Re: First Family Color TV:

[SactoTeddyBear]

What was the approx or exact year that your Families got their first Color TV and what was the very first Show viewed on it?

My Parent's got their first Color TV in 1962. It was a huge Zenith Oval-Screen and it had a large Channel Selector Knob, with a Frosted Lens in the Middle that would show the Channels. They went from Ch-2 to Ch-13 and UHF, which was our areas KTXL Ch-40. It also has a smaller Knob that was a Push/Pull On/Off Volumn Control.

The Cabinet was about 42-inches wide, 32-inches high and about 28-inches deep. It sat on 4-Legs that were about 6-inches long and it had an overhang Top part of the Cabinet. It was a very nice looking Walnut {real wood} Cabinet. It had to have the Color Degaused several times while we owned it, but it never had any other Repairs, as far as I can remember.

The first Show that we watched on it after it was delivered and set-up, was of all shows, "The Flintstones" and it was actually the very first time that I had even seen the Flintstones at all.

Peace and Fun Times, down Memory Lane, Steve
SactoTeddyBear...

 

[pulsatron]

Rank Arena 34cm

Our first family colour television was a 34 cm Rank Arena(which later on here became N.E.C.),and I think the first show we watched was an episode of Flipper I think.
Funny thing that T.V. lasted us some 20 odd years if only things were made that well these days.
Cheers.
Steve.

 

[tolivac]

My stepfather bought his first color set in the late 60's probably '68 or 69.It was an RCA.the first programs I remember watching were Redskin football games-late night BW programs such as Perry Mason and Outer Limits.the TV was bought from Woodward Lothrup in the Wash DC area-The games ran on Ch7 and the shows I watched-after My Mom and stepdad went to bed-were On Ch#5.Ch7 was ABC and Ch#5 was independent.-now part of Fox.Later in life in DC toured these stations-saw their studios and transmitters.
And the first transmitter I operated and serviced was an RCA TT5EH unit owned by PBS-Ch#9 in Rapid City S.DAK.the RCA Tx was purchased in 1967-still in use today!!They are going to replace it soon with a new digital unit.that about corresponded with my stepdads TV.At my dads house he got his first color set after I went to college.It was a Sony.My first color set was an RCA CTC-25 I bought for $75 from one of my moms neighbors in 1973.

 

[lavamat_jon]

Generation gap

I was born in a generation where families had at least 2 colour televisions and a VCR... in fact when I was born my mum and dad had 3 colour televisions. I guess it is a sign of the times!

Jon

 

[Burpalator]

Ours was a Sylvania color console in 1966. I'm thinking it was a 23-inch. I remember that the cabinet was not real wood. If memory serves, it was more like a simulated wood contact paper, only heavier. Cheap cabinet aside, it had a beautiful picture, but true to the times, required constant adjustment of the fine tuning control.

The first thing I clearly remember watching is The Wizard of Oz. My dad had forgotten that the movie began in black and white and I remember him cursing a blue streak while making all kinds of adjustments that didn't help. Needless to say, when Dorothy landed in Oz, the picture was a mess!

Strangely, although we had little money then, my dad always found a way to get certain things that I guess were important to him for us to have. Thinking back, he probably worked ungodly amounts of overtime to pay for them. But we had a color TV, a dishwasher and air conditioning (window unit) when most of our neighbors did not.

Another memory of that TV is in late '68 when Motown had its first network special: TCB starring Diana Ross and The Supremes with the Temptations. All of the neighbors came to our house to watch it because none of them had color. Thinking back, it strikes me as strange that they were all so anxious to see it because this was the South and there were of course many racially motivated comments made by the adults during the show. I, on the other hand, absolutely loved it because I wanted to be Mary Wilson from the time I was old enough to walk!

 

[retromom]

Those were the days!

Ours was a mid-sixties Zenith console with a metal cabinet. I remember that thing shocking the #*&$ out of us when we would touch it! Do you think it had a short? ;-) It was later replaced with an RCA console (wood cabinet, thank heavens).

