Were the first seasons of 'Bewitched' filmed in colour?

[wilkinsservis]

My bf's mother gave us the complete first two seasons of 'Bewitched' on DVD for Christmas. I always thought they were black and white, in fact I seem to remember something about them "colourised" by some technical process some years ago. Imagine my surprise when the first two seasons played in "natural" colour? Does anyone know the story behind this?

Peter

 

[whitekingd]

I believe only the pilot episode was filmed in black and white. I Dream of Jeannie was filmed in black and white the first season.

 

[dirtybuck]

First two seasons of Bewitched were in black and white. First season of Jeannie was black and white as well.

 

[Unimatic1140]

Seasons 1 and 2, 1964 and 1965 were in Black and White
Seasons 3 thru 8, 1966 thru 1972 were in color.

Jeannie, 1965 b&w / 1966-1970 color.

 

[Unimatic1140]

oh I forgot to mention that the DVD for the first two seasons came in both black and white or colorized versions.

 

[MikeS]

Dirtybuck Is Right

ABC was the slowest of the "Big Three" networks in converting to color broadcasting (largely because it had the least amount of money to invest in the changeover). But during the 1965-66 season, NBC was virtually all-color in prime time(with the exception of the first season of "Jeannie" and an action series called "Convoy"). That same season, CBS ramped up its color broadcast efforts. "The Beverly Hillbillies;" "The Lucy Show;" "Ed Sullivan" and "Andy Griffith" were broadcast in tint that year, along with most of its new series.
By contrast, ABC did launch some new color programs ("Gidget," "Tammy," "OK Crackerby!"). But most of ABC's lineup--including "Bewitched," "Peyton Place," "Shindig" and others--were still broadcast in black and white. ABC--which nipped NBC for second place during the 1964-65 season--fell back to a distant third. ABC borrowed about $25 million from conglomerate ITT (which made an unsuccessful bid to buy the network) and converted its operations for color broadcasting. By the fall of 1966, all three television networks were totally color in prime time. That includes "Bewitched" and other returning series that had been filmed or taped in black and white.
And as Unimatic pointed out, the DVD versions of "Bewitched" have been available in either colorized form or traditional B&W.

 

[MikeS]

"The Lucy Show" In Color

I would be remiss if I didn't point out another interesting color TV fact: "The Lucy Show" was filmed in black in white for its first season (1962-63). But Lucille Ball (who took over Desilu studios after Desi Arnaz sold her his share in the company) decided her sitcom would be filmed in color, starting in the fall of '63--its second season. CBS still refused to air "Lucy" in color, but Ball was thinking about the syndication market, and believed color would make the show's reruns easier to sell to local stations. She was right, and CBS didn't show the color "Lucy Show" episodes in color until the fall of 1965.

 

[passatdoc]

quite right, MikeS

Lucille Ball was always ahead of the technology curve. To avoid moving to NYC to do "I Love Lucy" live (with kinescope copies outside the Northeast), she and Desi developed the three camera film system shot in front of a live audience. This is why I Love Lucy reruns from the era have motion picture-like image quality, while shows such as The Honeymooners or Milton Berle are kinescopes, and look as if they were filmed underwater. Within several years, most of the industry was forced to follow Desilu's lead.

Lucy insisted on filming The Lucy Show in color after the initial 1962-63 B&W season, but seasons two and three were not broadcast in color. By season four, CBS was all-color in prime time. Because of her foresight, future generations were able to watch Lucy Show reruns of seasons two and three in color, even though the original broadcasts in 1963-65 were B&W.

Bewitched reruns of the first two seasons have been in B&W since the world began, so had they been filmed in color and broadcast in B&W (Lucy Show style), we would have seen color episodes long before computer colorization existed. Those B&W episodes really ARE in B&W.

 

[passatdoc]

ps on kinescopes

In 1951, when I Love Lucy began, only the Northeast and part of the Midwest were linked by coaxial cable. A live broadcast from New York could be viewed live along the Northeast Coast (i.e. Boston to Washington) and as far west as Chicago-St. Louis. The rest of the country received kinescope copies (a motion picture film of a studio monitor displaying the program), which were inferior in quality and subject to a processing delay (usually, areas outside the live transmission zone saw the episodes a week later).

