every month to pay for it. We kept the TV on a wheeled metal cart for years.

Mastering the use of the Tint and Hue dials took time. And then there was that third dial that made the picture scroll vertically.

Maybe around 1968, I would have been about 3 years old. I have almost no memory of our b&w set.

1968 RCA 25’. It had a swivel base, so you could move it to watch tv in the breakfast room ( the breakfast room was between our family room and the kitchen. We thought it was the bomb.

Does this count?

Not sure if this counts but we had a plastic screen that had blue, yellow and green colored sections that you taped to the screen of the B&W TV. "Color" TV. Maybe early '60's. Then we got a real color TV in 1970 when my sister came down with mononucleosis so she would have something to entertain her for 6 weeks of bed rest.

I’m Gen X, but folks didn’t have/spend $$ on unnecessary items....their old B/W Zenith worked well into the 80’s before we finally got color TV. I remember going to grandparents to watch Wizard Of Oz & Gone With The Wind in color - became a family event with cousins, aunts/uncles, and food like it was a holiday.

On our color TV, while I’m sure it’s not the first color program I watched, the first I clearly remember was the MTV Music Awards - the one w/ Madonna rolling around in a wedding dress singing “Like A Virgin”.

Not the moon landing, but still an iconic moment. From there it was a lot of MTV - back when they still played music/videos.

I remember the Winky Dink screen cover that let you draw on the screen. i begged for one but Daddy was afraid it would ruin our expensive B&W TV.

Early 70s for us, and Downhill Racer happened to be on that night so we watched that.

While I'm sure the transition to color seemed huge to people who experienced it, what has always fascinated me was how did people feel when they went from radio to tv, in their homes?

I was born in the early/mid 80s but we still had some B&W secondary tvs, especially for portable use.

[quote] Early 1970s when the prices finally came down enough to make them affordable for middle class families

This. The posters who got color TV in the 1960's must have come from very rich families.

We had an RCA with a slightly oval screen set in a wooden cabinet. It was described as 25 inches. This was around 1965. I loved cartoons. Also the NBC Peacock. I would stare at it for hours at a time.

The NBC peacock was a beautiful thing.

It was VERY exciting. Problem was, depending on your "television set" and where you lived, the color quality could vary wildly.

I have a memory of my father dragging home a big clunky COLOR TV, and watching Gilligan's Island on it in mostly purple and pink. Didn't matter, it was still COLOR!

1956 thanks to a rich grandmother. It was an RCA, because they were owned by NBC which had the only color shows back then. Perry Como was one of the first. I remember the Rose Bowl and some other football games where the whole screen was green. Later, I think around 1960, I remember Bonanza. Most of the color shows were specials - Ford did them to introduce new cars.

The set had a round tube with the edges squared off at the top and bottom. It was in a blond wood cabinet and there was an enormous antenna on the roof with a motor that turned it to pick up stations (of which there were about 5, I think.) I think we got to know the repair guy from the store that sold it pretty well because it seemed he was there almost once a week at the beginning to get it adjusted.

The color, btw, sucked. Here's an example from 1958 and this is pretty close to what it looked like on the screen. Technicolor it wasn't.

RCA on a Tuesday in September 1965. When they delivered it, a man had to go behind and tune it. The first show I swear was "My Mother The Car", tehcar was so red, and then "Please Don't Eat The Daisies" NBC at 7:30. I even went years later and downloaded the archived NBC ad for the night. My older brother couldn't wait to come home from school the next day to watch "Superman" and how disappointed he was that it was a black & White re-run. I just laughed.

We were one of the last families to get color TV in the mid-1970s. By then I had seen it in other people's houses often enough so that it wasn't much of a novelty.

First color tv, 1965. It also had a remote. My dad bought it when we moved into our big suburban house.

R10 Remember when the picture would ....I don't even remember the verb.......Iike cycle rapidly, and there was a special dial to get the picture to stay still. Ugh.

In the 1950s, CBS and RCA owned NBC had rival color systems. If you bought a color TV, it could only receive color on one network or the other. The government finally stepped in and declared their could only be one standard or the other. The RCA/NBC system won out, which is why NBC started regular color broadcasts long before CBS, which was very pissed off.

Pop was a drug addled dentist with poor judgement in general, and he bought an RCA CTC-5 exactly like the one pictured in 1957, the 2nd. color set in town. It cost $800, or $7000 in today's money! It never worked reliably, since it had about 50 tubes inside, and I developed a great friendship with the serviceman, who taught me basic electronics. That part was pretty cool.

Color shows were infrequent for many years, but the few we got were glorious!

Not quite, R44 - the reason the NBC system won out was because it was compatible with black and white sets: programs broadcast in color could be seen on any B&W television. The color system from CBS was incompatible with anything but CBS color sets - they couldn't be seen on 99.9% of the TV sets then in use.

Around 1970-71. I remember watching The Partridge Family and The Brady Bunch in color.

I also remember when I was even younger a neighbor talking with a bunch of adults including my parents saying that NBC had announced all their shows would now be in color. Must have been mid 60s. Lived with a black and white 12 inch TV in my bedroom for many years after this. I not too long ago got my first flat screen TV after what seems like decades with a monster of a Toshiba.

I remember my aunt and I uncle coming to our house and watching the Republican Convention.

The thing I remember most was the balloon drop

You've heard the one about the Essex Girl who was halfway to Sweden before she realized a 15 inch Viking was a color TV...

(((rimshot)))

I'm here all week - try the veal.

I'll recommend the resources at the link for anyone interested in the history of color TV, by the late Ed Reiten, an engineer who was there. The whole Early Television Foundation site which hosts it is fascinating, actually.

The first time The Wizard of Oz aired after my parents bought a color TV, they spent the first 10 minutes of the movie trying to figure out why the color wasn't working. They had no idea the opening Kansas scenes were in B&W. They got so frustrated and upset, because it was supposed to be such a big deal to be able to watch that movie in color. Imagine their relief when Dorothy finally arrived in Oz and the color kicked in!

Fifty-plus years later, they still talk about it whenever the movie comes up.

I was 7 years old (1960) when we got our first color TV, a Curtis Mathes "home entertainment center" very similar to the one below. I remember there were 2 or 3 shows on each day that were in color. When The Walt Disney Wonderful World Of Color started a few months later it was literally magical.

Another Wizard of Oz memory here. My grandparents had a color TV, so we always watched it there. It was thrilling when Dorothy opened the door of her house and we saw a magically colorful Munckinland. It took my breath away every time. (I knew I was gay by then...)

We got a color TV in the early 70s, (along with air-conditioning). My Dad had to adjust the rooftop antenna so there were no shadows and double images. Dad would be on the roof. Mom would stand at the side of the house. My sister stood in the doorway. I was at the TV as they relayed messages and I adjusted the set. Then we'd have a day with lots of wind and we had to do the whole process all over again.

I don't remember the first show I saw, but I do recall noticing the barechested actors on the screen had a wide variation in nipple color.

