On Sun, 06 Apr 2014 11:41:50 -0600, rbowman wrote:

philo wrote:

Back in those days, just having a TV was so amazing no one even thought
about color. When color TV's were first available they were very
expensive and the quality was poor...so most people stayed with B&W.

My uncle was in the business so we had one very early. I can't remember the
brand, but it was a bulky countertop model with a maybe a 8" screen, not the
furniture types that TVs became later in the '50s. We were also lucky to
have a local channel, WRGB. That had grown out of W2XB, an experimental
station at General Electric Schenectady that had first broadcast in 1928.

When color first came out, it drove my uncle nuts. Those were still the days
when TV repairmen made housecalls and could often fix the set in place. The
biggest problem was adjusting the color controls so Uncle Milty's face
wasn't magenta. It required a certain artistic flair that's never run in the
family.

There was also a scam that ran in the magazines of the day. For an amazingly
low price you could colorize your existing black and white TV. It consisted
of a plastic overlay you stuck to the screen. The picture was in color, but
what color was another story.

I remember those, in new magazines.

My memories of '50s TV programming was it was superior to most of what you
see today. I wrote it off as the nostalgic memories of a young kid where
everything was bigger and shinier. However, after watching DVDs of some of
the old broadcast shows, I really thing they were better than the current
drivel.

Darn right. I have MeTV now, a broadcast channel, no cable needed,,
and the many of the scripts for Wagon Train are really good. Many of
the westerns have real suspense, when one can think of more than two
endings from any particular point, or something goes wrong and they have
to try something else. It's not obvious.

Leave it to Beaver is excellent, both scripts and acting, especially by
the Beaver and Wally.

I guess Combat was from the 60's but it has good scripts and acting and
is almost real enough to make one hate war.

Lots of other good shows, but since I record 5 hours of Wagon Train and
5 hours of Beaver a week, I don't have time to watch much more.