Commercial videotape systems did not yet exist. So either you filmed it the Lucy way (brand new technology at the time) or you kinescoped it. By creating motion picture quality prints, Desilu unknowingly invented the rerun. As part of their deal with CBS, Desilu retained ownership of the films, and when the show became a hit, demand to see the older episodes grew way beyond anything Desilu imagined. At the time, public demand to view old episodes was a novel concept.

By 1952, a coast to coast coaxial cable had been built, allowing national live televiewing, but in the absence of videotape, the Desilu film method was still the best way of recording a program, so most shows converted to that format, supplanted much later by videotape.

 

[whirlcool]

In the beginning of the I Love Lucy show when Desi told the studio that he wanted the show on film, CBS balked. They said it was too expensice, so the Arnaz' supplied the film. This gave the ownership of the episodes. This made them very rich very quickly.

One would have thought that anyting with Lucy would have been filmed in color early on as they were always referencing her "Red Hair".

 

[jeffg]

CBS were notorious tightwads back then. During the third season of Twilight Zone, they told Rod Serling his show would be videotaped instead of filmed. Serling complained loudly, but a total of six episodes (out of 156) were taped.

Viewing them today, it's easy to understand why Serling protested. Just awful. Videotape has zero presence and looks like someone's home movies.

 

[MikeS]

The Battle For Color Broadcasting

In the late 1940's, CBS and RCA/NBC were engaged in a battle over which company's color broadcasting system would become the national standard. RCA/NBC pushed for a "dot-sequential" color system that was compatible with the black and white system of the day (allowing B&W set owners to see color shows in monochrome). CBS pushed for a "field-sequential" color wheel system, which was incompatible with black and white sets of the day, and requiring all UHF reception, forcing major outlays for both consumers and the industry. But CBS' system was superior in picture quality to the early RCA/NBC efforts, and the Federal Communications Commission adopted the CBS color system in 1950.
Trouble was, few other TV set makers (certainly not leader RCA) were willing to build CBS-compatible color sets. That forced CBS to buy a third-rate TV set maker to build CBS-compatible sets. It was an expensive flop (very few were willing to toss out their old B&W sets and buy a color receiver that picked up only CBS color shows). By late 1951, CBS "asked" the Truman administration to "order" that all color television production and broadcasts be stopped due to raw material needs for the Korean War. The order was granted; CBS ended up buying back all the color sets it had sold up to that time.
Meanwhile, David Sarnoff ordered RCA engineers to come up with a better compatible color system, and spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the project. By 1953, the new RCA/NBC color system was evaluated by the FCC; it was far better than earlier efforts, supported by a vast majority of television set makers and didn't require B&W set owners to buy a new color set (or TV stations to buy new equipment). The FCC--in a rare reversal--made the RCA/NBC color system the new American broadcast standard.
It took about a decade for color set sales to increase enough for the networks to beef up their color program schedules, but it wasn't until 1972 that color TV set sales exceeded those of black and white for the first time in the US.

 

[danemodsandy]

The Lucy Myth:

I have to say something that may raise a few peoples' ire, but it's the truth. As much of a technical genius as Desi Arnaz was, and as much as he did to raise the quality of sitcom filming, he did not invent the three-camera technique. It was used on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, too, beginning in 1950, a full year before Lucy's first episode was filmed. There may have been other uses of the technique before Lucy, but that's the earliest one I have proof of in the form of a filmed show on DVD. The Burns and Allen episodes I have are not as polished as Lucys, but they are three-camera film, not kinescopes, nonetheless.

From what I can tell, Desi's major contribution was that he understood - way before the networks did - that if a show was really good, people might well want to see it again in syndication. Since videotape was not a feasible technology until '56 or '57, that left film as the best medium to preserve a performance. I have been told that the Burns and Allen shows were filmed to accommodate the stars' schedules, not for re-run potential, but I have no proof of that yet.

