When did you get a color TV?

fuzzybuddy

fuzzybuddy

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The Sticks, Northeast PA.
Color TVs were expensive as hell. We didn't get a color TV till 68-69. I saw Star Trek in B&W. It was a lot better. Back then color TVs weren't great with deep colors, but great with pastels. To sell color TVs, all the programs of that era had pastels all over the place. Star Trek was a lot better without all those pastel walls, floors, etc. It looked more real.
When did you get your color TV?
 

I'm not sure, but when we did get it, I remember there were only a few shows actually broadcast in color. Most were still black & white.
 
We were way late. It was 1983. I didn't get my first computer until late also. 2006.
 
My parents bought a big wooden color TV, similar to the one in the picture, from the factory outlet store where they worked in the late 60's or early 70's. The only thing wrong with the set was the hardware on the left front was put on lower than the handle on the right. When the television finally died my stepfather removed the innards of the television, installed a shelf, doors, a plywood back and refinished it to make a storage cabinet. I've always owned portable televisions similar to the one pictured below. I'm waiting for my 150 pound portable TV to croak so I can buy a flat screen.

tvs.jpg


This post reminded me of my father. He had a 1950's wooden black and white console television, when it died he bought a color portable and put it on top of the old console television.
 
My Dad was a TV fanatic and he bought one for us as soon as they came out, I don't remember the year. By the time I was grown up my Dad had a TV in every room of the house including one in the bathroom. To this day I still can't understand why he needed one in the bathroom.;)
 
Our first color TV was an ancient RCA console that I paid $40 for from a guy at work. It wasn't working, and I fixed it only to notice a crack in the face of the picture tube. So, it went to the dump. Later, we got a hand-me-down set from my wife's folks. I replaced the picture tube on that one and we had it for quite a few years.

You haven't lived until you've tried to align one of those old sets by balancing focus and screen pots, tabs and coils on the neck of the tube, and even magnets for each color. At best, you would still get a little color fringing near the edges. But, from across the room they looked OK.

Don
 
My parents bought their first TV in 1953, it was a B&W.
My wife had a B&W when we got married in 1959.
Our first color set was a Sears around 1981. A remote was an accessory. None of the local Sears stores had a remote, I finally found one at Sears in Savannah.
 
We got our first one in 1980. A local hotel had donated all their old television sets to the non-profit I worked for and I was able to buy one of them for $25.

It was the size of a smart car and weighed about a thousand pounds, or so it felt.... But, DAMMIT, it was a color TV and we were in high clover!

Everything was fine until I sat a large glass of iced tea on top and knocked it over with my elbow. All the tea poured into the grill at the back. FIZZLE! SNAP! HISS! I quickly unplugged it and started the mourning period. After about a week, I plugged it back in and turned it on. IT WORKED! B-U-T, it wasn't a color set anymore, just B&W.

Well, so be it, now we have a big old not-color TV. A few days later, I swore I saw hints of color and over the next week, the color got stronger and stronger until it got back to normal. I talked to a tv repairman once and told him the story and he said that couldn't have happened. Seeing that it DID, it must have been divine intervention - LOL.
 
Does anybody remember those things that were kind of like saran wrap only they had three stripes of different colors on them and you would stick them on your black and white TV scree and then you could supposedly see things in color? I remember I was at a friends house and they had one. It didn't work so good.
 
Trade said:
Does anybody remember those things that were kind of like saran wrap only they had three stripes of different colors on them and you would stick them on your black and white TV scree and then you could supposedly see things in color? I remember I was at a friends house and they had one. It didn't work so good.
Click to expand...

That one is new to me. I wonder how it was supposed to work.

Remember when it was science fiction to have a flat TV that hung on the wall? I wouldn't be surprised if before long we see TV wallpaper.

Don
 
Do you remember when they started coloring former black and white movies.

I remember one comedian imitating Jimmy Stewart and saying with that drawl "If someone wants to color my movies, then, I will just kick his ass."
 
My grandparents had a little thingy like one of those Christmas tree revolving lights that you shone on aluminum trees. It was supposed to make your B&W TV set look like a color set. It didn't.

I remember the first TV that sat in my grandparent's parlor; it was a gigantic cabinet with a little screen about the size of a salad plate. It was already broken by the time someone had given it to Grandpa, but Grandma thought it looked so "elegant" in there, they kept it in there for years.
 
I won one in about 1973. It was the grand prize at a trade convention. My children were thrilled. Me, not so much. I was working so hard I didn't have much time to enjoy it
 
Believe it was the early 60's. An RCA console television. Recall friends being excited to see what shows looked like in color.
 
I remember TV guides first listing those shows in color. Then later it listed those shows in black and white.

I've always disagreed with Ted Turner colorizing old movies. It's like a lie 'cause color movies handled things so differently. He was adding false information to every frame of the movie.
 
Don't recall when we got our first Color set, but we got our first TV receiver in 1951. I think it was a 17" Packard Bell.

The big shows in those days were Milton Berle on Tuesday nights, and "Your Show of Shows", with Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca.

Howsdy Doody and Space Patrol were big too.

Hal
 

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