TV SHOWS THAT WENT FROM BLACK AND WHITE TO COLOR

[Hal Erickson]

I lived in the Central Time Zone. According to TV GUIDE listings of the period, GENERAL HOSPITAL and BEN JERROD were shown opposite one another.
I believe that, thanks to film and videotape, ABC programs were seen in the same timeslots in every time zone during 1961-62 and 1962-63 seasons. This was mainly to accommodate the 4-5:30 (and later 4-5) AMERICAN BANDSTAND timeslot.

 

[ChuckRoast]

The "Adventures of Superman" and the "Andy Griffith Show' had one thing in common. When they went to color they went to pot. Same thing with the Popeye cartoons. Can anyone come up with any other examples?

 

[bpatrick]

I lived in the Central Time Zone. According to TV GUIDE listings of the period, GENERAL HOSPITAL and BEN JERROD were shown opposite one another.
I believe that, thanks to film and videotape, ABC programs were seen in the same timeslots in every time zone during 1961-62 and 1962-63 seasons. This was mainly to accommodate the 4-5:30 (and later 4-5) AMERICAN BANDSTAND timeslot.

That would have put both shows on at 1 PM (CT). And you are partially
correct about ABC's clock-time feed to the Central time zone; in 1962 Birmingham's
WBRC carried the ABC daytime lineup from 10 AM (it didn't carry Bandstand, however);
Houston's KTRK started at 11 AM (CT), and the first show on both stations' schedules
was Tennessee Ernie Ford. So Birmingham was going along with the Eastern time zone,
while Houston was taking the alternate feed. ABC carried the "Mickey Mouse Club" on
a clock-time (5 PM, or 5:30 after 1957, local time) basis as well.

BTW, "Ben Jerrod" was replaced by the game show "People Will Talk," which was
a prototype of "Hollywood Squares."

 

[oldiesfan6479]

I believe that, thanks to film and videotape, ABC programs were seen in the same timeslots
in every time zone during 1961-62 and 1962-63 seasons.

We came across this "oddity" in some recent Mountain Time Zone listings
from back then where the ABC daytime schedule was the delayed Central
zone feed--that is, CT minus one hour.

bpatrick--was Love That Bob generally on at 11:30 AM ET? Somewhere in
the depths of my aging brain is that this show aired at 10:30 AM in Arizona
(Mountain time) rather than 9:30. If so, this would be another example of
the special CT feed also being sent to MT.

 

[stdjsb25]

The "Adventures of Superman" and the "Andy Griffith Show' had one thing in common. When they went to color they went to pot. Same thing with the Popeye cartoons. Can anyone come up with any other examples?

Andy at least managed to hold on for three seasons after Don Knotts left the show....even though by the end, the show started to get a little dull and dreary.

 

[bpatrick]

I believe that, thanks to film and videotape, ABC programs were seen in the same timeslots
in every time zone during 1961-62 and 1962-63 seasons.

We came across this "oddity" in some recent Mountain Time Zone listings
from back then where the ABC daytime schedule was the delayed Central
zone feed--that is, CT minus one hour.

bpatrick--was Love That Bob generally on at 11:30 AM ET? Somewhere in
the depths of my aging brain is that this show aired at 10:30 AM in Arizona
(Mountain time) rather than 9:30. If so, this would be another example of
the special CT feed also being sent to MT.

Yes and no. When ABC began rerunning it in the fall of 1959
it aired at 12:30 (ET); it moved to 11:30 in the fall of 1960.
So you could have been getting a simultaneous feed at 12:30 (ET)/
10:30 (MT) the first year, or the alternate Central Time feed at 11:30
(CT)/10:30 (MT) the second.

Some of ABC's programming stratagems were odd in those days.
I've mentioned the way they handled the West Coast on Saturday
nights in 1961-62 and will repeat it here (the real reason was to
bring in the fights and "Make That Spare" live, but also because
some viewers--such as in Los Angeles--were used to seeing Lawrence
Welk live):

6 PM Lawrence Welk (9 PM ET)
7 PM Fight Of The Week (10 PM ET)
7:45 Make That Spare (10:45 ET, approximately)
8 PM Matty's Funday Funnies (Matty's Funnies, Beany
And Cecil) (not carried in LA but was in San Diego,
aired in the East at 7 PM)
8:30 Leave It To Beaver (only show in pattern, 8:30 ET)
9 PM The Roaring '20s (7:30 ET)
10 PM (Local) (Eastern affiliates had theirs from 6-7)

 

[Hal Erickson]

The "Adventures of Superman" and the "Andy Griffith Show' had one thing in common. When they went to color they went to pot. Same thing with the Popeye cartoons. Can anyone come up with any other examples?

MY THREE SONS. It wasn't until A&E began rerunning the first five (black and white) seasons in the late 1980s that younger audiences began to realize how vastly superior that earlier ABC version of the show was to its later color incarnation on CBS, with Demarest replacing Frawley and seemingly dozens of females added to the formerly all-male Douglas household.
In fact, MY THREE SONS was virtually two different series: the consistently funny and clever black-and-white one, and the sporadically amusing and tiresomely conventional color one.