 

[paulg]

Air-King

Stupid trivia but I believe CBS bought AIR-KING as their third-rate TV manufacturer.
Actually I think it was closer to 1968 where color-TV sales exceeded B&W.
oh well, neither here nor there...

 

[MikeS]

On Air King

Actually, paulg, we are both right.
According to historians, CBS purchased Hytron Radio and Electronics Corporation; Air-King was the television manufacturing subsidiary of Hytron. But no matter how you spelled it, Hytron was a money-loser and eventually was abandoned by CBS. Even with CBS-branded black and white sets, Hytron simply could not compete with such established brands of the day as RCA, General Electric, Philco, Westinghouse and Admiral.
Regarding the information about color television set sales, the following came from both "TV Facts" by C. Steinberg [1980], and "2001 World Almanac":
In 1972, just over 17 million television sets of all types were sold in the United States. Of those, 8,845,000 were color sets versus 8,239,000 black and white units. The year before, monochrome sets outsold color by just over 300,000 units. And the margin continued to widen during the remainder of the 1970's and beyond.
Neither here nor there, as you say, but I just wanted to clarify where I obtained my facts.

 

[wilkinsservis]

Colourised

If the first two seasons were colourised they did a pretty good job-the colour is "natural" by standards of the day.

 

[passatdoc]

another factor that slowed color television adoption in the

The early RCA color sets introduced in 1954 cost $1000, more like $10,000 equivalent today. Only the wealthy could afford them. By the mid-1960s, a 21 inch set ran about $500, about $2500 in today's money, so that price was ok for upper middle class families but not for the vast middle class.

My family's first color tv was won in a service club raffle. My father was a dentist, so our standard of living was higher than average middle class (yes, we had a KitchenAid dishwasher and a complete kitchen remodel in 1961-2...), but $500 was quite a chunk of change to drop for a tv set when most of the programming was still in B&W.

The first color set my parents PURCHASED (as opposed to holding the winning raffle ticket...) was when the raffle tv (a GE that didn't last very long) died about five years after we won it. My parents bought a 19 inch Hitachi tabletop model for about $329 in 1972. That set lasted until c. 1979, when it too died and was replaced by a Mitsubishi 19 inch color table top set. The Mitsubishi cost about $450 but that was less money than say $500 in 1965. This set lasted a respectable 15 years and had wonderful color.

As mentioned already in this thread, color sales did not overtake B&W sales until 1972, when a decent color set (our Hitachi) could be had for little more than $300, and at that point the % of households in the USA with color reception surpassed 50%. The early sets never had a chance for market penetration because they were too costly, and because the prime time schedule was not entirely in color until the mid to late 1960s.

Below is an interesting link to "The Lucy Show" introduction from its third season, 1964-65. As mentioned earlier, Lucy was filmed in color from 1963 (second season), but the original primetime episodes were not broadcast in color until 1965. As a result, seasons two and three (1963-65) were filmed in color, but Americans saw them for the first time in B&W. Desilu recognized the importance of residual fees from reruns and wanted color film for the future, even if their CBS network didn't want to invest in color technology to broadcast Lucy in color.

The opener is a montage of clips from seasons one and two. As a result, the film is a mix of color (season two) and B&W (season two). I don't know which season the Charlie Chaplin spook was shown, it could have been season two with B&W on purpose to impart a 1920s effect. However, I am certain that the stilts clip is from season one (have seen it in reruns in B&W only) and the balloons clips is from season two (I have it on DVD in color).

Note: Vivian Vance's character of Vivian Bagley was the FIRST divorced woman ever depicted on US television. The Lucy Carmichael character was a widow, but Vivian played a divorcee and made numerous sardonic references about her ex, presumably still living. This was a sensitive subject at the time and probably only someone with Vivian Vance's enormous popularity with the public could have pulled this off. Lucille Ball earlier was the very first pregnant woman shown on tv, and all of the pregnancy scripts had to be approved by a committee comprised of a Catholic priest, Protestant minister, and Jewish rabbi (this was Desilu's own precaution to gain approval with the network....CBS wanted her to take a season off.)