I received a b/w portable TV for my room when I turned 16. I took it to college with me in the late seventies, but I don't think I watched more than three hours of TV in total during the four years at school. I bought a color portable TV when I got my first professional job.

Now I watch some of the older TV series on channels like MeTV and Antenna. I don't miss the color on Perry Mason or the Andy Griffith Show at all. I guess it's in my roots.

Thanks, r46.

[quote] I don't remember the first show I saw, but I do recall noticing the barechested actors on the screen had a wide variation in nipple color.

You, sir, are a true Datalounger.

"Hazel" first season was in B&W except for one episode where Mr B buys a color TV. Shirley Booth and Don DeFore appeared in a print ad for RCA Color TV in many magazines.

[quote]It was an RCA, because they were owned by NBC which had the only color shows back then.

RCA owned NBC, not the other way around.

My dad was super cheap, we had a 19 inch black and white tv until the mid 80's. In '84, we got an off brand '13 inch color tv.

[quote]Remember when the picture would ....I don't even remember the verb.......Iike cycle rapidly, and there was a special dial to get the picture to stay still. Ugh.

Do you mean the vertical hold knob?

^ aka the Vertical Control.

I grew up with my grandparents and we were dirt poor, so we didn't get a color television until 1991 or so. I don't even really remember the transition.

To add to my post at r60, as a poor student in the late 90s and early 2000s, I still use black and white televisions because you could pick them up used for $10. I didn't have a color television of my own until 2004.

OP is clearly also an eldergay, but I'll play. Much like many here, the neighbors across the street had the first one on the block. I think it was 1966 and I was 5. I was plunked down on a rug in front of the thing while the adults had their cocktails and Vienna Weenies in JellO mold or whatever. It was The WOZ. I was mesmerized. Mrs. Miller gathered a crowd of adults who rushed in to see my reaction when Dorothy woke up in colorful OZ. That blue water... if a 5-year old could orgasm...

My older siblings and the older neighbor kids were probably dropping acid over in the Haight Ashbury in The City and protesting the Vietnam War. And they wore... you know. Hippy things and they had long hair. I must have represented the last vestige of innocence among the baby boomers.

Within a year, my father got us a console color TV from Montgomery Ward, an "Airliner". Most of the shows I remember were black and white, but I got to stay up late with the grownups and watch Laugh-In, which was in brilliant, Burbank studio quasi-psychedelic color. Somehow, I got the humor and remember giggling all night. I mean, who couldn't laugh at JoAnne Whirley and Charles Nelson Reilly?! And Alan Seuss! The Wonderful World of Disney specials.

The set of Mad Men was a clone of our house. My father drank heavily and chain smoked while watching the news as I sat in his lap. I used to flush his cigs down the toilet and get slightly spanked. He'd feed me the vodka soaked onions and olives from his Martini because dinner was always late. My mom would come into the family room where the TV was and feed me the marachino cherries from her Manhattans (Old Fashions?) and then disappear into the kitchen. The clips from overseas were always black and white. Lots of helicopters and bombs and screaming people and combat, then colorful ads for laundry detergent, and then protests on the UC Berkeley campus, where three of my older siblings always hung out. My mom was a secretary there. She was always pissed at dad who'd say "he doesn't understand all this". There were men shooting water canons or hitting the Negros with sticks in "The South". Never saw that happen at my dark skinned friend's house in Oakland.

I remember the Apollo 13 landing (in Black and White). It was a beautiful day in Walnut Creek, California.

I remember riding in the back of our Ford Galaxy station wagon to the Oakland airport. Only one of my sisters was with us and she was silent. A big, ugly airplane without happy windows landed. It was important. And then I sat on my sister's lap between my mom and dad in the front seat. We went somewhere, but I was asleep. The rear seat was folded down because there was a big, long box in the rear.

I remember watching the same box for my brother Craig being put into a lawn filled with crosses the next day. I never saw Craig again and no one ever talked about it, but we later watched the same thing happen on TV, as if someone was spying on us, or people like my family. It was like we were on TV.

I regret staying up so late and posting on this thread.

Briton here: Well into the 1970s. We were running a black and white TV long after colour was a thing. Our family was poor so dad would repair our TV himself. He had a small suitcase full of valves and whatnot and used a huge non-electrical soldering iron that he would heat up on the gas cooker. When that TV finally died beyond repair, we finally got our first colour TV but that was rented. TVs were still so expensive compared with salaries back then that many shops hired out TVs by the week. I don't think we actually bought our first colour TV until the 1980s.

Thanks R58 -R59. I now vaguely remember the word "vertical" under the knob. Then there was the "tint" knob. What else?

r63, was the annual license fee the same for black & white and color, or was the fee for a color TV higher?

Vertical hold was used to adjust the framerate timing. In most cases, PAL was 50hz and NTSC was 60hz, but there were a few oddball countries. For example, Brazil used 60hz PAL (with the same resolution as US PAL) and I believe Argentina (or some other country in South America) used 50hz NTSC (with the same resolution as European PAL).

I'm not 100% sure, but I think there was actually some degree of mutual compatibility between NTSC and PAL for black & white TVs, as long as you had a voltage converter if necessary, with some major caveats. I think I remember my dad telling me it "sort of" worked, but you wouldn't get sound, and it only worked for TVs with continuous tuning (eg, a freely-turning UHF dial, or PLL tuning where you had a bunch of buttons that selected a knob that you only adjusted once when the TV was new or you moved). I'm pretty sure that NTSC-PAL black & white cross-compatibility notwithstanding, SECAM was incompatible across the board, and pre-SECAM French black & white TV was ABSOLUTELY incompatible (it had near-HD resolution, but used 2-3 times the bandwidth as NTSC & PAL).

I think the 'hue' or 'tint' control was only found on NTSC... or at least, was really only NEEDED for NTSC... and even then, was only really NEEDED during the vacuum tube era, because the electrical behavior of tubes changed as they aged. By the time NTSC TVs were 100% solid state, the control was completely vestigial. It still exists as a setting, but it really, truly serves no purpose anymore besides its own existence for the sake of existence.

^^ argh, typo. I meant to write that Brazil had the same resolution as US NTSC.

Check out this smart gay who tells the story of color tv in a very intellectual manner.

Good on ya, R68. Alec Connectify, the Technology Connections guy, is very well researched and digs retro tech. He'd be a wonderful Datalounger, unlike Matt, that crabby Techmoan fellow.

....

[quote] 1968 RCA 25’.

You must’ve had a HUGE living room to accommodate a 25 foot TV!

They called it the TV of Dreams! And it was. It really was, OP.

I bought my first color TV in 1984 when I was 24, it was a 13 inch Sony Trinitron. My parents only had black & white TV's because they rarely watched, so I never had a color TV growing up.

Some of you must be mistaken about the year or had oodles of CASH because color TVs before 1970 cost a bloody fortune. Plus, you'd have to pay with check, cash or dept store card (due at the end of the month) since most stores did not accept credit cards. And Mastercharge (later MasterCard) Bank Americard (later Visa) weren't around until the late 1960s. Diner's Club and American Express were for restaurants/travel. I bought my first color TV for my bedroom, a 13" Sony at Bloomingdales by check in 1975, $450.

