SHOWS THAT TRANSITIONED TO COLOR, WHICH HAVE THE LEAST B&W EPISODES

[cd637299]

Well, YouTube has practically everything. It's nice to view it on my regular TV tho'.

I'll look at the YouTube sometime later....wondering if the 1957-1962 NBC Peacock fanfare preceded it! (BTW I've yet to see the NBC 1960 "Peter Pan" w/ Mary Martin with the Peacock to start.)

As to the date of broadcast, I am sure that this was primetime only. Many game shows and soaps didn't have color cameras at the time.

cd

 

[Tim L]

I scanned over a Cleveland Plain Dealer TV listing for that date..The KYW-TV 3 primetime listings for that night were:

7:30 The Outlaws (BW)
8:30 Dr. Kildare (BW)
9:30 Hazel (C)
10PM Sing Along With Mitch (C)

which correlated with the NBC Prime Time Schedule for 1961-62.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

The KYW-TV 3 (Cleveland) primetime listings for that night were:
7:30 The Outlaws (BW)
8:30 Dr. Kildare (BW)
9:30 Hazel (C)
10PM Sing Along With Mitch (C)

According to this page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0598526/trivia "RCA was NBC's parent company and arranged for
all shows to be in color on this date to promote sales of color televisions."

So apparently all of NBC prime time was not in color that night.

 

[anotherguyTN]

Thanks for the info Tim and Oldiesfan6479. I'd tend to believe the Plain Dealer listing over the IMDB post, unless there can be any further proof one way or the other. Was Sing Along with Mitch normally in color at that time?

 

[Hal Erickson]

The conventional wisdom is that during the original NBC run of DRAGNET, the only color episode was "The Big Little Jesus" (currently available only in B&W from various public domain merchants). And yet, throughout the series' entire final season (1958-59), TV GUIDE listed DRAGNET as being in color. If so, why aren't any of THESE episodes available in color? And if not, why did TV GUIDE say so and continue saying so?

 

[ixnay]

As for Lucy, I can only assume that CBS simply had a policy of not routinely colorcasting sitcoms and other series. The decision to begin producing the show in color was Lucy's, not CBS's idea or request. Even though color was still rare on the network, Lucy and her people presciently realized that color was about to take off, and were looking down the road towards syndication, figuring the show woulld be a more valuable future commodity in color.

Bill Paley must've had some ego to hold such an anti-NTSC grudge. :

Did any power players prominent in the TV or entertainment industries in the era of "experimental" colorcasts believe that color TV would never graduate beyond the "experimental" phase, even as of, say 2012?

ixnay

 

[Bob1370]

"Bill Paley must've had some ego to hold such an anti-NTSC grudge."

Not early on...he actually, in 1954, had about as much color programming on at least his O&Os as NBC. Trouble is, it cost more to produce and didn't get either extra ad revenue or extra viewing, so it wasn't worth it. And CBS was gradually getting out of the TV-making business, and was starting even to get out of the parts business. So they didn't have the motivation to push color and eat the cost that NBC did, given its color TV-making parent company, RCA.

It was a matter of deciding the investment wasn't going to provide a return any time soon. So Paley and the CBS brain trust opted to put more money into programming and stars while NBC, with the backing and urging of RCA, kept color TV alive through some pretty lean and losing early years between 1955 and the early 60s. Who was right? You could say NBC, because color did eventually take over. Or you could just as easily say CBS, since they went to the top of the Nielsen heap and stayed there through the 50s and 60s WITHOUT spending more for colorcasting, but were ready to jump back into it in the mid-60s when color set ownership reached a critical mass and it started to be a plus to colorcast. ABC accidentally timed it well too, since they only had the money to do a lot of colorcasting at the precise moment in 1963-65 when their affiliate lineup really grew and their ratings did likewise.

 

[searadiofreak]

If only Leave It To Beaver would have lasted a couple more years, perhaps we would have seen "The Beaver" in color.

 

[KyDXIn]

Also in this type of flip-flop, Wagon Train. The first six (one-hour) seasons in B&W (on NBC,
then ABC)...the ninety-minute season seven in color on ABC...then the final season eight on
ABC reverted back to an hour, and to B&W.

Who decided to change the length of the show, and how was this to be run in syndication?

 

[rnigma1]

I think "The Cisco Kid" was filmed in color from the get-go, but originally released to stations in B&W. Walter Schwimmer bought it in the '60s and reisssued the series in color. I don't know if Ziv issued any color Cisco Kid prints to stations equipped for color in the '50s.

 

[Mark Giardina]

Maybe someone has already mentioned this, but what about "The Adventures of Superman"?
B&W first few seasons then the rest shot in color even though most people (at the time) didn't own color television sets or they were not even built yet.

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

Singer Steve Lawrence had a short-lived (13 weeks) musical variety show on CBS in the Fall of 1965.

It's my understanding that the show began in black-and-white (four or five weeks?), but was being taped in color by the time it's short run ended.