 

[passatdoc]

ps

I am too young to remember The Lucy Show early seasons in its original run, but the season three opener linked above was seen by American viewers entirely in B&W in evening primetime in 1964-65. Later syndicated rerun viewers such as myself saw the opener partly in color and partly in B&W, as the clips were originally filmed and then stitched together to make this opener. Some of the clips really WERE in B&W because they are from the first season filmed in B&W only (e.g. the stilts clip).

There is a separate season two opener that used color photographs (but no video) from the first season. That opener was likewise seen in B&W in its original run in 1963-64, but subsequent syndicated reruns showed the opener in color (no color video, just still photos).

When she started The Lucy Show in 1962, Vivian Vance had remarried and had relocated to Stamford, Connecticut. Her husband was a literary agent and needed to live near New York City. Appearing weekly on The Lucy Show meant a weekly commute to California for twenty-five weeks a year, made possible in part by the advent of nonstop jet flights between New York and Los Angeles (five hours coast to coast). The show rehearsed Monday-Wednesday and filmed on Wednesday evenings, so presumably she either took a late Thursday red eye flight to New York or else flew back east early Friday morning, only to return Sunday evening to Los Angeles. I would imagine Desilu had to cover first class airfare and hotels for her, unless she maintained an apartment near the studio.

Her contract also called for more glamorous costumes than she had worn in I Love Lucy (no longer the shabby landlady Ethel Mertz) and she was not required to stay 20 pounds overweight so as to appear older than Lucy; actually, she was a year or two younger than Lucy.

By season three, Vance grew tired of the weekly coast to coast commute and reduced the number of episodes in which she appeared. As a result, the season three opener has two versions, with and without the voiceover "co-starring Vivian Vance".

By season four, she had dropped out as a regular cast member and made only once or twice a year appearances to the show. The show premise in 1962-65 was of two single women sharing a house in Danfield, New York (coined from the actual nearby towns of Danbury and Ridgefield, Connecticut).

With the 1965 season, Lucy moved to California and began working in Mr Mooney's bank as his secretary, Mr Mooney having been coincidentally transferred from the Danfield National Bank to the Westfield National Bank of California.

In New York, Mr Mooney managed her trust fund and many of the episodes involved Lucy trying to get Mr Mooney to increase her allowance or draw from the trust fund. There were some "Lucy disasters" set in the Danfield bank lobby, but Lucy was a customer of the bank and not (yet) Mr. Mooney's secretary.

Starting with the 1965 season, Lucy's daughter Chris goes off the college, son Jerry is sent to military boarding school, and Lucy is now living alone in Los Angeles. She applies for and is hired by the Westfield Bank, and is assigned to be Mr Mooney's secretary, thus setting the stage for Mr Mooney shouting "MRS CARMICHAEL!!!" every time Lucy messes up in office. Vivian Bagley would appear once or twice per season, depicted as visiting from New York where she presumably still lived (no mention of her son Sherman).

The children (Candy Clark-Chris, Jimmy Garrett-Jerry, and Ralph Hart-Sherman Bagley) made only limited appearances on the program and were not included in every episode. I would not be surprised if ratings surveys showed that they did not add much to the show. People were used to a decade of Lucy and Ricky and Fred and Ethel and Little Ricky, so taking away the men and adding three unknown children sort of upset the apple cart for many viewers, and detracted from the humor.

The Lucy Show did well in ratings, but many critics felt it was a step down from I Love Lucy, and it never hit the prior show's meteoric popularity. (I remember watching I Love Lucy reruns as a kid but never watching The Lucy Show at night in prime time, it just wasn't as funny).

 

[passatdoc]

I just found the season two opener.....

In color, but using only color (colorized?) photos from season one. I am too young to have watched this in prime time, but the viewers who did see it saw it in B&W. The reruns I saw growing up showed the intro in color. This would have been the first year that Lucy was filmed in color but broadcast in black and white. The season three opener includes some color clips (balloons caper) from season two.