Venus

 

[ironrite]

1968, two Sylvania TVs. A 23" console, in cherrywood French Provincial for the living room. It also had remote control. Then a 20" portable, metal cabinet covered in wood grain vinyl for my parent's bedroom. My parents saw my Aunt's Sylvania and liked the picture. My father was also looking at the Quasar, until the salesman pointed out they were having a lot of troubles with those "works in a drawer" feature.

The first major show I recall watching was the 1968 Presidential election. After that, you'd scan the TV Guide for shows in color.

During the search for the flat screen TV, the same shopping process, which set had the best color, best picture, etc. I thought geez, didn't think I'd see people go through this process all over again.

 

[hoover1060]

1968 I think

A "Magnetbox" 19" quasi-console on a swivel stand. As soon as the warranty was up that TV was always out for one reason or another.
The Magnavox was replaced in 1974 with an RCA 25" console that was much better.
The RCA was replaced in 1983 with a Panasonic that my parents still have today.

 

[veg-o-matic]

Our first was in 1974: a Sears Silvertone table model that replaced a Silvertone BW portable.

First show I remember seeing on it was "Ironside". It really had a very nice picture.

It was replaced in 1984 when I bought my parents a Zenith table model with remote control. That set is still in operation, though it doesn't get used much these days.

veg

 

[MikeS]

Ty Pennington's Favorite Store

We were the first family on the block to own a color TV.
It was 1965--23-inch Sears Silvertone console in contemporary styling, with "Chromix" control.
Anything in color we watched--for a time, I was the most popular kid in school because friends would come to see "Batman"--IN COLOR! ON ABC!

 

[maytagbear]

Our first colour tv--

was a Sylvania 25 inch console, in "Early American."

It was in 1967. I don't remember the first program we watched on it.

We were not the first family on the block to have colour, but we were the second.

It had a good picture, when it worked right. Oh, that mechanical tuner broke down with regularity.

I loved "Bewitched" in colour.

We bought it from a local dealer, who did their own service.....them days is long gone.

Our first colour with remote was from the mid 80s, a Montgomery Ward's badged Sharp.

This unit, which I am using as a monitor for my web connection, dvd, and vcr, is a 13 inch Sanyo. I like it a lot.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[frontaloadotmy]

1970 I think

My first employment started as "sixth period" work
experience at the "Montgomery Ward Catalog Store" in 1969.
It was a dark mostly fake wood Mediterranean style with tasteful "wrought iron" fancy work attached to the front legs and bottom of the cabinet. It must have been a 23" diag screen, whatever the largest available was. I'm sure it was selected from a clearance sale catalog, plus of course since it was close to Christmas we got an additional 5% discount on top of the regular employee 10%. Couldn't begin to tell you what the first color broadcast was. It replaced a 1954
"Hoffman Easy Vision" table top 21" all wood cabinet job. Sometime during the late eighties my dad removed the innards
from the shot Airline and slipped a Zenith table model in.
Fit near perfect, still in use.

 

[southernmdgeguy]

We had the 63 Zenith

Just as you described, which after it was replaced as the main color tv, was used as my mother's plant stand in the formal living room for years. Nice maple cabinet, had tone controls at the base of the speaker, lighted channel controls, one for VHF and one for UHF, and a door next to them for the color controls. Replaced in 1973 with another Zenith with "Space Command" remote (tuning fork) and a set of lights down the right hand side for channels, you tuned with thumb turns. Funny thing on that TV, the dog's id and vaccination tags would change channels, turn off the sound, etc. when she walked or scratched.. That TV was sold with the house in 98, still going strong. We had a TV in the kitchen, each bedroom, living room (the non functional plant stand) and the rec room.. Dad loved his TV's.. Still have the old RCA small color one from the kitchen and the 71 Sony Trinitron from their bedroom, both still work.

Scott

 

[Cybrvanr]

I was born into a family that already had color TV, being 30 years old. It was an Old Quasar/Mororola "works in a drawer" 27 inch console television. Just like you Burpilator, I remember my father constantly tweaking that TV. It also had a habit of going out of vertical sync frequently. The black vertical blanking bar would start rolling up the screen as the top of the picture ended up at the bottom. Since the TV was of course not remote control, someone had to get up to turn the vert hold knob. To this day, I still remember my mom saying "turn the big knob" when the signal would get a bit snowy or ghosty. We had it hooked up to a rooftop antenna, an it had to be turned every so often to clear up the picture.