When my parents died, I had to haul three of these 500 lbs coffins out of their house. You literally needed 3 guys and a forklift.

Magnavox.. the quality goes in before the name goes on!

^^^ wouldn't a vibrator been cheaper?

R75 Some of us didn't grow up in the US.

I live in the UK and most colour TV's were hired in the late 60's and 70's as they were pretty unreliable. They cost about £2 (40 shillings) a week to rent (about £20 ($26) if you take inflation into account). It works out to around the same price as cable TV now so wasn't unaffordable for most people. We even had a VCR on hire in the 1970's.

As things became cheaper and therefore more disposable people began to buy and the rental market vanished.

"We even had a VCR on hire in the 1970's"

I bought a Betamax in 1977, cost was around $1000. I still have a later smaller model, works great.

I wasn't rich but I saved and bought the first VCR too for $1000.00 There was a choice of Sony's beta and RCA Selctavision both same price. Beta would record 1 and 2 hour speeds and RCA did 2 and 4 hour so I chose RCA because you could record longer. First thing I taped was Steve Martin on SNL when he did King Tut. Then one day Cablevision on Long Island showed Rocky Horror at midnight on Sat night one time only and I had that on tape ten years before Fox put it on video .

I never remember not having a color TV, I was born in 1965 and they bought one a couple of months afterwards. And we were certainly not rich, they made payments on it, which my mother laughs about now, she thinks they were about 8.00 a month, but that could buy a lot in 1965, so it was for sure a big luxury.

The main thing I remember about VCR's in the 1970's is how expensive blank tapes were, it was around £20/$30 each for a 2 hour VHS tape. It's equivalent to about $120 now.

R75 we were not rich, but we had it on payments, were you one of those a poor Brits that still used slop pots to shit in at the time? We were ADVANCED with our color TV's and all.

In 1955 my father bought my mother an 27-inch RCA color set for Christmas. Think he paid close to a $1,000, At the beginning of NBC shows as the peacock spread its color wings, "Pioneered and Developed by RCA." In Chicago the logo was four cans of paint, one each for W-M-A-Q with a different color dripping down the side. CBS had a system which the FCC rejected.

Color TVs were a status symbol in the early sixties. Only rich people had them. My husband and I finally got a used one in 1972.

"I chose RCA (VHS) because you could record longer"

That's why VHS won the battle over Beta. These machines were marketed as a way to record and see a show later - while you were watching another show or while you were out, at work etc. Blank VHS tapes ($15 each) could handle more time. I rarely used my Betamax for that, I recorded TV and movies to keep. It took a few years for the industry to catch on and market movies on video. Home video movies initially cost $75 or more each.

Btw, I still maintain Beta video recorders was superior to VHS in picture, sound and durability.

Our first color TV was a Zenith and think it was 1965 when it arrived. I was the only one home and watched it being delivered and they took away our old B&W. I was left with the new TV and the instructions book. Our grandparents had a color TV but we weren't to touch the controls. This was my opportunity to learn how to operate this new technology before my brother and parents. I quickly discovered that not all shows were in color. What a disappointment.

The first color program I saw on the new TV was Flipper. (Luke looked so much better in color.) For there I learned how to operate the hue and color controls so the picture wasn't too green or purple. As we found out in the early years, when you changed the channel you often needed to adjust the hue and color. This is before the days of cable and auto tuning.

Funny story. When the Wizard of Oz came after we purchased the color TV, I thought there was something wrong with the TV. Why is it not in color? It didn't occur to me, because I only saw the movie in B&W before, that the movie doesn't have color until she lands in Munchkinland. Duh!

And yes, I was called upon to adjust the picture until we purchased a more advanced model several years later.

[quote] In 1955 my father bought my mother an 27-inch RCA color set for Christmas.

You are probably misremembering the size. In 1955, the largest color TV set was 21 inches.

And I’m assuming the price, too, unless you were quite wealthy. $1,000 in 1955 is about the equivalent of $10,000 today. Most people don’t have 10K to throw away on a luxury item, which television surely was considered back then.

Some shows were initially filmed in color, but then transferred to black and white for airing because it was too expensive.

Lucy Show season 2 is an example.

The 1955 RCA CTC-4 Director 21” model cost $895! And that was their "middle of the line" model.

My grandfather was in broadcasting in KC, MO circa 1950s, and they had a color set circa 1960...

a few color broadcasts were happening.. my memory is seeing classical ballet on bell telephone hour. maybe?..but i remember the color was very poor, disappointing considering color at the movies was so great.... we all watched the BW set.

1966 seems about right when all the networks were promoting their full color line-ups. Laugh In I remember.

And then your faves when they switched to color, Bewitched, etc....

also, each network had a very specific look once color arrived/ because so much of their product was filmed by so few people in a relatively few studios...

My father loved to frequent storage company auctions, and he brought home this huge Zenith console TV around 1967 that he got for $50. I lasted a few years until it completely and thoroughly died. Then he went out to an auction and brought home this giant black metal box (30"x30"x30") that was a Phillips color TV which lasted a few more years until he found this 27" NEC studio monitor which lasted over 30 years until I got my first 42" flat panel TV in 2009. Best TV we ever had.

Other control buttons/knobs were contrast and horizontal hold.

[quote]Some of you must be mistaken about the year or had oodles of CASH because color TVs before 1970 cost a bloody fortune. Plus, you'd have to pay with check, cash or dept store card (due at the end of the month) since most stores did not accept credit cards.

You could buy large items on credit without a credit card. (Like you buy a car these days.) Furniture, major appliances, TVs, etc. were almost always purchased that way.

Oh, and the BankAmericard debuted in 1958.

[quote]Magnavox.. the quality goes in before the name goes on!

No, dear--that was ZENITH's slogan. (See R12.)

R96 Exactly, I asked my grandparents and they got a color tv around 1966, on credit. They weren't rich, just cotton mill workers.

1965 B&W vs Color

1964. Our Great Aunt Sophie had the only color tv in the family. It was done in antique white. The whole clan went to her house to watch Leslie Ann Warren's "Cinderella". We got ours a couple of months later.

Looking at the old furniture TVs reaffirms my belief that it’s nicer to look down at the screen than up at today’s wall mounted things.

In the late 1960s, my aunt and uncle by marriage bought a color TV. It was an RCA with a wooden maple Early American cabinet. (Early American furniture was the rage in the 1960s-mid 70s.) it was the first time I’ve seen “The Flintstones” in color. I was fascinated with Wilma Flintstone’s red lips and red hair.

We didn’t buy one until the early 1970s, when we could afford one. It was an RCA with a maple wood cabinet, and of course, an Early American style.

Thanks for posting that, r99.

I love looking at ads from the past.

I remember my dad taking me to hardware store . I got to plug them in. High tech in 1968.

