It was 50 years ago today that TV took on a new hue

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ^ | Thursday, March 25, 2004 | Alyson Walls

[Willie Green]

Betty Bislocky remembers the first color television set her family purchased in the early 1960s at Kaufmann's.

"There were only two or three color shows on at the time," said Bislocky, 80, of Beechview. "'The Flintstones' ... That's what sold us."

[Gorzaloon]

On the other hand, television is someone else's vision."

Yes, that is one of the problems. It it the vision of Brokaw, Jennings, and Rather, usually, and their vision is that of a glorious May Day Parade.

[al baby]

Big deal when did they put that Brightness knob on it.
Which dosent work
Its still not very smart most of the stuff on there is pretty stupid

[nathanbedford]

Ah... does anybody else remember the advent of black and white? The age of color seems like yesterday just before this thing called a fax machine which I am told is now practically obsolete.

If anybody out there has a copy of MY FIFTY YEARS AT THE NEW JERSEY BAR by Robert McCarter he will find in the introduction his fascination in 1885 on encountering a male clerk in the show window of Bamberger's department store operating a new fangled contraption called the typewriter. The author said that he wondered if the new invention would somehow change the practice of law.

Now, how can I get one of them picture phones?

[PJ-Comix]

Weren't the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954 broadcast in color? BTW, I once found a book with color photos from WWI (not WWII, WWI). I was absolutely transfixed by those color photos.

[weegee]

In this age of PDAs, picture phones and gigantic plasma TVs, it's hard to believe anyone ever survived without color television. Imagine for a moment Greg Brady's bell-bottoms, Bill Cosby's sweaters, or your favorite college basketball team in black and white.

My household had a black and white teevee up until the mid 1970s. My grandmother had a big color tv though.

I also had a small black and white 12" portable tv in college in the mid-1980s.

I am one of those of Generation X who remember tuning in UHF channels that would "sort of" come in to see all sorts of movies, cartoons, and reruns.

Having grown up with analog broadcast of radio and television and scratchy records, I can't easily be sold on the the "improvements" of DVD over laserdisc (I still notice the artifacting in DVD compression and thing it is a technology that is still far from perfection). I'm also congizent enough to notice that a "widescreen" tv does not conform to the dimensions of many movies (so you will STILL have those black bars on the top and bottom of the screen) AND you will have new black bars on the left and right of the screen when you watch any tv programming from the first 48 years of television history (as well as almost all movies before 1955).

[weegee]

"Color was obviously a major improvement to service," Reitan said. "The networks started developing programming based on color -- musicals, variety shows and 'color spectaculars' -- that many people still remember. It really changed the style of television."

I think that the garrish colors in a number of movies even through the 1960s are because while they were filmed "in color", they still maintained a grey scale that could be easily viewed on black and white tvs already in the market. Certainly when black and white movies were filmed they considered what the resulting grey scale would look like.

Today, you can take a movie like "The 7 Faces Of Dr. Lao" and turn the color completely off and not be confused as to the action on the screen.

[weegee]

Brightness knob? That's mislabelled. It's the dimmer switch.

Anytime you see a Dem on your screen you should turn it down. From Dim to Dimmer to Dimmest.

[weegee]

Now, how can I get one of them picture phones?

Picture phone, schmicture phone. I WANT MY FLYING CAR!!!

...and just be grateful that Michael Moore's tv shows have not been broadcast in Smell-o-vision.

[Monty22]

One big benefit is color bleeding. LD's bleed color, badly. DVD's are sharp. I really never notice the artifacts either.

I find this old tech stuff amazing though. I'd love to read a book about peoples' early reactions to technology over the years. Maybe I should research and do it myself :)

[weegee]

I just picked up a book on the history of portable radios. It also purports to be a study of how American design and manufacture eventually went overseas.

[Willie Green]

Weren't the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954 broadcast in color?

I don't know.
I was only two-years-old then,
and all I've ever seen has been the B&W ancient-history newsclips.

I was absolutely transfixed by those color photos.

Interestingly, I DO have vague memories of color TV before I was 4 years old.
(We moved to a different home that summer, which is how I can be certain of my age.)
Anyway, the neighbor who lived across the street from us must've worked for RCA.
Everybody in the whole neighborhood was crammed into his living room with all the other lights out to watch the color TV.
I can't actually remember what show was on, just this dazzling pretty display of color that I had never seen before. Fifteen years later, I probably would've described the experience as "psychedelic".

[Dane]

BTW, I once found a book with color photos from WWI (not WWII, WWI). I was absolutely transfixed by those color photos.

Just this past Christmas Day, TNT showed a silent picture from the 20's depicting the last day of Christ. First of all I couldn't believe that TNT showed the movie.

The special effects I have to say were quite impressive. The movie was in black and white until the Resurrection and then it went to color and I was transfixed also, thinking that movie audiences at the time were amazed at seeing the appearance of color in a movie during the 20's.

I caught the movie in the middle and TNT didn't show the title.

[nathanbedford]

Them hearin's were in black and white.

I can well remember coming home from school as a kid and finding my mother transfixed by these proceedings.

A few years later (not very many really, less than ten) in university, I was patiently instructed about how my parents' nativist passions had endangered the world (the Republic being to my professors of lesser concern) by their mindless anti-communism. Nevertheless, I contrived to remain a conservative without a north star until Barry Goldwater, and I might add, at damage to my academic standing although brooding about how my dear mother had been seduced by the brute from Minn.

The reality is that my mother was in the majority, like those who instinctively supported Clarence Thomas until they were better instructed by the media and dutifully changed their druthers for the pollsters.

And the reality is that my dear mom had it mostly right.