Dad went big-time on TV technology in about 1982, and bought a fancy RCA colortrak. He also indulged himself with a VCR at the same time. One all the new video gadgets were home, the only thing left to do was get cable! I got to be very popular in the neighborhood, as the other kids wanted to come over and watch a videotape on the VCR, or watch CATV. It was amazing being able to watch cartoons in the afternoon after school! Or, if you did it right, get the VCR to record a show that ran during the day, and watch it back that afternoon!

 

[wiskybill]

1965 Zenith..

with the rectangular picture tube. I think that was pretty new at the time. I do recall that it went thru 3 picture tubes in the first 6 months and then played for many years trouble free.

Don't recall which program we watched first but, Grandma lived with us at the time and noone and nothing interupted her Saturday night dates with Lawerence Welk in Living Color. I think at the time many programs were just switching to color.

Bill

 

[cleanfresh]

Very early 70's to be exact

and haven't missed black and white since!!! I believe Panasonic was the brand.

 

[jasonl]

Color

I was born in 1970 so my parents had color television in a 19" or so Sears color TV. Then in about 75 or 76, they bought an RCA console with metal cabinet.

My grandparents on the other hand kept their 50s B&W tv until about the same time (74) and bought their CTC-48. I loved that TV and it's one of my dream tv's.

My aunt and uncle had a Works in The Drawer Quasar TV. I always admired that one because of all the buttons (my gadget loving side always comes out)

 

[cycla-fabric]

The first color tv we had was a Motorola console with a rectangular 23" picture tube. I remember it had a red light that would come on when the show was broadcasting in color. I also remember the repairman came to clean the tuner and he told us to spin the channel changer really fast to keep it clean. My dad almost died when he did that, and I started to laugh since my dad told us to turn the knob slowly so we wouldn't break it. When that set died, we got an RCA XL-100 25" console on a swivel base with a black glass top. That was a cool set as you could turn the set according to where you were setting in the room. Those were the days.....

 

[whirlcool]

We were middle of the roaders...

My parents got their first color television in 1964, when Zenith first released the rectanglar screen. My Mother wanted a set earlier as my aunts and uncles had already gotten a few of the "fish bowl" shaped sets, but my Dad said we'll wait until the square screens arrive.
The first set we got was a Zenith 25", just like the one that the Stephens in Bewitched had! Speakers on both sides of the screen, tone controls at the bottom of the set below the right speaker. It even had a separate treble and bass control. Real wood walnut cabinet too.
It was relatively trouble free, a few tuner cleanings and a couple of rectifier tubes. That set lasted all the way up to 1982 when it was replaced with another Zenith System III that had a telephone built into it. You could turn off the program sound and answer the phone by pressing a button on the remote. You could also dial out using the remote control. The speakers would act as a speakerphone. Kinda weird. One of those things that the concept sounds better than it actually works.
In 1970 we got a Zenith 17" color set with "Zoom". You could actually hit a button and the picture would "zoom" in. That set got a really sharp picture, much better than the 25" we had. But when in ZOOM the pixels were so far apart you could drive an 18 wheeler through them. I think the very first show we saw was "Bozos Circus" it came on when power was applied to the set for the first time.
Now here is a funny story for you. When we first got our first color set, the installer told my parents that they will need to get an outside antenna as Colour televisions are more demanding of signal stregnth that B&W televisions are. In other words the rabbit ears you are using may be good enough to get a great picture on your black & white set, but not good enough for a color set. The picture actually was quite snowy and VERY ghosty. My Mom just told the installer he'd tell my Dad. When he got home from his trip he really hit the roof! He said that he's not going to spend another $100 bucks for an antenna when he just got finished paying $700 for this &@@$&*#@* television.
So for several months we had a terrible picture. He was ok with it and nobody dared to explain it to him. So with my part time job (I was in high school) I saved up for a Winegard antenna and installed it all by myself and the picture turned out fantastic. My Dad never said a word to me about it, either .Kinda pissd me off, but at least he didn't complain. He could have at least said "thank you".
Now that you have read this whole thing here is a link that is very much related to this subject. Last year we celebrated the 50th Anniversary of color television broadcasting.
Here is a website that most certainly bring back memories for many of us, and could be very interesting to our younger members!

http://www.ev1.pair.com/colorTV/colorTVlogos.html

 

[Brneyedgrl80]

Ours was a 1975 Admiral Solid State console. It was bought before I was born, so I couldn't tell any of you what the first show was, but I can tell you that I still use the television to this day.