R101, you're absolutely right. Most people put their TVs WAY too high. The ideal height is where your 'straight ahead' gaze points slightly below the top of the screen. If anything, we need to RAISE seating and put TVs on the floor.

How we got here:

1970s.. 19" TVs became popular, but were made without consoles to reduce cost, and were too small to put on floor. Solution: tv stands.

1980s: 27" TVs without consoles arrive. Stores didn't want to stock two sizes of stands, so 19" stands were just made wider. TVs now sligitly too high.

Late 80s: wall units catch on. For symmetry, TV height is raised to allow 24-30" doors along bottom row. TV way too high.

1990s: 32-37" TVs arrive, and stands raised to match height of wall unit shelves. Way, way, way too high.

2000: Some idiot decides to mount piasma TVs above fireplace, and 52"+ projection TVs end up on stands as tall as those used for older TV. Now ABSURDLY high.

What I always tell people to do:

* for the first week, leave the tv on the floor.

* buy a 2x10 board and 2 cement blocks & raise the TV 8" for a week.

* Every week, raise the cinderblocks by one, until you decide it's now too high.

* buy a stand that's the height you decided you like.

R96, in 1958 BankAmericard was a CHARGE card, not a CREDIT card. That means it was like a check - payment was due at the end of the month. The credit card version came out in the late 1960s.

Going to the Thrifty Mart to have your tubes checked was a ritual of sorts.

You should know, kiddies, that televisions were fixable - the TV repair man had a lot of business - you didn't just replace them when you had a problem. In the 90s I complained that my picture was on the fritz on my 27" Hitachi. My mother told me to call the TV repair man and have "a tube replaced" like it was 1965.

[quote]Going to the Thrifty Mart to have your tubes checked was a ritual of sorts.

Oh my.

If there was a color show you hated on at the same as a black and white show you loved, you'd watch the color show. Color commercials were relatively rare, so everyone would flock to the TV when one was on.

As a kid I was really into TV Guide, and for a long time they would list which shows were in color. At one point they announced they were going to change, and only list which shows were in black and white. This was mind blowing to me where I was 10.

[quote]buy a 2x10 board and 2 cement blocks & raise the TV 8" for a week.

Unfortunately, most gay men have a totally unrealistic idea of how long "eight inches"actually is.

We got a Zenith 25" console color TV in 1974. My mother, though, in her peculiar logic, felt that watching cartoons on the color TV was a waste of energy, so us kids had to watch our Saturday morning cartoons on the 19"  b&w TV in the den.  Maybe she just told us that to free up the color TV for her own viewing pleasure.

Years later, that color tv had seen better days, and I remember constantly having to adjust the color balance, brightness, and vertical/horizontal hold settings in the back. We put a dressing mirror by the wall opposite the tv so that we could see for ourselves the effects of our fidgeting.

"If there was a color show you hated on at the same as a black and white show you loved, you'd watch the color show."

Um, maybe in your house, but not in mine or most. That's incredibly nuts.

An uncle of mine had an early color set--probably bought in the late 50s. Needed endless adjustment to get the color right--he was put out if anyone else did the adjusting.

The CBS system was not only incompatible with the B&W standard, it was cumbersome with rotating color wheels in the cathode ray tube.

ABC started color shows in the early 60s, mostly Hanna-Barbera cartoons (except for the Flintstones' first season). They were ahead of CBS which only broadcast specials in color for a longtime--they insisted that advertisers pay for color, which was easy in those days because shows usually were associated with a single sponsor or perhaps two and sponsors sometimes had ownership stakes in shows. The first all-color season on all 3 networks started in the fall of '66.

That would be the fall of '65, R114.

R115: It was the 1966-67 season---look it up. Daytime kept black & white shows a bit longer.

Someone above mentioned being perfectly happy with Perry Mason in black and white. There was one color episode in the last season. it was shot as an experiment because the producers were planning to take the show to color the following season. But then CBS cancelled the show.

^ Meant to add that I'm not sure if that one episode was ever broadcast or syndicated in color but it was shot in color in anticipation of the show going to that format before it was cancelled.

Bobbie Ellerbee's Eyes of a Generation site talks a bit about ABC's rather janky entry into color in 1962...they were very low budget and owned no color cameras. So they took the films over to NBC which scanned them in color and sent them out to the ABC stations via ATT Long Lines video links. We got our Jetsons and Flintstones!

R118 I watched it on DVD and it was just strange seeing them in color. It was like seeing nuns on vacation.

Don't forget what happened when CBS decided that all their daytime programming had to begin being broadcast in color. Legendary soap opera creator Irna Phillips thought that black and white was better for drama and fought CBS and Proctor and Gamble about it, when she lost the fight she wrote the script for the first color program and set it entirely in Ceders hospital. All those expensive color cameras were used to film a program set in a mostly white hospital with everyone wearing white uniforms and scrubs.

The first show I saw in color was Disney's Wonderful World of Color (1961-1969). I was about 10 and would go to my best friend's house on Sunday evenings to watch it with he and his dad. (My family wouldn't get a color TV for another 10 years.)

Unrelated but why this stays cemented in my mind - This is the same friend who taught me how to jerk off. He was the grade school jock and I was deeply infatuated with him. (This was before we knew what "gay" was.) His dad who always walked around the house shirtless and whose garage was full of weights, was an ex-NFL quarterback, quite famous in my hometown, who retired and became the local Cadillac dealer. One time when my friend and I were playing around in his bedroom my friend asked me if I knew what french kissing was. He told me very matter of factly that his dad would french kiss him all the time and asked me if I wanted to try it. He thought this was normal father-son affection. Of course I wanted to try it so he showed me! It was only years later that it finally figured dawned on me that my friend and his dad had an incestuous relationship. Alas my friend started dating girls when we graduated to high school and we never fooled around again.

R113 Amen. Twilight Zone and I Love Lucy dominated in syndication long after color was introduced. Black and white Vivian Vance was certainly more popular than The Lucy Show (In Color) Vivian Vance.

r118 Yes, it's part of the syndication package. It's always shown on the MeTV airings. It's the "Oliver Twist" story, with DL should-be fave Victor Buono as Fagin.

[quote]No remote.

I was our remote.

Yes, R118, MeTV has shown the color episode at least a couple of times.

"The Wizard of Oz" was also my first sight of a color TV. The movie was shown on TV only once a year, so it was an event. Us kids were allowed to stay up past our bedtime, sometimes watching it in our pajamas. We only had a black-and-white TV then, and our neighbors had a color TV, so they invited us kids over to watch it. When the movie changed from B/W to color, we all went "ooooooh!" But when the Wicked Witch came on the screen, with her ugly green face, I ran out of the house.

"No remote."

It was called a CLICKER.

It's funny modern TV's don't have vertical or horizontal adjustments. You can only change the color temperature range and a couple of other things through the menus. It's pretty funny. And TV's have gone through Fluorescent tube illumination cold cathode of course to Light Emitting Diode lighting. Much better - powerwise and picture quality wise.

[quote] My husband and I finally got a used one in 1972.

Wow, how old are you?

