B&W to Color

I forget how old I was – 10 or 11 or 12 or thereabouts when our family first acquired a color TV. After umpteen years of black, white, and grayscale, the NBC (National Broadcasting Co) peacock logo was there in vivid color:

It was amazing stuff, particularly to us kids, to see the colored parts of the Wizard of Oz in actual color. That, and a plethora of cartoons, regular TV shows, and movies that were now in full color. It was like a whole new world.

Speaking of TV, we (at the time) had access to 4 channels: 8, 10, 13, and UHF which we had a special antenna for. Eventually there were 2 stations accessible via UHF. For a time the color TV was in my parents room and the B&W TV went upstairs to mine & Dennis’s room, which was nice in a way to have a TV for ourselves, though it wasn’t color. It wasn’t easy to get out of bed for school during the week, but come Saturday morning Dennis & I were up at 6am to catch Woody Woodpecker followed by a parade of TV shows such as Pink Panther, Looney Toons (Bugs Bunny, et al), Johnny Quest, the Monkees, and a bunch of others I have long forgotten. We wrapped up Saturday morning TV with American Bandstand around noontime.

The Sunday paper was a treat for 2 reasons: the comics (a.k.a. “the funnies”) and the TV Guide which gave us the coming week’s schedule of TV shows. Though VCRs had been invented they weren’t yet available for home use, and even if they were they would have been far too expensive for us to buy. So, what was in the TV Guide was what we watched, or not if the lineup was lousy. Sunday evening had a great set of shows back then: Wonderful World of Disney, Mr. Terrific followed by Captain Nice (2 half hour long shows that never made it big but I really liked), Laugh-In which we watched as a family. Looking back on it, Laugh-In had some questionable material for us kids but my parents didn’t seem to care. There were particular shows that came on only once a year and you made sure to circle it in the TV Guide so you wouldn’t forget to be in front of the TV at the appointed time. For example The Wizard of Oz, Help! (the Beatles), Ben Hur (around Easter) and of course the Christmas trio of Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Frosty the Snowman.

Jeepers, the times have changed since then, much of it driven by technology.