What color TV was really like back then...

[Charlie]

A few days back, some of you had mentioned dollar DVD's. Last night, I found a bunch of them at Walmart for 88 cents. I grabbed several... some of them being black and white and some in color.

One of the color DVD's was The Lucy Show. Only being 88 cents, it was clear that they didn't remake the color on this particular show. Although I enjoyed the show, the color was absolutely awful! It made me realize that this is probably what watching color TV in the 50's and 60's was really like. The audio was pretty bad as well. My mother had told me in the past that color TV wasn't really that great during the 60's... now I realize what she was talking about.

Another example of this is in my old original Star Trek episodes on VHF that I bought back in the 80's. On the tape, the episode itself is pretty good as far as color is concerned. Following the episode, they show what was coming on next week. That part of it was pretty crappy... you could tell the color wasn't retouched. Looked kinda faded and blurry compared to the episode.

Just goes to show that there must be a lot of work involved in re-coloring these old shows that we see on television today. Makes me wonder if any people were ever disappointed with what color tv was like when they would spend so much money on a set.

If you want to experience what color was probably like back then, buying these dollar DVD's would be the way to experience it!

On a side note, this episode of Lucy involves her winning a bunch of prizes from a local department store. One of the prizes is a new color tv. They wheeled it in and it was a rectangular set. Not sure what brand it was... the layout of the front controls didn't look anything like the typical RCA or Zeniths of the time.