No, it was called a "channel-changer." Still sort of is.

Bonanza was the first show we saw in color. I was 9 and kept asking which character was named Bonanza. I was an idiot.

WAS?

....

When did the first wireless remote controls come out? I remember that when they were introduced they connected to the TV with a cord. If you didn't remember to place the remote on the TV when you were through watching, you could trip over the cord running across the room if you weren't careful.

Some young people are alarming. This 23 y.o. geek who was fixing our computers at work asked me, "What came first, color or black and white?"

Bless his heart, R136.

r135, Zenith Space Command. It actually had spring-loaded CHIMES that the TV listened for with a microphone.

In theory, a malicious show or advertisement could have probably triggered a channel, volume, or power-state change as a proof-of-concept exploit by simply playing the right chord.

Somebody claimed Westerns were better in black and white. Color made producers, directors and writers lazy and they could let the scenery do all the work.

We didn't get a color TV until I was around 10, so 1970. I was STUNNED to discover that the Wicket Witch of the West was green.

[quote]It was called a CLICKER.

And I was that little clicker.

r135 The first VCRs had corded remotes, too.

R135 The first wireless remote control was for a radio, Philco’s 1939 “Mystery Control” which used low-frequency radio waves and a telephone-style dial to select stations, turn the volume up or down, or to turn the set off. It couldn’t turn the radio on because it was turned off, with no power with which to receive the remote control’s signal.

Philco 1939 “Mystery Control”

"When did the first wireless remote controls come out?"

R135, the wireless CLICKER came out long long ago late1950s, 60s. It did not have a cord. You may be thinking of the first remote to a VCR which had a cord. The original VCRs, even cable boxes, did not have remote control.

We had a Westinghouse console television from about 1950 that my parents kept until the early 1970's. My father would not buy a color tv as "they weren't perfected yet." My grandparents didn't want a television until the Untouchables came on the air, then my grandfather went out and bought two. My parents finally bought a Zenith 19" color television about 1973 after they couldn't find tubes for the old TV any more. I had a really interesting television for a while, I had a huge Grundig console with television, stereo, record player and reel to reel tape deck. The television was shot, so I fitted a modern Grundig television that had NTSC standard, played in the USA, and that television was the best pre-HD television I ever saw. I went modern, but I still have the old console in the basement and watch it at times.

I would love to see your basement, r146. Especially if there’s other retro stuff there.

r144 It looks like you could dial it with a pencil!

We got our first color TV in the fall of '65 when I was nine years old. My father wanted to watch the World Series in color. When they delivered the TV, the delivery guy showed us how to use the controls for the intensity and the hues. We kids paid attention, but apparently, my father did not. He issued his usual, "Don't you kids touch the controls; you'll break them!" The first day of the Series, I came into our TV room to hear my father cursing and yelling that he was going to send the TV back because the color didn't work. I looked at the screen and everything and everyone was purple and green! I said, "Dad, you have to adjust the color!" I opened the door that hid the controls and adjusted the hue so that people had regular flesh tones, and then dialed back the intensity so that the colors appeared normal. From that time on, anytime he wanted to watch something my father would bellow for me to come and adjust the color. I was an early form of a remote! ;)

Great story, r149!

My parents were never fans of television, so getting a color one was not a priority even though they could have afforded one.

We didn't get one until we moved to England in the '70s.

What was weird was that most people in England rented their TVs.

The picture quality was much better than in America. And there was so much more nudity and coarse language than would be allowed in prudish America.

R147 R149 In response to my basement, you should see the whole house! My parents bought this house 70 years ago, and while I moved all over the country for years, they stayed put. I inherited the house about 25 years ago, and I am still sorting out stuff from them. I do currently have a big console stereo in the living room, mostly German retro furniture from the 1950's, and my 1930's limousine sitting proudly in the garage!

R149 your story about the remote control brought back a memory. One of the neighbors bought a new Zenith Space Command television with an early remote control. You pressed the buttons and a small chime sounded and the TV changed channels, or got louder, quieter, etc. We nasty kids figured out that if you took out your keys and jangled them, the television would go absolutely nuts. The poor lady never figured that one out.

in the late 50s one of our neighbors had one. The only tv show in color back then I think was Walt Disneys Wonderful World of Color. To have a color tv in those days was unheard of. My family finally got one in 1967.

Fuck "The Wizard of Oz."

As a gay child, I was entranced with the lurid colors of WHITE CHRISTMAS. My annual holiday treat was getting to look at John Brascia's ass in "Mandy" and in 'the Abraham number.' This was my dark secret that no one could know. Something was up, but I didn't know yet what this all meant.

Color TV did make it better, though.

R122 - tell us more!

My grandparents got a Zenith in '62 or '63 with the Space Command "clicker".

Friends of my father got one in 1959. I remember at 6 years old watching Bonanza. The room had to be darkened to see the image at it's brightest..

R122, was the dad Don Hutson?

[quote] The room had to be darkened to see the image at it's brightest..

Oh, dear!

Like others, my family got a 25" Zenith TV around 1967 or 68. It was a BIG deal. The first show that we watched was Bewitched. Before the show started, Elizabeth Montgomery always said, "Stay tuned for Bewitched - in color." It was great.

[quote]Like others, my family got a 25" Zenith TV around 1967 or 68.

We got an RCA around the same time. My first memory was seeing The Fifth Dimension singing "Up, Up and Away".

[quote] My first memory was seeing The Fifth Dimension singing "Up, Up and Away".

Bless you for that. Yay!

This makes me smile.

....

Our first was a Sony Trinitron.

It had a better picture than my friends' family's TVs.

OP, we made some popcorn and watched your premiere porn performance in "The Pizza Boy: She Delivers"

Not a bad ass, btw.

The thing about TV's being rented in the UK meant that almost nobody had a set that was more than 2 years old (usually 1 year), same as cars now most people lease them.

But how many channels did they have in the UK? When I was there in 1986, there were THREE. People at my office were all excited because one of them ran The Untouchables reruns once a week - in black and white.

There were 4 in 1986 (Channel 4 had started by then).

We have 70 Free to Air channels now, plus 100's more on SKY satellite. If you get a motorized dish you can get 30,000+.

R168, I was asking about how many in the 1960s-70s.

Article about the development of color TV.

Interesting fact: the TV broadcast signal had to be compatible with both color and B/W sets, because most people still had only B/W. So they dicided the signal into chrominance and luminance. B/W sets only used the luminance, while color used both.

This resulted in a slightly lower quality image, compared to what could have been broadcast if all sets were color. If all sets were color, they could have sent a full RGB signal which might have resulted in a better image, but would have left B/W sets in the dust, and they didn't want to do that.

Years later, a similar situation arose in the transition from analog broadcast signal to digital broadcast signal. New sets equipped to handle the digital signal were compatible, of course. But in this transition, old sets were left in the dust. Analog TV sets were not compatible with the new signal, and would become useless unless you bought a digital to analog converter box. For a while the price of those converter boxes was subsidized.