 

[Fenway1912]

CBS made the decision that they would hold off on full color until other broadcast manufactures started to produce color equipment. CBS had converted WCAU-TV in Philly to color using RCA cameras and while film looked OK, the TK-42 studio camera had a washed out look.

CBS converted Studio 50 to color using at first Marconi cameras but they also had a washed out look.

Then Norelco came out with the plumbicon camera in late 1964 and CBS was all in.

http://www.eyesofageneration.com/Norelco_Philips_Gallery.php

The Norelco's were so much sharper that NBC even bought them for use in sports and by 1969 RCA had developed the TK-44 which was a Norelco clone.

 

[wbhist]

CBS made the decision that they would hold off on full color until other broadcast manufactures started to produce color equipment. CBS had converted WCAU-TV in Philly to color using RCA cameras and while film looked OK, the TK-42 studio camera had a washed out look.

CBS converted Studio 50 to color using at first Marconi cameras but they also had a washed out look.

Then Norelco came out with the plumbicon camera in late 1964 and CBS was all in.

http://www.eyesofageneration.com/Norelco_Philips_Gallery.php

The Norelco's were so much sharper that NBC even bought them for use in sports and by 1969 RCA had developed the TK-44 which was a Norelco clone.

From my understanding, as far as color was concerned, Studio 50 first had Norelco PC-60's when the network began to go color in 1965, then PC-70's, then in 1968 they got the Marconi Mark VII's which remained there through the early 1970's. While WCBS-TV in New York had the PC-70's in their studios (under the same roof as the Broadcast Center on West 57th), apart from WCAU which, as you said, acquired the TK-42, the other three O&O's of the time (WBBM-TV Chicago, KNXT Los Angeles and KMOX-TV St. Louis) all went with the Mark VII's. By 1976-77, four of the O&O's (with the exception, of course, of WCBS) replaced the earlier color cameras with Thomson-CSF TTV-1518's.

I may've noted this earlier either here or on other threads, but WBBM, WCAU, KMOX and KNXT all went with RCA TK-27 film chains - while WCBS, again sharing the same facilities as CBS network, used General Electric PE-240 chains.

It should be noted that the early production model PC-70's had the same "round applied handles" as the earlier PC-60's - the only thing distinguishing one from the other was the huge metal "Norelco" logo plate on each of the side "belts" on the PC-70's, whereas PC-60's had a small black Norelco logo next to the Philips logo on a stainless-steel "belt." Specifics aside, besides the picture produced, the fact that this camera was produced by "anybody but RCA" was what finally got the network "in" to the color sweepstakes of the mid-'60's.

 

[Fenway1912]

I had the Studio 50 cameras mixed up - I worked with the Mark VII's in Boston and they were hard to register and match.

The reason I thought the Marconi's were first was that by 1973 when Pyramid was being taped at Studio 50 they were Norelco's.

The GE film chains were top notch but the 250 studio/field camera while fine in a studio environment was a nightmare for sport remotes.

WOR-TV used them at MSG and Shea and WSBK-Boston used them at Fenway Park and Boston Garden.

From my understanding, as far as color was concerned, Studio 50 first had Norelco PC-60's when the network began to go color in 1965, then PC-70's, then in 1968 they got the Marconi Mark VII's which remained there through the early 1970's. While WCBS-TV in New York had the PC-70's in their studios (under the same roof as the Broadcast Center on West 57th), apart from WCAU which, as you said, acquired the TK-42, the other three O&O's of the time (WBBM-TV Chicago, KNXT Los Angeles and KMOX-TV St. Louis) all went with the Mark VII's. By 1976-77, four of the O&O's (with the exception, of course, of WCBS) replaced the earlier color cameras with Thomson-CSF TTV-1518's.

I may've noted this earlier either here or on other threads, but WBBM, WCAU, KMOX and KNXT all went with RCA TK-27 film chains - while WCBS, again sharing the same facilities as CBS network, used General Electric PE-240 chains.

It should be noted that the early production model PC-70's had the same "round applied handles" as the earlier PC-60's - the only thing distinguishing one from the other was the huge metal "Norelco" logo plate on each of the side "belts" on the PC-70's, whereas PC-60's had a small black Norelco logo next to the Philips logo on a stainless-steel "belt." Specifics aside, besides the picture produced, the fact that this camera was produced by "anybody but RCA" was what finally got the network "in" to the color sweepstakes of the mid-'60's.

 

[wbhist]

I had the Studio 50 cameras mixed up - I worked with the Mark VII's in Boston and they were hard to register and match.

The reason I thought the Marconi's were first was that by 1973 when Pyramid was being taped at Studio 50 they were Norelco's.

The GE film chains were top notch but the 250 studio/field camera while fine in a studio environment was a nightmare for sport remotes.

WOR-TV used them at MSG and Shea and WSBK-Boston used them at Fenway Park and Boston Garden.

