NBC PEACOCK - NETWORK ID - 1960s

[Keven19741]

The NBC peacock would spook the daylights out of me when I was a little kid, as well as the MGM lion.But the peacock was spookier than the lion.

[albinolucario]

i heard of one rare bumper were the peacock jumped at one point and the feathers spelt nbc

could someone post that one?

[mrantman441]

Watching this reminds me being a little squirt at my aunt's house and my uncle always had the news on NBC, with Chet Huntley. Can I please get a wayback machine to those wonderful times?

[camflex66]

@JarheadPatriot0311 Oh yeah, at your local 7-11 stores, I sure do. What about the watergate era? you only had a hand full of channels to watch then and just about all of them were wiped out with that mess. BTW thank you for your service, America sure needs folks like you now.

[elc1960]

The next sound I hear in my head after this is: "One of these stars is sitting in the Secret Square, and the contestant who picks it could win a prize package worth $3,000 dollars! Which star is it?" (Mid-'60s "Hollywood Squares" intro) It was generally connected to days when we had a "Snow Day", or were home sick from school and watching TV. God, I miss childhood. (Or is it Wally Cox and Charley Weaver that I miss?)

[brainysnaeha]

I think this is their best nettwork ID ever!

[Bradyhousetour]

I know it's redundant to say this, but this brings back SO many memories. Thank you for posting this!

[1969pontiac1]

@Bradyhousetour I am with you, I think all of us on you tube long for the great memories we had, I know I did, had a magical childhood growing up in the late 60s and 70s... thanks for the work that went into to this.... sounds crazy brought tears to my eyes.......miss my dad....where did time go? Good health and blessings to all.

[Sheri451]

I guess everything else was in dead black and white

[Sheri451]

Now thats the one I remember.

[camflex66]

In the very early 70's, every Friday night I would spend the night at my grandparents and my grandmother and I would sit up late and watch Johnny, and this logo would come on right before the show started. Then when the show was over, we'd shut the lights off, and turn the TV off and watch the little white dot of light in the middle of the screen fade away for 5 min. I guess when your a little kid that was cool, hell, it was free anyway.....

[musicom67]

Yes, that 'clunk' sound of the TV when you turned it on and the phosphor white dot fading when you turned it off.... Dial Telephones...AM Top40 Radio.... Damn we're getting old! Digital is boring, eh?

[whattheheck1000]

Digital is CRAP.

[c3cubed]

@musicom67 Digital indeed deadly... Don't forget the thrill of the family's first colour TV - the disappearing dot was "tricolour" blending together, fading into the screen centre and then that incredible static crackle. Oh, and I think we were told never to sit too close for fear of radiation poisoning.

[OldMrMemories]

LOL! I remember me and my brothers would all get our faces right on the tube to wacth that little dot fade away. I always equated that with having to go to sleep. I think todays TV programming is boring compared to the Tv I watched throughout the 60's and 70's.

[JarheadPatriot0311]

@camflex66 What a great memory friend. Me and my brothers would also get really close to the set to watch the dot and see if we could still see the program on. lol Great time to be a kid. Remember the Tube testers at the Market? I truly miss those days so much.

[Chicago10281]

This peacock was around when I was little(WMAQ in Chicago)I wonder what the young people today think of this here peacock?

[ricknkay]

Yes, channel 5. NBC was "the all-color network." I watched it in black and white until the mid1970s!

[gwugluud11]

That music scared the CRAP out of me as a kid. Something about that flute. Hearing it again even as a 49-year-old makes me think of, like, corpses with their eyes open and stuff...

[thillwl]

I'm glad to know I wasn't the only one who had that feeling as a kid.

[Joe49er1964]

I love the NBC Peacock

[NathanSt]

saw this on Conan's Tonight Show debut and absolutely loved it.

thanks mr. channel guy for posting it =)

[reyzaguirr]

yeah it was very cool, probably an homage to Carson.... too bad it was only for that one show

[imajeepster]

i could watch that again and again...i think i will!

I would give anything to be a kid again, lying on my stomach in front of the tv...just for one hour.