R169 It was 2 until 1964, then BBC2 launched (half of the country couldn't receive it though) taking us to 3.

No channels were 24 hours until the mid 1980's.

The jump to Digital Television from 1998 onwards has seen an explosion in the number of free to air TV channels.

The first remote controls for TV, connected by a wire, were introduced in 1950. Yes, there was a problem with people tripping over the wire running across the room. The first wireless models came out in 1955. But the made the sets more expensive and they weren't very reliable. It wasn't until the 1960s that they really became standard.

The early wireless remotes used a variety of methods. At one point most of them relied on ultrasound signals from the remote to the TV. The signals were above the hearing range of humans. Which was fine for humans but if you had your dog in the room with you, they would go crazy while you skimmed through the channels or changed the sound volume. Also, the ultrasound models made a sound when you changed channels or the volume and for years people called remotes "clickers."

How nice. In New York, we had seven channels in 1965. Jealous?

Perry Como Show in color 1958

R173 Not really, the quality of the shows has fallen as the number of channels increased.

They just put on a lot more shit reality TV now.

My dad said he was the first house on his block to have a tv. Neighbors used to come over to watch it.

Probably like showing off VR to friends and family.

They had Technicolor and saw color at the movie theaters. It couldn't have been that much of a shock.

[quote]They had Technicolor and saw color at the movie theaters. It couldn't have been that much of a shock.

Color TV wasn't a shock, but it was a big big deal. It completely changed the viewing experience.

The "Wonderful World of Color" opening I remember....

Well, that didn't work, did it....

Here you go...

“Color TV”? I think you mean “Television of Color”. RACIST!

Like many here, my family got its first color TV in 1967. I remember going with my parents to Sears to pick it out. Forget the brand but it of course was a piece of furniture, in maple. While certainly not the first on the block, we beat the next door neighbors. The cunt daughter, Linda (of course) came over while we were watching "The Beverly Hillbillies" in LIVING COLOR and declared she preferred black and white.

Their family was richer than ours: 2 new cars, always, including a wood paneled station wagon. Sailboat. Shuffleboard court in the. finished basement. Airplane trips to visit grandmother. Each child had.their own room. Couldn't she at least let us have this one thing without being such a jealous bitch about it?

"Perry Como Show in color 1958"

Perry Como was on NBC, so his Kraft Music Hall shows were in Living Color - only Como owned them and wouldn't pay for the original video. So we're left with a lot of Kinescopes (pls someone explain) for some of the show's finest moments.

The post about Technicolor above reminded me about Mexican color TV, a clever method ca. 1940 which pre-dated the similar CBS color wheel system but with only 2 colors (red-cyan on alternating 60 Hz. fields). Red-cyan gives a somewhat limited color palette, but pleasing skin tones. Unlike the CBS debacle, it was entirely compatible with existing North American standards.

Perry's show switched to color in 1956. One of the first weekly shows to do so.

$500 in 1956 would be the equivalent of $4,250 in todays dollar..

When I was little (early 1970s), we had 7 or 8 channels in northeast Ohio (halfway between Cleveland & Pittsburgh), plus two halfway-watchable CANADIAN channels from southern Ontario. The catch was, nearly every one required using the antenna rotor, because they were in 4 different directions (towards Lorrain/Cleveland, towards Youngstown, towards Pittsburgh, and towards Canada), so you couldn't really 'surf'.

Moving to SW Florida in the late 70s was a total TV shock... just 3 channels (11, 20, and 26), no PBS station (until sometime around 1982), and no independent stations at all. Apparently, prior to the early 70s, the Naples-Fort Myers area didn't even have an ABC affiliate... the FCC had to grant a duopoly waiver to the NBC affiliate. It had the distinction in the late 60s of being the largest urban market in the US without all 3 broadcast networks, then being the only one without a PBS affiliate (PBS wasn't a broadcast network per se).

South Florida cable wasn't much better... it added WPBT (Miami's PBS station), WTBS, WGN, CBN (the Jesus channel), a computer-generated time-temperature-stockticker channel, and optionally HBO and (I think) Showtime or Cinemax. Oh, and a TV Guide channel, and a computer-generated scrolling-text channel for the City of Naples (that hotels were allowed to replace with their own channel if they wanted to).

Sometime around 1979, the time-temp-stock channel was replaced by CNN (with overlaid stock ticker), and they moved weather to the TV Guide channel by splitting the guide into two alternating pages.

Goddamn, TV in the 70s sucked. And reruns... endless fucking goddamn reruns. I remember how a season of Buck Rogers (my absolute favorite show in 5th grade) had something like 6 episodes in the whole year... and endless reruns the other 46 weeks.

r183, and now she's head of HR somewhere!

"They had Technicolor and saw color at the movie theaters. It couldn't have been that much of a shock."

It was a bit of a shock, actually. When you were used to seeing everything in B&W for years, and then you first saw color TV it was nothing short of amazing. It made you want it desperately.

R184, kinescopes were filmed by 16 or 35mm cameras right off a special picture tube, sometimes in color but more commonly in black and white. Up until the introduction of videotape by Ampex in 1956, it was the only way to record and play back television. Since much 'film' production is now done via digital video, you may be surprised to learn that film copies of video production for projection are made on highly evolved 'kinescope' machines which scan the film stock with lasers or electron beams directly, giving amazing quality.

Ampex and RCA introduced color videotape in 1958, and one of the first color shows produced on tape was the fantastic Fred Astaire special.

My parents arrived in the US in 1968, a few months before I was born. They purchased their first black and white console TV in the early 1970s. Heck, the island they moved from didn't have any television broadcasts until 1975.

We didn't get a color television until my grandmother gave us her set in 1978, which look a bit like the embedded image.

Commercials were a full minute then too.

Remote control....

This is a great thread. Thanks for the info, guys.

1963 It was the first color TV on our street all the neighbors came over to watch their favorite shows in color we had one neighbor who loved beer, watching color beer commercials did it for him. 5 years later I had my own 12" color in my bedroom.

[quote] 5 years later I had my own 12" color in my bedroom.

Nice! BBC!

Aged 57 here. I don't remember when we got a color TV, but I remember the NBC Peacock logo unfurling his feathers and the voice over announcing, "This show is brought to you in living color..." That stayed around for a few years.

I do remember TV repair shops, and the repairman making house calls. Today, we just buy a new device...whatever it is.

My Mom had a Sweet Sixteen party in 1948. Her family was the first on her street to get a TV. There's a picture of all the kids (all dressed up) watching the box.

In 1948, tv was a novelty box. From 1968-78, it became a piece of furniture. Today we mount them on walls...above mantelpieces...spaces once reserved for art. Ugh!

Perry Como must have been a huge deal, that was the show Hazel invited the whole neighborhood to see when she bamboozled Mr B into buying her a color set before the family got one.

Thanks, R190. I KNOW what a Kinescope is, I just didn't want to explain it. What I posed was originally beautiful color video, what remains is the Kinescope - muddy black & white - nothing like it was when originally shown.

