Just a heads up to you guys..... The 50th Anniversary of Color TV will be here on Jan 1, 2004. Exactly 50 years ago, on Jan 1, NBC colorcast the first coast to coast COLOR Broadcast by showing the Tournement of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California. I think we should all tune in on Jan 1, even for a few minutes, to honor all the scientists and engineers who worked so hard 50 years ago to make color TV in our homes a reality. Wish I had one of the RCA CT-100 sets...the kind that were receiving this broadcast back in 1954. That would be truly great, to relive it all again. Everybody watch!!
My Grandpa had one of those! I remember watching "Color" TV at his house an extra special treat We had our FIRST Color TV in 1959, in 1964 we got our Magnificent RCA Stereo Consul TV!!! HUGE and Heavy...My Beatle 45's/LP's sure sounded great on that set!...WOW!!
Nice-lookin' set, Steve! You'll definitely want to baby-proof it somehow, though. Okay, so can anybody out there tell me when color TV became the "standard"? That is, when the number of color sets manufactured and sold began to surpass that of black-and-white sets, or when shows broadcast in color began to outnumber those that were b&w only? I'd guess it was sometime in the late '60s, or possibly the early '70s. But what do I know, I'm a callow 30 year old!
Hey Steve......NIOCE "Roundie" ya got there!! Beautifull!! In the winter of the 1970-71 TV season, CBS finally announced an ALL color lineup. Some of the news shows in the 1969-70 season were only shown in Black and White. Apparantly, until 1971, CBS didnt demand that their affilates be 100% color, that policy changed for the 1970-71 season. There was also the 1970-71 "Midnight Massacre" when CBS cancelled "The Beverly Hillbillies", "Green Acres" and "Petticoat Junction" all in one night. All three shows had good ratings, but CBS's "braintrust" didnt like the demographic and wanted higher paying advertisers. CBS suffered for years after this very dumb decision. Viewers didnt watch the replacement shows.
Oh, i forgot....the "last episode" of all 3 shows are intertwined. It was one of the only times that was ever done on television.
Stereo, (love your name), Off the top of my head I cant remember the replacement shows, but when I go home I can look them up. I saw the "last episode" show around 10 years ago. What they did was, they had Granny travel from BH to Hooterville, if I remember right, one of the Petticoat Junction girls was having a baby, and Granny "helped" somehow, which is wierd because they had a doctor living at PJ (June Lockhart) that year. Somehow, the Douglas's (Green Acres) were involved also. i dont remember exactly. I really want to get a videotape of this show. If memory serves, it was two full hours. A nice sendoff to three great shows. They should never have been cancelled, especially TBH, which had very good ratings right to the end. ANd dont even get mne started about why they cancelled "Gilligans Island" the first show that was really all about color and not content.
Perhaps if you petition TV Land, they may make a special night out of it. They do schedule a lot of thematic programming (eg. a night of First episodes, a night of last episodes, wedding themes, you get the idea). I don't know how I missed it the first time around, but this Sunday they are broadcasting a repeat of a TV Land original special - a virtual "Alan Brady Show". Check out TVLand.com. BTW, my member name is short for stereopticon (one of those old stereo slide viewers). Before I thread crap anymore, thanks for the notice about this anniversary. I wonder if NBC is planning any kind of celebration. They usually don't need an excuse for hyping other events and anniversaries (usually insignificant ones)
50th color telecast Mikey, I know this is long after your original post. I wrote a similar post on AudioKarma's color tv forum about NBC's 50th anniversary color telecast of The Rose Parade. You may have seen it. I lived your wish and watched the parade on my CT-100. Host Al Roker did mention the 50th color broadcast in his opening comments. I also snapped some digital pix of the parade off my CT-100 screen. They can be viewed on my web page. If the url doesn't get you there (webtv has trouble with this). Type the url or e-mail me and 'll forward the page to you. [email protected] http://community-2.webtv.net/stevetek/StevesCT100/
I did see it Steve......and thanks for doing that!! I wish you had videotaped it off the CT-100 picture Tube with a camcorder...that would have been a riot.
Mikey, Glad you enjoyed the snaps. Interesting idea videotaping off the CT-100's screen. I'll try and borrow a friends digital video recorder, the only way to go for this, and give it a try. Thanks, Steve
I recall that a "rich" friend of mine had a color TV in 1957 or 1958. I remember watching a WW II movie on the TV. I was so jealous. It was over 10 years before my parents could afford a color TV.