[happyquails]

I had nightmares in the late 60's early 70's over the insurance ad where they showed a darkened living room on a stormy night with the light of a streetlamp casting shadows of the wind blown branches outside across the room when a branch suddenly crashes very loudly through the window That was so frightening for me! I dreampt of that in terror for years!!! ( isn't "drempt" a word? I can't find it's correct spelling)!

[markojameow]

Perhaps I could help you, happyquails. I believe the correct spelling here is "dreamt". I hope this clears things up for you.

[malikscifi92]

GREAT use of photographic effects! This one and the "NBC xylophone" are NBC's two best logos, i think. they really need to bring this one back, restore it and enhance it for HD broadcasts, so it'd be clear and bright and crisp as ever

[ECG3485]

And then the intro would be:

"The following program is brought to you in High Definition on NBC."

[FLSON]

That's a great idea. It would look great restored and in HD. I am 44 and can remember when color TV was still a pretty big thing.

[blisserd]

Much nicer than the current NBC peacock.

[moviedudeinc]

I totally agree with you!!

[moviedudeinc]

one word RARE !!! :)

[Chisox74]

This will always be a great piece not only of TV history,but Americana.

When I was a child,I would have nightmares about the peacock and that music,but as I got older,I learned to appreciate how cool that is.

Thanks for posting this.

[markojameow]

I used to get nightmares about the peacock myself, but not so much the music itself. I look at this wonderful, vanished piece of 1960s/1970s Americana the same way. By the way, Laramie (this peacock's pet name) had - and still has - many fans in Canada, too.

[DJKhrome]

I'm sure glad more people are confessing that they had nightmares about the '62 Peacock like I did! When NBC shortened the Living Color ID in '66 and used the bass-voiced Mel Brandt as the announcer, which I found out later that Brandt was also the announcer of the old NBC soap, "The Doctors",

it scared the crap outta me as a kid!

[markojameow]

Didn't Macdonald Carey (the longtime voice behind Days of Our Lives) also do "In Living Color" announcements? A little birdie told me that he did a few.

[DJKhrome]

That gets tossed around a lot, but Carey's voice is not as bass sounding as Mel Brandt's. If you ever run across any old episodes of the 60's-70's NBC soap "The Doctors", Brandt used to be the announcer there as well.

[dnm72863]

I guess I shouldn't be ashamed to admit having nightmares about the Peacock when I was a kid - but that's what you get for seeing a "Living Color" bumper on a B&W set (my family didn't get a color set until 1977).

[Chisox74]

Same here.I had nightmares about it until I was oh,let's say 30.lol.

[markojameow]

My family bought their first color TV set in 1974, and a second set (a little black-and-white thing for my bedroom) a few years later. I did find the Living Color bumpers as scary as anything as a little one, in either color or black and white. I've happily outgrown this phobia.

[mca1218]

Still lovely after 46 years...

[MattMc2]

the following program is brought you in living color on nbc.

[primeralives]

What a strange feeling I get hearing this little jingle. Takes me back to being a kid in the 60's . A time I'll never see again. Sure miss those days and the TV and music of those times.

[markojameow]

I found the video scary when I was little, but the music had a sweetness that made everything seem not so bad. These days, this ranks as the greatest TV network logo of all time.

[Italiabeefy]

LOVED IT WHEN I WAS LITTLE!

[JusticeLivesNot]

I remember this!! Thanks!!

[angusthethird]

As a 3-5 year-old, this theme sounded a bit spooky to me, esp. at night.

[scotpens]

I always expect the Peacock bumper to be followed by Alexander Courage's "USS Enterprise" fanfare as this week's episode of Star Trek begins.

[sufan14870]

Man I'm old enough to remember this. Thanks for posting!

[Atoz1]

Thanks for the wonderful childhood memories this brings back. I grew up in a small town in the mountains of southwest Virginia in the 1960s. The only tv station we received then was NBC channel 6. The NBC "Peacock" was the only network symbol I ever knew until I was 10 years old and we moved away.

[monos70]

I love watching this old retro TV intro stuff especially during the winter days. Feels cozy, with a hot beverage, freaking cold drizzly outside at a dusk cloudy day.