It's funny because the color is so bad in that R192 ad touting how great the color is on a color TV.

When we moved to Australia in 1974, they didn't have color TVs.

They had nudity, but no color.

R2 - It probably is. Only an eldergay would refer to a TV as a "TV set".

[quote]Kinescopes were filmed by 16 or 35mm cameras right off a special picture tube, sometimes in color but more commonly in black and white.

Does anyone know WHY kinescopes were rarely made in color? It astounds me that they would telecast major-event shows in color -- such as the original Rodgers & Hammerstein CINDERELLA with Julie Andrews, which was the most-watched TV program up to that time -- but would only preserve them via black and white kinescopes. I realize those kinescopes were made primarily for archival purposes and were never telecast as reruns, but wouldn't you think the powers that were would have wanted to preserve the color versions, especially at a time when color telecasts were extremely rare and therefore especially historic?

R203 That was before "reruns" and syndication.

R203 actually some were used for broadcast, if your local affiliate wasn’t connected to the coaxial cable or if they were a secondary affiliate they would often use kinescopes. Soaps were still being offered as kinescopes to affiliates as late as 1969.

[quote]Perry Como must have been a huge deal,

He was. Had the most lucrative TV contract in the 50s and early '60s.

And now nobody even knows who Perry Como is.

R207 Perry Como is like Bing Crosby in that thanks to Christmas he will never be completely forgotten.

My memories are only of a color TV, but it was an old 70s model. (It was the 70s.) It had a little tag on the box with three colors. It took forever to warm up- we could always hear the show before seeing the image and when we turned it off, there would be a dot at the center of the screen that lingered for a minute or so.

Tubes. Lots of tubes. That's what I remember of television when I was a child. Did they hang on for a while after color was introduced? I don't remember.

I do remember the TV repair man who was only called as a last resort. Prior to that, take the back off the TV, remove all the tubes, carefully take them to the drug store to test each of them. If you were lucky, you identified the bad tube and the replacement was in stock in the cabinet below the desk top where the tube tester was located. I recall many trips to the tube tester.

I remember being told to never hit our color TV because it could explode. I think that had to do with the vacuum tubes.

No idea if it was true.

We had a Magnavox that looked like furniture. My father wasn't that handy so when the picture went wonky he'd bang on the side of it and adjust the rabbit ears.

R203, color was a much more expensive process. Color film costs more, plus there were few color kinescope machines, which were 3x as complex (separate R G and B kinescope tubes.)

RCA came up with a 'lenticular' kinescope system, which encoded the color on BW film at a cost savings, but quality was poor overall. There are apparently lenticular color kinescopes which have been transferred to modern media in BW only, because no machines exist anymore to recover the color. Kinescopes generally went away except for limited archival use with the introduction of VTRs, but that limited use haunts us now because so many videotapes were erased and reused.

Couldn't have a great picture if you didn't have an antenna on the roof.

When I was a kid, I had a B&W TV in my bedroom. I really wanted a color TV.

I saw in a catalog a piece of plastic that had three bars of color on it. It was being sold as something to turn your B&W TV into a color one.

Even a a little kid, I saw the shortcomings of getting that $2 upgrade to color.

[quote]That was before "reruns" and syndication.

I know, that's what I meant.

R213, thanks. I still think that for a major event like the R&H CINDERELLA, they would have had the foresight to figure out some way to preserve it in color, regardless of cost.

R216 You would have thought they would have shot it on color film. And done a limited release at theaters.

[quote]I saw in a catalog a piece of plastic that had three bars of color on it. It was being sold as something to turn your B&W TV into a color one.

Color TV!

R218 That is EXACTLY what it was.

I remember thinking at the time it would be great for scenes set on a lawn with a big sky if all the people kept their heads in the middle of the screen.

"I saw in a catalog a piece of plastic that had three bars of color on it. It was being sold as something to turn your B&W TV into a color one."

OMG I remember seeing one of those before I ever saw color TV and I thought, color TV better be better than this!

Meanwhile, I'm a millennial that sometimes takes the color out of my tv to see what modern shows would look like in B&W. But, I also don't have a problem with B&W tv shows or movies.

We got our first color TV in the early 70s when I was nine or ten years old. We had a hard time adjusting the picture, so my dad called a repairman to come to the house. I remember he had an Italian last name, a handsome swarthy face and a hairy chest (with the shirt buttons opened down to his abs). I remember standing to the side of him, staying out of the way, and looking into the openings of his shirt. Before he left I spotted both of his nipple buds. That image lingered for months. I was eager when another repairman was scheduled to come a year later. Sadly, it wasn't the same guy, far from it. I was so disappointed.

That's so sexy, R223!

r213, re-colorization of those lenticular kinegraphs should be trivially easy now... digitize the frames, and re-combine them with software. No need for any special hardware anymore.

Someone did something similar with some old color photos that were taken by a Russian photographer through a color prism in the 1800s... for a century, nobody (including the photographer himself) could view them in color, then someone digitized them, re-combined them as r/g/b layers in Photoshop, and voila... color, for the first time ever (the Russian guy understood rgb theory & shot 3 frames through colored filters, but never actually figured out how to make them VIEWABLE in color... he preserved the color, but it took Photoshop to reveal that color).

R225 I noticed in the comments in the link at R213 that somebody's working on software to recover the color in the lenticular kinescopes, so maybe we can look forward to an upgrade to the B&W transfers. The lenticular thing is weird, though. The film was mechanically 'ribbed' microscopically, with different colors placed on different angles of the 'ribs'.

One thing's for sure, lots of history and culture is locked up in this old TV stuff, which is why it's so fascinating.

Who ended up with a main, color TV and a smaller, portable b/w once those became available?

R227, when I grew up we had a color TV in the living room and a smaller black and white TV in my parents bedroom. (1970s)

[quote]Someone did something similar with some old color photos that were taken by a Russian photographer through a color prism in the 1800s... for a century, nobody (including the photographer himself) could view them in color, then someone digitized them, re-combined them as r/g/b layers in Photoshop, and voila... color, for the first time ever (the Russian guy understood rgb theory & shot 3 frames through colored filters, but never actually figured out how to make them VIEWABLE in color... he preserved the color, but it took Photoshop to reveal that color).

I have seen those photos. Breathtaking.

P.S. I assume the reason why the CINDERELLA with Julie Andrews, for example, hasn't been colorized is that the surviving B&W kinescope isn't considered to be in good enough quality for that. I know a really clear, sharp B&W image is necessary for colorization.

R3, I did. I saved my allowance to buy a small portable black and white tv for my bedroom when I was 12 in 1981.

[quote]And now nobody even knows who Perry Como is.

I'm on a bar trivia team, and last week one of the questions in the "before and after" category was, "a writer/actor/producer and the singer of "Home for the Holidays." I was one of only two people who knew the answer.

Como had a long career and even managed to have two big pop hits in the early 70s. Kept doing primetime TV Specials into the 1980s. He maintained his looks over the years amazingly well. But yeah, no one under 50 is going to know who he is today.

