1959 NBC Peacock

[fromthesidelines]

It was BOB LeMond, 'Dampe'. Supposedly, an original videotape of this special exists somewhere, in private hands...

[kyleholtytp12]

Why is a PBS logo in the corner of a full-screen NBC logo? XD

[SamBuddwing]

Well, what can one say - NBC began broadcasting in color before it had a practical way of recording in color. When Ampex came out with its quad B&W videotape recorder in 1956, RCA (NBC's parent company) began frantically trying to find a way to make the Ampex machine record and play back in color.

[89990000]

@togi55

This following program is brought to you in dead color on NBC!

[JB17Wagna]

that's some nice color

[chiexteen]

FUCK YOU

[RareMusicalGems]

Was this recorded in Palm Springs? I notice the KVCR logo. That's where I live.

[JohnFordDanceTroupe]

My hopes have been destroyed.

Fuck you, kinescope process, for not preserving color programming good enough.

[TheAppleMan100]

living color eh, so im guessing black and white is really color tv.

[baraxor]

The following program is brought to you in dead black-and-white on NBC

[Malaran12]

My mom told me that when she was kid she would see these logos on her small black and white TV and get so jealous of her friends who were seeing it in color!

[guildsadventures]

This may have been recorded on a black and white tv

[altfactor]

This version was unusual because it didn't have any music background.

[mattratt512]

more like brought to you in black and white. LOL

[ColumbiaPicturesFan]

What show was this taken from?

[christopherlacroix]

Black and white are colors. :P

[slaveyMe]

Humph!! More like DYING color. : 1

[sunlexlo]

living color my foot! LOL!

[eastest566]

The following program is brought to you in Black & White on NBC

[arnyjk]

Color TV in the late 50s/early 60s must have been the equivalent of 1080p today. :)

[whattheheck1000]

no, more like a 50"+ 1080p set.

[Jeopardyfan101]

@arnyjk or 3D tv

[thelyniezian]

Or not in this case.

[nickellodeon55]

Must have been an alternative version. Where's Ben Grauer?

[ellesstee]

My uncle got his color TV in 1959 and it was an event when we went there to see the NBC peacock in color.

[ColumbiaPicturesFan]

That ain't living color XD

[LJK193]

Why have an "in color" ID in black and white

[whattheheck1000]

Look at the year. 1959. This is how 99.99% of the TV audience saw the ident.

[pvx]

Yes, and if I'm not mistaken, the majority of TV stations then themselves (and not just the fact that very few people owned color tv sets in '59) weren't equipped to handle color yet, IIRC...

The way I see it, color TV in 1959 was what digital TV was in 1997.... It was around, but too new to be deployed on a wide scale (due to the initially expensive cost of any new technology).

[whattheheck1000]

My household didn't have non-analog TV until 2003.

[pvx]

For me, I was analog until 2002. My first DTV receiver then was a WinTV-D card I installed in one of my PCs, it was the cheapest way to watch DTV then (set me back about $120 on eBay at the time, the only other alternative then were set-top boxes form Samsung and the like for $300+). Nowadays, with a $40 gov't coupon, you can get a DTV receiver box for around $10 (sigh).

[sonictrey]

I've been digital for most of my life, seeing as I haven't lived very long. I still have an analog antenna in my house, but I can only do that today because of the digital transition.

R.I.P. Analog Television

Cicira 1920-June 12, 2009

[MissSkymin]

And we will dearly miss it. Ever since we bought our first TV in '69, I've loved it. It just has that feel to it. Same thing with music- LP's have fuller sounding music and CD's just sound tinny and artificial. That's why some artists still release their songs on records.

[monzavideo]

WMAQ TV In Chicago was the first to go all color. Every lamp in their 4 studios had 5000 watt lamps just to make a picture.

[TimothySEnglish]

Well just how many color televisions were available back in '59? No shows I've ever seen were filmed in color back then, so what was the point anyway?

[actionsub]

That's why all episodes of Bonanza, which premiered in 1959, were filmed in color. NBC commissioned that as a way to promote the sales of color TV sets for parent company General Electric. There were a few shows before that time in color, The Cisco Kid, the last couple of seasons of The Lone Ranger, among others.

[pvx]

And one episode of the original 50s run of Dragnet was in color--"The Big Little Jesus", which aired Xmas of 1953 (the same year NTSC color was introduced). Whether it aired in color (on WMAQ or elsewhere) I'm not certain of, and most prints I've seen of that episode have been in black & white...

[pegbars]

FWIW, the parent company of NBC was RCA.

[actionsub]

Thanks for the correction.

[fishhead06]

This encouraged children to bitch to their parents about getting a colour TV, if I recall correctly.

[dknights411]

That was America's cue to buy a color TV set. Just like MTV was the cue to get cable/satelitte and the Super Bowl was the cue to get HD!

[liddlepeep]

Color my foot.

[tsntana]

No music?

[KOFILMSANDMEDIA]

living color in black and white.

[nicolevictoria06]

i dont see anything colored in that.

[dnm72863]

This was kinescoped.

[dcbandnerd]

Apparently not...

[ishredu]

what a miss...lol

[sarniatownreggae]

Well that kills the purpose.

[meesterfonnyboy]

Well, that was unusual (and I don't mean a "color bumper" in black and white). I was expecting that big score to kick in.

The announcer is Jack Hanrahan.

[meesterfonnyboy]

That should be Bill Hanrahan.

[tropied]

Speaking of the announcer, why did he said ''In Living Color'' instead of ''In Living Black and White''?

[opennskyy]

Because the actual broadcast WAS in color, but the TV was a black-and-white set.

[asiekierka]

There IS a color version on YouTube AFAIK

[DampeTheCurator]

Yes, a reproduction using the audio of this logo and the video of another.

[DampeTheCurator]

Wrong both times; the announcer is Bill LeMond.

It's from "Some of Manie's Friends", a 90-minute fundraiser for the Manie Sacks Foundation that aired on 3 March 1959. Sacks, who steered Frank Sinatra's career as a record producer, died of leukemia in 1958.