Sounds like Studio 50 reverted to Norelco by the time The $10,000 Pyramid first started, from what you're saying. As for the PE-250 cameras, I've seen some clips of Joe Franklin's show from the 1968-76 period, and the color seemed to be better than the same cameras as used pre-1975 by WPIX in New York (and that's just on the studio setups - it's possible as you indicated that on remotes it was a you-know-what). WOR had nine PE-250's - six at Shea and three at their Broadway studios for many years starting in late 1967 (part of a 16-camera order put in by RKO in 1966 - five cameras went to WNAC-TV Boston, from my recollection, and two to WHBQ-TV in Memphis). Which Boston station would've had Mark VII's as their main camera - WGBH, I suppose? Or WKBG / WLVI?

And as for film chains, I was apprised that of the Boston stations, WSBK and WNAC had GE PE-24 and/or 240's while the first WHDH had RCA TK-26's, and WBZ and WLVI had TK-27's. Wonder if you'd know what was such status with WGBH or WCVB after the latter station took the Channel 5 spot after WHDH (I) was kicked off in 1972.

 

[Fenway1912]

WGBH and the brief WXPO had the Mark VII's.

WCVB had an Ampex-Norelco package -studio cameras were PC-100A's.

WKBG was all RCA - either 42's or 43's

WNAC's PE-250's were by far the best looking color studio cameras in the market until WCVB came along.

WSBK finally scrapped the GE's around 1976 - and went with TK-47's. If you look on You Tube at Bruins clips in the early 70's you can see how bad the GE's looked at Boston Garden for hockey. They tried to say it was the Garden lighting but CBS had no problems with their Norelcos there.

When WHDH-TV first went on they went whole hog with RCA gear - it was rumored that if they did so NBC would affiliate with them to get away from Group W's pre-emptions but they never had the license free and clear so NBC didn't jump. CBS finally was so fed up with WNAC-TV they moved to CBS. Come 1972 since WCVB said they would preempt often CBS went back to WNAC-TV.

I had the Studio 50 cameras mixed up - I worked with the Mark VII's in Boston and they were hard to register and match.

The reason I thought the Marconi's were first was that by 1973 when Pyramid was being taped at Studio 50 they were Norelco's.

The GE film chains were top notch but the 250 studio/field camera while fine in a studio environment was a nightmare for sport remotes.

WOR-TV used them at MSG and Shea and WSBK-Boston used them at Fenway Park and Boston Garden.

Sounds like Studio 50 reverted to Norelco by the time The $10,000 Pyramid first started, from what you're saying. As for the PE-250 cameras, I've seen some clips of Joe Franklin's show from the 1968-76 period, and the color seemed to be better than the same cameras as used pre-1975 by WPIX in New York (and that's just on the studio setups - it's possible as you indicated that on remotes it was a you-know-what). WOR had nine PE-250's - six at Shea and three at their Broadway studios for many years starting in late 1967 (part of a 16-camera order put in by RKO in 1966 - five cameras went to WNAC-TV Boston, from my recollection, and two to WHBQ-TV in Memphis). Which Boston station would've had Mark VII's as their main camera - WGBH, I suppose? Or WKBG / WLVI?

And as for film chains, I was apprised that of the Boston stations, WSBK and WNAC had GE PE-24 and/or 240's while the first WHDH had RCA TK-26's, and WBZ and WLVI had TK-27's. Wonder if you'd know what was such status with WGBH or WCVB after the latter station took the Channel 5 spot after WHDH (I) was kicked off in 1972.

 

[Fenway1912]

WSBK finally scrapped the GE's around 1976 - and went with TK-47's. If you look on You Tube at Bruins clips in the early 70's you can see how bad the GE's looked at Boston Garden for hockey. They tried to say it was the Garden lighting but CBS had no problems with their Norelcos there.

In this clip from 1976 - you see WSBK's GE-350's looking pretty good and at 0:44 in this clip you can see one in the background.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAO6ZW5VqrA

However the WSBK tapes that survived were all 3/4 inch - this came from a 2 inch quad in Chicago

 

[Hal Erickson]

Also in this type of flip-flop, Wagon Train. The first six (one-hour) seasons in B&W (on NBC,
then ABC)...the ninety-minute season seven in color on ABC...then the final season eight on
ABC reverted back to an hour, and to B&W.

Who decided to change the length of the show, and how was this to be run in syndication?

The 90 Minute episodes were marketed separately for syndication in 1966. The Ward Bond episodes (retitled "Major Adams-Trailmaster") weren't syndicated until 1970. Because the 90 minute shows were in color, they received wider distribution.

 

[Corky Marlowe]

The 90 Minute episodes were marketed separately for syndication in 1966. The Ward Bond episodes (retitled "Major Adams-Trailmaster") weren't syndicated until 1970. Because the 90 minute shows were in color, they received wider distribution.

A lot of local stations aired the 90 minute shows during daytime movie slots.