Perry Como looked MUCH better in his later years too.

Perry Como: Still Alive!

Two very attractive people:

I found an interesting demo of software kinescope restoration, and this one looks very 'live'. It's been sharpened, noise reduced, geometric distortion and gamma corrected, extra frames interpolated from 24 fps and added in to make 30 fps, plus what appears to be 2 color (red-cyan) colorization.

Compare Margaret Whiting to poor, sad Perry Como above (the non-SCTV one!)

[quote]I found an interesting demo of software kinescope restoration

I guess this is all over my head. Didn't color broadcasting start in 1954? The clip above is '52.

Shows which started in B/W then eventually switched over to color:

R236 did mention that it's colorized, R237.

[quote][R236] did mention that it's colorized, [R237].

Thanks, I see that now.

The Perry Como clip looks like what 1950s color TV looked like. The Margaret Whiting clip doesn't at all.

R238 That link has some mistakes. "The Dick Van Dyke Show" never switched to color. It was B/W for its entire run.

When we got our TV no shows were filmed in color, but I remember when the NBC peacock came on with announcer saying "In living Color" and the SECOND season of I dream of Jeanie had the fabulous color opening, I nearly JIZZED for happy.

It was truly a life changing moment. And then one by one, they ALL moved to color.

R235 Perry Como was very handsy.

r240 Because it ended before CBS switched to color.

Perry Como was a DEVOUT Catholic. Very, very religious.

[quote]When we got our TV no shows were filmed in color,

There were TV series filmed and broadcast in color starting in the mid '50s..

"Norby" (1955)

We got our first color set in 1965. The first show I watched was a n NFL game featuring the Green Bay Packers. I remember Bart Starr was the QB and ever since that date I've been a Packers fan even though I've always lived in South Carolina. It was a fairly big floor model, maybe 20 inches or so. Can't be sure but I believe it was Zenith. It was a time when only a few programs were in color. And it made a difference in what we watched. Seemed like NBC had the most color programs like Bonanza and Disney. Had 3 channels (NBC, CBS & ABC). I don't think we immediately had a PBS channel since we lived near the coast and couldn't receive the only PBS channel was over 100 miles away. The roof antenna could only pick up channels maybe 50-75 miles at the most.

[quote]Because it ended before CBS switched to color.

As I said " "The Dick Van Dyke Show" never switched to color. It was B/W for its entire run." That link claims it switched to color during it's run.

Furthermore CBS was broadcasting sitcoms in color before the "The Dick Van Dyke Show" ended in 1966.

R246 Also, from SC but younger. Where did you live on the coast? SCETV had stations in Florence and Charleston by 1967, which covered parts of the coast. But, Beaufort didn't go on the air until 1975 and then Myrtle Beach in 1980. Most of the Beaufort area could receive the GPB station out of Savannah. SCETV is one of the things we South Carolinians can justly be proud of.

[quote]Perry Como was a DEVOUT Catholic. Very, very religious.

Priests are the handsiest of all!

I was shocked—SHOCKED!—that Oscar the Grouch turned out to be green!

[quote]The Perry Como clip looks like what 1950s color TV looked like. The Margaret Whiting clip doesn't at all.

Agreed. From what I can gather, that company has a process whereby you feed in crap looking B&W footage, and out pops a much improved (but not perfect) result. Easy peasy.

Well, he was orange in the first season, R250.

One thing I don't understand... when cable companies outgrew 12 channels, why did they bother with cable boxes instead of just transmitting channels 14..36 as mid/super-band, but deploying a UHF block converter outside (remapping channels 2-4, 14-22, 5-6, 23-36, and 7-13 as UHF 14-50)?

I know they couldn't transmit UHF far, but even in 1980, my dad just bought a block converter at Radio Shack instead of paying ~$4/month per box to rent them. One box vs 3-6 seems like a total no-brainer.

If I understand your question, it's because most cable systems have limited bandwidth that cuts off below the broadcast UHF band. Some of the frequencies, such as the aeronautical band, are verboten for them to use because of potential interference to navigation. The channels they can use under VHF channel 2 and over VHF 13 are an oddball lot that are in blocks here and there. A linear block conversion to UHF will have big gaps and some channels will be off frequency and require manual tuning. Indeed, block converters were sold, but they had issues.

I believe we got our first color TV when I was 5 in 1975. I remember it being a huge deal. But, I remember not being able to tell the difference. A few years later, I finally noticed the difference. We had only one color TV for years, and a small, portable black and white TV that my mom would move from the kitchen to her bedroom when it was bed time. I remember watching Maude with her on that TV.

Some of the best early color videotape are the Password episodes. It's not that impressive in low res on YouTube, but back when Game Show Network ran the original videos they looked amazing. Crisp and colorful. It's fun seeing stars like Elizabeth Montgomery in "living" color.

R253, I’d love to help answer your question but I think the only word I understood in your post was “why?”

Thinking a bit more, I vaguely remember a few issues:

1. The channel lineup was shot to hell vs the numbers listed in TV Guide... but kind of a non-issue if the UHF numbers WERE the real ones.

2. Only high UHF channels were used, to minimize interference from (and to) the "real" UHF channels, so the signal attenuation as you split & transmitted it through the house was worse than expected. UHF 14..36 was relatively ok, but UHF 60..83 was another matter entirely

3. Compounding #2, pre-1990s, most homes had one cable snaking through the house with a 3dB splitter at every tap... so tv #1 got half the signal, tv 2 got 1/4, tv 3 got 1/8, etc. Now I remember why my dad re-ran a new cable to each room with 'homerun' wiring... it meant each TV got 1/4 the signal instead of the last 2 getting 1/8 and 1/16.

4. Building upon #2, UHF channels above 51 were rare... but not entirely nonexistent in South Flodida. They were used in the Florida Keys to retransmit Miami stations, and in Broward to retransmit channel 6 (Homestead).

brought to you by Monsanto!!

Tune in next week when our DL eldergays will give firsthand reports of the birth of the combustion engine.

[quote]Some of the best early color videotape are the Password episodes. It's not that impressive in low res on YouTube, but back when Game Show Network ran the original videos they looked amazing. Crisp and colorful. It's fun seeing stars like Elizabeth Montgomery in "living" color.

To me those clips looks close to what color TV looked like in the 60s. The image was softer than today. Not as harsh and bright.

The TV screens were made up of green, red, blue and black dots and if you got up close to the screen you could see them. It was a lower res image than what we're used to today. Fine shades were lost, colors were flatter, more uniform looking.

I remember hearing about this, though we never had it.

I remember being astonished by what my favorite tv shows looked like. I was bowled over by the colors in "Batman" and "Lost in Space." Even the game shows that I watched when I got home from school, and later, "Dark Shadows," were just so much better in color. And like so many others on this thread, watching the annual broadcast of "The Wizard of Oz" was even a bigger event than usual for us.

This had to be around 1966 or 1967. I wasn't even 10 years old.

[quote]if you got up close to the screen you could see them

Did you end up going blind, like your mom warned?