 

[48bencix]

Great Memories

I got my mom a 12" color Sanyo T.V. in 1985. Before that they had Black and White. I got my first color T.V. in 1970, after I moved from Berkeley to San Francisco. I had a room that was 8 feet wide and a king size bed which left 2 feet for the T.V. I had been given a 19" new BW set and exchanged it for a used color model. It was a round screen Admiral, probably from 1963 or so. It was a console unit similar to what Steve described. No remote or anything like that. But the picture was great. I remember seeing Hawaii 5-0 and the reds and blues were so vivid. I was working at my first job out of college, and didn't have a lot of money, I wanted a car more that the T.V. so I sold it and bought my 1969 GTO convertible.

In 1980 I bought a G.E. 19" table top T.V. no remote, but it did have a unique feature: VIR. A signal was broadcast by most stations at the time which reset the tint and color intensity automatically. It was called VIR for Vertical Interval Reference, the signal was next to that black bar which can show if the vertical hold is not set right. G.E. actually won an Emmy Award for that. I think only Panasonic used this feature other than G.E. It did improve the picture, but not much more than automatic color controls which most T.V.'s of the time had.

After that I had an RCA Colortrack 2000 26" square corner monitor. It had a black cabinet and was one of the last T.V.'s to have a separate glass in front of the tube. It also had a ton of inputs/outputs on the rear panel, and was one of the last to be adjusted with knobs, for things like tint and bass and treble. Then came the 1995 Magnavox 32" which I still have. I am looking at purchasing the Sony KD-34XBR960 which is a 34" tube HDTV. Still having a tube makes it somewhat old school in my own mind. I would kind of like to get it before they stop making tube televisions.

 

[polkanut]

Our first color set was a 1973 Zenith console. We purchased from my paternal grandmother's cousin who just happened to be the Zenith dealer in town. As a matter of fact all of our electronics were Zenith, imagine that.

 

[jaxsunst]

1968 Magnavox, long console with the record changer under a sliding door on one side, and the radio and TV controls under the other. We also had the 8 track deck that sat on top.

We used it till 1981 when we bought a Sony console and our first VCR. Which my parents used until November of last year, when they bought a plasma.

 

[cadman]

What a great topic!

Being a child of the 80's, this is the set I grew up with, a 1976 RCA Colortrak with three-button ultrasonic remote. A couple lightning strikes in the neighborhood rendered the motorized tuner useless, but that's ok since we used that dandy cable box with the alphanumeric dial. As a kid I put in a lot of hours watching this set, popping the black plastic insert off and playing with the knobs hidden behind the flip-down door! I can remember being woken up in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm to the set running with volume at full blast! Talk about scary.

The pic is from where the set now resides, in the basement collection. The VCR was the first VHS offered on the home market boasting 2 speeds! : ) My dad saved up quite a bit to buy it back in '77. And it still works too-

The replacement was an RCA Colortrak 2000 with Stereo and DNR! What a sleek, well built, gorgeous set. Too bad about the piano keyboard breakage on these models.

 

[cehalstead]

first color set

We were among the last in our neighborhood to get color, and we waited until cable came...we could only get one station and it wasn't very good. The first color set was a 1970 Magnavox 25" console...Modern. The very same day it was delivered, unknown to us, my Grandmother bought the same set, only the 19" version. Our Magnavox replaced a '56 Sylvania (the first set we owned) and Grandma's replaced a '52 Crosley, also the first one she had. We used the '71 until 1980, when I bought the new version of it and still have that set (it works great to this day).

