I'd liked to have seen this, but its was on too late for a school night. Gee, I wish someone would come up with a way to record TV.
I'm amazed at how late some of you (in the States) got color TV. My dad who wouldn't spend a dime if he didn't have to, bit the bullet in 1968. On the other hand, I'd only been begging him since 1961 or so...
Get Smart ruled here, too. Colourful variety shows caught the eye. Memory. You could see the football.
I remember all the Eckerd drug stores (Florida drug stores chain back in the day) had tube testers in them, so you could test and buy replacement TV tubes. Was fascinating to me as a little kid growing up in the 70's. Neighbors had a 'rockin' Sylvania color console in the early 70's, probably was near the end of the 70's before my house had a 19" color TV.
I was begging my family since the early '70s, and we got ours in '75 or '76. These days, I hunger a little for 3D TV.
All drug stores and markets had tube testers in them. As a kid I watched people test their tubes to find out if they were still good or needed replacing. I doubt a grandma could work one these days..
I called my mom last night and asked her. She wasn't sure exactly what year it was, but she inisisted my constant "grumbling" to my grandparents put the wheels in motion to get a color TV. Never could dream they would go all in and get the console.
My parents must have gotten a color set in the late 60s because my earliest TV memories (probably 1971) were on a color console set. But given the plethora of b&w syndicated series being aired in the early 70s, along with many friends & relatives houses only having b&w sets, I didn't care much about color vs. b&w. What's surprising is the ubiquity of b&w sets well into the 80s, particularly the small models that were sold as portables or second sets (a luxury for most households at the time). When I started college in the fall of 1985, probably more than half the sets on my dorm floor were small b&w models. I'm not sure when small, cheap b&w sets were no longer being commonly sold, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was sometime in the 90s.
One day when having lunch at work, I went channel surfing to find something to watch. Came across a "retro" TV channel. Leave It To Beaver was on. A few minutes later, one of my younger co-workers came in and asked he "how" I could watch something in black & white. I told her that's how the show was originally presented, and back then many had B&W TV sets. She had a puzzled look on her face. Told her back in the 60's, many shows still filmed in black and white to save money and in some cases, looked better than those in color. Also, color sets were not that cheap. I also told her when they started putting the shows out on DVD, I WANTED the black and white sets if they were available. That's what I grew up watching, that is how I remember them. The generation gap........
We didn't get a color set until 1973 or so. I came as a surprise (though it shouldn't have been!) to my folks 10 months after their wedding, and they were broke. A permanent job, a new car and a house came before upgrading from the portable B&W they had when I was born. Even then, they didn't go console. That old RCA actually went to college with me in 1986, but they snuck into my room that summer and sold it at a yard sale.
My Dad bought our first color set in '65 or '66. it was a Sears console and we were among the first in our neighborhood to have a color TV. Our old black and White Admiral set was relegated to my older brothers bedroom.
Our first colour set showed up around 1970. It was an Admiral 27", biggest you could buy back then. The first show we watched was Mutual of Omaha's "Wild Kingdom" which blew my eight year-old mind. The only other thing I can remember about that TV was going to the drug store to use their tube tester from time to time.
Growing up in the '60s I was a big fan of "Superman", and was well aware that it was a decade old...when we got our first color set I was shocked to learn most episodes were in color...
We had a color set in the late 60's...maybe '67 or so. But after a year or 2, all the green went out of the tube....so the color was not great...football fields were basically grey...bummer...we lived with it that way for a bunch of years...
The first color TV I remember seeing belonged to a school mate that lived on a farm. I can't recall the exact year, but I think it was 1958 or 1959. I was at a birthday party for my school mate and the party was being held in one of their buildings where they kept their tractors and other farming equipment. The party was at night. I remember going into the house to use the bathroom and noticed a WWII movie in color being shown on their TV. Once I saw that I was more interested in staying and watching the movie than going back to the birthday party. In the mid 60s when I was in my mid-teens, our neighbors got a color TV. The couple had two boys 4 and 5 and I would volunteer to babysit so I could watch their color TV. I sometimes would invite myself over to see certain shows, like Bonanza and the Wonderful World of Disney. That was one of the best shows in color in the mid 60s. In 1969 our family purchased our first color TV. The family bought it while I was in college, right before Christmas break. I spent almost the entire Christmas break at home watching TV.
Man, think of the health & safety acts this violated! One of many things you'd never get away with today: letting people plug in tubes (with high-voltage pins) inside a store.
True, but for a kid bored stiff at House of Values (or any other store that had one of these things), they were a godsend!
We got our first color TV in early December 1968. It was a 25" Magnavox console like the one on this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpI6eeJ7F0c and I remember it costing my folks a whopping $850. I remember we got the set on a Saturday, Dad had decided to order a color TV from the Sears catalog because it was on sale, and the style of the furniture was what my Mom liked, but when she saw the finish listed as "elm veneer," she wasn't happy. So off to the store we went, and they didn't have one in stock, so Mom made Dad drive us all over town to every TV dealer looking for a console in that color, as she wanted to make sure it matched the living room decor. When we got to the Magnavox dealer, the salesman said he'd never heard of such a thing as "elm veneer," but while we were there, why not take a look at the fine Magnavox color sets, so we did, and were wowed by the picture quality and natural color. We left the store, and were on the way home, Dad turned to Mom and said "Why don't we cancel the Sears order and get the Magnavox? It is much more costly, but that's the best I've seen, and I don't think we'd be happy with anything else." Mom agreed, so we turned around and went back to the shop, and when we walked in, the set we had been looking at wasn't on the sales floor (Magnavox dealers had special viewing rooms with the various sets on display, but on the main floor the televisions weren't turned on.) Dad asked the salesman, "Did you sell the TV we were just looking at?" The salesman replied "Yes! To you, I knew you'd be back. They're checking out the set in the back and getting it adjusted now." My Mom asked, "When can you deliver it?" and the salesman replied, "How soon can you get home?" We beat the delivery truck by 5 minutes! That night, we watched Get Smart, followed by The Ghost & Mrs. Muir and then NBC showed White Christmas. It was a grand occasion, Mom let us eat dinner in the living room (she made waffles with bacon in them), something she never allowed as a rule. Here in Panama City at that time we had one television station: WJHG was an NBC/ABC affiliate, they taped the ABC shows and rebroadcast them at various times, usually before NBC's prime time lineup began, or during low-rated NBC programming. Channel 7 didn't get color cameras for local broadcast until 1970, and if you didn't have an outdoor antenna, you couldn't pick up the CBS affiliate from Dothan, AL about 90 miles away. We had no cable until 1970 either. In 1973 we finally got a dedicated ABC affiliate. I can remember pestering my folks to get a color TV for years, and like Steve, when we'd go shopping as a family, I headed to the TV department to watch color TV. We had a Grant's store that had a large TV department and they sold their own store branded sets (Bradford) made by various manufacturers, though they claimed to be Westinghouse sets. I liked going to Grant's because they never made any attempt to adjust their sets, so I'd go to the TV department, and start adjusting the sets for the best picture. The first time I did it the salesman was about to tell me not to touch the sets, but before he could do that, a couple asked to buy the set I had just adjusted! Good memories.