[VirgilB01]

Man! what memories! I remember seeing the peacock on our first color set. it was a Zenith 19inch floor model( i think i was a Trinitron) or something..Anyway it was one of those sets with a record player and a radio on the right side panel(No remote in those days, you hadto change by hand!) And it was heavy with tubes! My father purchased it second hand for about $50. put a few tubes in the back and it was brand new! what a beautiful peice of furniture! WHAT COLOR!!

[Sneigke]

Yikes, the first color TV we had was a Zenith 19"! (RIP) and although it was the late 60's [I think I've dated myself], I remember it was much smaller than the B and W console which I once or twice played with; as it was sitting it my brothers' and my playroom. AFAIK, thinking back as a now EE, the set worked, but I think was dust filled as I remember hearing the "zzzzzzzz" and smelling a weird odor... which I know know was ozone.

Watched the first moon landing on that RCA!!!!

[Sneigke]

Oops, brian fart.

That would be the Zenith I saw the what... '69 landing on...

The console B and W was I think.. a Philco.... A strange offshoot of Ford Motor Co...

The RCA wasa the sedond color, all tube - point-to-point wired set we had...

Compare a P2P, all tube chassis with today's "big box with a tiny PCB but still a big-ass ERT" TV... I think yer paying for the box more than the electronics!

[meridethtohayes]

Thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!

[meridethtohayes]

Clarinets, flutes, harps?

[number1scatterbrain]

You're right it's a clarinet and a harp in the beginning, and then a flute over top of them.

[abralive]

Through out the 60's and 70's this was by far the most beautiful program introduction in television history. NBC had pure gold with this. Thank you for keeping it.

[kgorden]

I remember when NBC showed the "Wizard of Oz", they would have the peacock intro, with the announcer adding after the standard "brought to you in living color on NBC" line, "the first portion of this program is in black and white"...I wonder if anyone still has that intro???

[mca1218]

You've cited probably my favorite memory of this bird...seeing it before "Oz," "Laugh-In," and "The Tonight Show." And when "Oz" came on with the black-and-white advisory, I actually got butterflies. TV specials were events back then.

[number1scatterbrain]

I keep listening to the music over and over again to try to figure out the instrumentation and melody - there's a harp repeating some chromatic scales,

then a flute which sounds like it's stacking fifths before trilling at the very end - one of the most unique soundbytes I've ever heard.

[mezansky]

i love it

[number1scatterbrain]

Thanks to whoever posted this. Very hypnotic,

I think that's why some at-the-time youngsters were creeped-out by it. I love it. It reminds me of being 8-9-10 years old, getting up on Saturday morning (no school!) to watch cartoons and the Apollo missions before going out to play.

[raposofan]

I agree with everybody. Best classic ident ever. I'm almost 40 and seeing it actually made tears form in my eyes...

[visor109]

Mary Poppins? Please explain!

[Hemingray]

Maybe, if we all email and call NBC, they'll bring it back?

[Disco2009]

What?

[Hemingray]

Piggybacking on reyzaguirr's comment, this would be great for HD broadcasts.

[Jnelson09Returns]

I agree. "The following program is brought to you in high definition on NBC."

[Chicago10281]

What if NBC says yes? or No?

[mginsel]

MAN, what a nostalgic 11 second memory rush that was!

[RobinMetrocolor]

This is my favourite version of the NBC peacock.

[reyzaguirr]

They should bring this back for HD broadcasts "broadcast in living Color!" Thanks for posting this, very cool

[dnm728]

This version of the Peacock (which I call the Kaleidoscopic Peacock) was first shown in September 1962 to introduce an episode of the Western series "Laramie."

[ChristianWithNES]

This has always been among my favourite idents.

[madtv99]

This was always my favorite logo bumper and we didnt get a color tv until 1980. When I saw this on other color tv's though, I just loved the color montage in the beginning. Just beautiful!! Glad to see it again.

