In the ad above, I love the Townsend model’s “three simulated drawers.” If it had only one simulated drawer... no sale!
Australian TV went colour in 1975 on 1st March with the slogan "March into colour". Our family got our first colour TV in 1987. I was eight. But the clip of the ABC advertising the first colour show plus switching to colour exist and are on YouTube.
Also..... "Aunty Jack" was a popular character on a popular sketch comedy show from 1972. It's really something else, that show. And, yes, "Kid Eager" is played by Gary McDonald.
Oh Stevie its so good to have ya active buddy I have a couple movies on VHS I got from a couple different bunchs on ebay and they both look like they were recorded from OTA! (There is so much noise in the video I dont think its cable) One was recorded in 1991 and it was ET and the other was in 1996 (Quick Change) Quick change had more noise but when I recorded it to another tape in SP mode,there isnt as much noise..... E.T. I cant copy.... The audio drops too much so its not worth it.... But I remember when I had a black and white set and it had a fine tuning knob... That made it possible to get scrambled channels in!! (If there wasnt anything above it (12-13 empty for example) I really love CRTs
Here's an interesting bit of archive footage, issued by the IBA in June 1977, the then governing body of independent (i.e. non-BBC) TV in the UK. This would go out twice a week on all ITV regions at 9:10am, just before the main programming started at 9:25am. The usual content would be details of new and upcoming transmitter sites, details of any planned transmitter outages, and any other suitable broadcast news, including non-BBC radio stations. I believe this is the earliest edition of this to survive.
Lots of motels used to advertise color TV on their vacancy signs. After it became common, they switched to free HBO.
My family finally got a color TV in the mid-70's. Before that, when I was growing up, my aunt was the only one in the family with a color TV, so whenever they showed The Wizard of Oz on TV, we went over there so we could see it in color!
I still have 2 old Phillips CRT TVs. I bought one second hand 3 and half years ago, with the stand & remote for €20. No one is going to steal it. Mainly because it's so out of fashion....and it weighs around 4 stone. It's was acting up a bit recently, the picture was bending and looking stretched out of ratio. I thought it was on its last legs. But it's back to normal now. I'm hoping it lasts a few more years. I've become very trifty.
At least you actually got to witness the transformation. My evil older brother convinced all us younger kids we were gonna see that even on the old B&W so we gathered 'round all excited only to have our hopes dashed at the pivotal moment. I can still picture his cackling at our ignorance.
I used to hear of people stealing the CRTs from hotels,etc....... I think thats sad......... (To steal them)
Our first was an RCA CTC38, purchased Summer of 1969. Fantastic TV, great color and lasted until the mid 80's. It looked exactly like this one: 1968 RCA CTC38 Color Hybrid TV Analysis - YouTube
My brother and I bugged my father for a color tv from 1967 on. Not very many families had them though. He always said he would get us one when the picture was close to that in the theaters. Which technically- we might still be waiting today. In retrospect, I am a tad ashamed of our behavior in that color tvs cost around $500 for a console in the late 60s/early 70s and $350 for a table top set. In todays dollars that would equal $3300 for the console and $2200 for the tabletop. This was a pretty heavy economic lift for a lower to mid middle class family which is what I consider ourselves at the time. But my father finally relented and bought a table top Zenith Chromacolor in early 1971 which ran around $350. It was like a portion of the world sprang to life. I remember the first few days I would just be watching anything although nearly all first run shows were in color by then. We still used our large b/w console but I almost never looked back at it.
Doing a small amount of research this morning, I found that a sitcom series called NORBY was perhaps the first sitcom to be in color. It ran on NBC in 1955 for just 13 episodes. But if memory serves, the first actual episodes of a sitcom to air in color in the 60s was THE JOEY BISHOP SHOW and HAZEL. JOEY beat HAZEL by a month back in October/November of 1961 when NBC experimented with whole evenings of prime timed in color. Joey's episode was "A Windfall For Mom" on October 4th. HAZEL's was on November 2nd, "What'll We Watch Tonight?" where Hazel buys a color TV. These would have aired almost five years before we got our first color TV in the spring of 1966.
Our first color TV was an elderly Zenith 25" console type with a nonfunctional Space Command receiver that Dad never did get working reliably. Think it came from my uncle in the early-mid70s. I remember many a Saturday with Dad sitting on the floor behind the TV with a schematic, a VTVM, and a tube tester, trying to keep it running.
"My hair is black. My dress is red. My sofa is bright yellow. If these colors don't look right to you, then you should have bought an RCA TV with ColorTrak™ technology!"
I think, in the early 60's when the concept of color TV's were new to people. They were used to the controls to adjust B&W sets. People would have no idea that there were other controls that adjusted the color balance, the color intensity or the contrast. I would go with my friends into their homes and I would see their parents staring at horrendously adjusted color TV's and have no idea just how awful the picture was that they were viewing. Even those who were aware of these extra knobs, had no real idea what they really did or how to properly adjust them.
Yeah, the test pattern wasn't so bad but they used to play a real irritating high pitched tone before the station went off the air. Never knew exactly why? Maybe it was to get people to get up and turn off their TV sets? I don't think you could do one of those test patterns today. I'm sure that having an Indian on the pattern is somehow culturally inappropriate?
Bruce Johnston and Al Jardine of the Beach Boys. Any experts know what brand of "Roundie" Color TV this is?
Just found this cool thread. I don't have a story myself because I am too young and we always had a color TV. My brothers had a B&W in their bedroom but the living room had a color TV (don't remember the brand but it was wood grain, big and bulky). Looking at Steve's comment on page 1 I had no idea what $500 would be like in modern times so I looked it up. $4,744! For a color TV! Yep, now currently as a middle class dad I would tell my kids to be happy with what they had. I can remember when Plasma TV's came out a few years ago (Sears was the only place that had them in my area) and they were around $10,000. Do they even make plasma TV's now? No idea. All the rage is LED or Q-LED and you can find a 40 inch for around 200 bucks.
