Antennna TV is currently airing the first two seasons of Bewitched. But instead of airing them in the original b&w, its airing them in colorized versions. Why? The network has no problem airing b&w shows (even of shows that also aired in color) so why bother with the colorized versions? For that matter do any other digital subnets air colorized shows?
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Digital networks airing colorized shows
- Thread starter installLSC
- Start date
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Maybe the syndicator forced those on them?
I don't remember Scooby Doo ever being produced in black and white.
The 1930-43 Loony Tunes had been (poorly) colorized back in the late 1960s. The original B&W cartoons, as well as every other B&W cartoon from that era, save for Popeye, had pretty much disappeared from the airwaves once local stations began switching to color.
Ugh...A real personal pet peeve; Colorized B&W. It's like those fake "Electronically Reprocessed From Mono" stereo records and deliver the same thing; A migraine headache.
Scooby Doo was never in B&W. Ever. In fact by the time Scooby Doo came out, all network Saturday morning cartoons were in color. The only stations that ran B&W cartoons by this time were low budget independents. I saw Popeye in B&W in the 1970s on KSTW 11. They stopped with those by 1984.
MeTV still runs B&W shows and cartoons. There are some colorized things (Svenghoolie sometimes runs colorized movies and colorized 1930s-40s WB cartoons are occasionally seen on Toon In With Me.), but for the most part, MeTV stays true to how it was originally made. I hope they stay that way.
I don't believe Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera ever produced or directed a B&W cartoon in their lives, either at MGM or at their own company. They started as directors with Tom and Jerry at MGM, which was always in color.
I much prefer the colorized Dream of Jeannie first season. I do not like B&W.
The colorization process today is far better than it was decades ago, when Ted Turner was butchering classic movies. But I'd still rather watch the original B&W than colorized. It may look better now, but it's still fake.
I don't care if it is fake it still looks better than B&W. B&W itself is not the way we see in the world.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Not according to Calvin's dad:
Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for October 29, 1989 | GoComics
Read Calvin and Hobbes—a comic strip by creator Bill Watterson—for today, October 29, 1989, and check out other great comics, too!
But it was how the television industry saw the world prior to 1953, because it had no choice (the CBS color wheel system of a few years earlier was an abject failure). It took another dozen or so years for receivers to catch up, and for the public to be able to afford them. Also, most movies were filmed in B&W well into the 1950s, and some low-budget flicks into the '60s.
It might be the thought among many people in the video media business that black and white content drives away younger viewers. It's not completely unfounded... I know a woman 29 years old who was looking for movies to watch and I suggested Little Shop of Horrors (1960) but she completely rejected it because it was in black and white.
I'm curious how the B&W Bewitched and I Dream of Jeanie look colorized. I'll probably make the effort to check it out. Now one thing I don't want anyone to colorize is the Twilight Zone. That would be an act of war.
I laugh when I see daytime soaps (like Y&R) show character’s memories/flashbacks in B&W. Because I know I live in a world surrounded by color but when I have a memory of something that happened yesterday or last week or last year my memory is always in B&W! It was understandable in the past when a show was showing a very old flashback when the show didn’t have color footage.
I agree with this in concept. But I do wonder how relevant it is. How is a 29 year old going to end up watching Bewitched episodes from 60 years ago? About the only way I can imagine is if they're visiting Grandma and watching whatever she wants.
The late film critic Roger Ebert has written quite a bit about his love of black and white cinema. He maintained that black and white was more effective at creating "a mysterious dream state, a simpler world of form and gesture." By comparison, he believes that color tends to be too realistic, too distracting, and reduces the actors to inhabitants.
Ebert was a very vocal foe of colorization, claiming that it absolutely ruined what the director and cinematographer were originally aiming for. He also credited filmmakers like Scorcese (Raging Bull), David Lynch (The Elephant Man), Mel Brooks (Young Frankenstein) and Hitchcock (Psycho) who deliberately made black and white films even though color was easily available to them. They did it as an artistic choice.
I do a lot of photography, and occasionally edit some of my work in monochrome. It's a lot harder than editing color. Many more choices need to be made to emphasize what's on the final image, and the statement that it makes.
I'm old enough to be familiar with black and white. Growing up in the 70s, I had a small black and white TV set in my bedroom. And the UHF stations still showed reruns from the B&W era. It's interesting to note that a show like Combat looked better in B&W than it's final season, shot in color on ABC's orders. And there were plenty of old shows, which I discovered later, that I can't imagine would have looked good in color, such as The Untouchables.
I respect B&W as it's own art form. Before color, much work went into making the monochrome image pop on the screen. And many old movies would look terrible colorized. Citizen Kane? Casablanca? Psycho? It's A Wonderful Life? Like scrawling graffiti on a Van Gogh.
I obviously meant toward the anti-colorization camp. Perhaps not as much toward quickie 60s sitcoms. And I'll admit that colorization looks way better than when Ted Turner was doing it in the 80s. But I'd rather watch it the original way. Same especially goes for cartoons. The old B&W Popeye shorts were my favorites as a kid, crude sound effects and all. They were brilliant!
Ebert was a very vocal foe of colorization, claiming that it absolutely ruined what the director and cinematographer were originally aiming for. He also credited filmmakers like Scorcese (Raging Bull), David Lynch (The Elephant Man), Mel Brooks (Young Frankenstein) and Hitchcock (Psycho) who deliberately made black and white films even though color was easily available to them. They did it as an artistic choice.
I do a lot of photography, and occasionally edit some of my work in monochrome. It's a lot harder than editing color. Many more choices need to be made to emphasize what's on the final image, and the statement that it makes.
I'm old enough to be familiar with black and white. Growing up in the 70s, I had a small black and white TV set in my bedroom. And the UHF stations still showed reruns from the B&W era. It's interesting to note that a show like Combat looked better in B&W than it's final season, shot in color on ABC's orders. And there were plenty of old shows, which I discovered later, that I can't imagine would have looked good in color, such as The Untouchables.
I respect B&W as it's own art form. Before color, much work went into making the monochrome image pop on the screen. And many old movies would look terrible colorized. Citizen Kane? Casablanca? Psycho? It's A Wonderful Life? Like scrawling graffiti on a Van Gogh.
I obviously meant toward the anti-colorization camp. Perhaps not as much toward quickie 60s sitcoms. And I'll admit that colorization looks way better than when Ted Turner was doing it in the 80s. But I'd rather watch it the original way. Same especially goes for cartoons. The old B&W Popeye shorts were my favorites as a kid, crude sound effects and all. They were brilliant!
I saw that first season somewhere a few years ago and it had superior acting. Barbara Eden was so good in a couple of those.
You mean 16:9, which is widescreen. 4:3 had been the standard from the first iconoscopes in the 1930s until HDTV was mandated in 2009.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Read it again, Keith. He referred to 4:3 as the aspect ratio pre-HDTV.