[ishredu]

I must be weird i used to run to the tv to watch this peacock thing...I loved it! still do

[daminmancejin]

i love it too cause the way it comes on and the it sounds

[navyblue82]

Thanks for the memory. The peacock reminds me of a day I remember clearly. A Saturday morning in the fall of 1964. Dad, granddad and 9 year old me went to the local "TV and Appliance" store downtown and bought the first color TV that our family owned. Before lunch, men dressed like the Maytag Repairman delivered it to our house. I still remember that a "Hector Heathcote" cartoon was the first TV show I saw in color on a set that we owned.

[stingray1964]

it's amamzing how something so simple can bring back such good memories!!

[numbersixmusic]

HA! i'm just gratified to find out i wasn't the only kid a bit unsettled whenever this thing was broadcast.

we also had a black and white t.v. -- until the mid 70s...

[sps242]

HA! I laugh at the people who admit they were creeped out or scared of this bumper..It was a little strange to watch when you were a little kid in the 60's as I was..only thing was, when they announced "In living color"..I never got it..we didn't get a color tv until the late 70's..damn, I couldn't see the Wizard Of Oz color change over when Dorothy landed in Oz and opened the door of her fallen house like many kids in my class did! Thanks musicom67 for this!

[Chicago10281]

Any chance this bird will come back as a retro?

[DJKhrome]

Wait a minute, Mel Brandt...is that cat the one with the deep heavy voice that announced the shortened Peacock ID in the mid 60's?

[wmbrown6]

Also, the one who announced "Saturday Night Live" in 1981-82 - the only Don Pardo-less season.

[wmbrown6]

The regular one, yes. The variation with "Now, a special program in living color on NBC," seen from 1968 to c.1975, was announced by Vic Roby.

[markojameow]

wmbrown6, you have to be a walking, talking encyclopedia of TV history. Vic Roby's variation of the Laramie Peacock was first used in November, 1968 - which I must proudly say was the month in which I was born. Elvis' "comeback" special came along when I was two weeks old; in all likelihood, Vic Roby's announcement preceded the program.

[fromthesidelines]

All NBC programs began with this bumper (or the shorter version) between the fall of 1965 and the late summer of 1970, as this was the standard "Living Color" I.D. At that time, NBC frequently billed itself as "The Full Color Network"- and it was, in the fall of '65 {except for "I DREAM OF JEANNIE" and "CONVOY" that season). Mel Brandt was the announcer....

[bluebear1985]

Actually, the daytime game show "Concentration" was the last NBC program to make the switch to colour.

[dosman434]

in thoes times, HD=living color

[ChristianWithNES]

NBC should bring this ident back!

[dunkirchen1940]

I had bought my dad one of the "Laugh-in" DVD's, and they have this before each of the episodes. Both my parents had flash backs to this, and they remembered to good times! I wish I had grown up in the 60's. I am in the USAF, and would have loved to have fought in Nam.

E-3 Bandow

[andresmalagreca]

The NBC Peacock is the nicest TV logo ever.

[Chicago10281]

Anybody ever had a peacock for a pet?

[citizenterryk]

yeah, my aunt has a couple of them(she raises show birds as a hobby); suprisingly, they're very docile birds who'll eat out of your hand

[DJKhrome]

I remember this used to scare the crap out of me when I was a kid! Too funny!

[sammyreed]

Anytime I mentioned my fear of that on message board postings, the replies were almost all "How could this possibly be scary?" I'm glad there's FINALLY somebody else who was afraid of that thing.

[citizenterryk]

yeah, i think for me, it was the music and the announcer that creeped me out the most...really can't imagine somebody actually sitting down to compose that!!....kinda sounds like something Todd Rundgren might do...

[BootPatrol]

The best ID clip for any network!

[350vette2003]

I remember watching NBC with the peacock in the 60's. We had a new Admiral 23" console, right around 1965 I think. Thanks for the memories!!

[MsGeek703]

The EXTENDED version! w00t!

[WoodyL]

Iconic. I half expect to suddenly hear Doc Severinsen and the NBC Orchestra kick off "Johnny's Theme"

[gvk9r]

I love peacocks!

[lonestar1]

this is so great to see this and the memories it brings back!! This fanfare also brings to mind the intro and fanfare to "NBC Saturday Night at the Movies" - a must see program in our house in the 60's - preceded, of course by the Peacock.