 

[chad_hauris]

My parents got a 1975 Zenith solid state Chromacolor II as a wedding present. I can remember the picture starting to shrink vertically and having to use vise-grips to turn the channel as I probably had pulled the knobs off.

We got a 1986 Panasonic console to replace the Zenith and I can remember wanting a set with knob tuners (there were still some on display at the appliance store). I still remember testing out the Panasonic's remote control from across the store and being amazed by it. Also one time I put a magnet up to the CRT and boy was mom mad as the color was really messed up. Luckily for me the automatic degaussing took care of the problem the next time the set was turned on.

When I was in High School at my parents' house we used all kinds of old sets I would fix up such as an RCA CTC-39 in the dining room, a Sylvania GT-matic, and an RCA Mural TV in my sister's room. However when I left to go to the university these sets had to be retired to the garage where they still are today as my parents couldn't keep up with the maintenance.

 

[DADoES]

1972 23" Zenith console. Don't recall the first show.

 

[SactoTeddyBear]

Re: Great Start of Replies:

This was a great idea I think that I had to see how many of us could remember this info. Thank you all, for your input and I hope that more will reply as well. It is interesting how there are basically a few Brands that seem to be rather common for people to have purchased.

"BTW" I realize that I forgot to mention that our first Color TV {mentioned} was a 21-inch Diagonal Screen. We had it for about I believe around the early to mid 1980's, when it was replaced by a Zenith System-3 with the Zoom Button on the Remote Control. I also didn't think to mention that the Channels available for our area were VHF Ch-3,5,6,10,13 and the UHF Ch-40.

I gave the 2nd Zenith to some Friend that had it still working until last year, without any problems. This was a Family with 2-Sons and they both kind or hoarded the Remote's, so no one else could fool with them. Anyone who wanted to watch something on that TV, had to ask one of the Son's to change the Stations. They were always like a Kid with a new Toy, the whole time the Family had it for their use.

Peace and Fun Times and Memories, Steve
SactoTeddyBear...

 

[appnut]

My father won a 21" RCA color TV from a yearly valentine contest two local radio personalities my parents listened to in the morning for years. My dad entered the contest for several years and did quite well. Anyway, the mechanical valentine my dad came up with is caught sitting on a side table in the photograph taken for my 4th grade class that year. what was it we first watched on the TV, it was most likely either the Flintstones (probably as it was delivered on a weekday afternoon) or Bonanza. Understandably we kept that tv going for as long as we could. And when it met its demise, my dad held onto the wood cabinet and turned itinto a bookshelf in his office. It held that place of honor until my parents sold the house and moved to a retirement apartment community in 2002. And BTW, February 1964 was almost too much for me--new color tv, which was just like the next door neighborsw' and Beatles Invasino!!!

 

[brisnat81]

25

My parents purchased this in 1977 12 months after they got married. It had a nasty veneer cabinet, and sat on 4 chipboard legs.

On the top right it had a big power button, with 8 channel selectors below it.

There were then sliding controls for Volume, Colour, Contrast, Treble and Bass.

A big speaker and then a slide out drawer to tune the preset buttons. It was capable of displaying VHFL VHFH and UHF.

Colour TV only came to Australia in 1974, so a Colour TV in 77 was still quite a big deal.

The only channels we got when I was small was ABC and Prime which appeared on channels 2 and 5.

When we moved out of the country we had 5 Channels, ABC, Prime, WIN, Southern Cross and SBS, however all bar the ABC were broadcasting on UHF.

The first program I can remember watching was Saturday Night Disney, with the cartoon castle with the fireworks etc. Thats probably my best summer saturday night memory. Curled up in the beanbag, with the AC on as the Sun started to set, watching Disney. It was the good Disney stuff too, not the computer animated crap of today.

This TV lasted up until 1991 when after repeated repairs the picture would keep compressing down into a tiny line accross the screen. It was replaced with a 48cm Panasonic, which is still chugging along in Mums bedroom today. The picture however is now getting quite blurry.

The manual for the original TV which we no longer have, was filled in the back 10 pages with the virtues of the soon to be available Philips Laser Disc. Lots of big colour pictures etc. I think it took another 5 years plus before the Laser Disc became available domestically.