[old_tv_nut]

The blue banana joke was played by George Brown, chief engineer of RCA labs. In 1952, the NTSC color system was being tested with broadcasts originating in Manhattan and received at a lab on Long Island. So, it was broadcast, but only on an experimental station to prototype receivers. All the interested manufacturers were there with prototype receivers. One evening, the Long Island lab called the studio and asked to have some live material put on the air. Brown, who was at the studio, saw a bowl of fruit and a can of blue paint, and got the idea to paint the banana blue. When the engineers on Long Island called to complain that the color was wrong, Brown told them that the color on the studio monitor looked just like the live scene. They reportedly struggled to get the sets correct, but either the banana or the other fruit would be wrong.

Some experimental receivers were in the homes of RCA executives, and some versions of this story say that they called the studio, but George Brown's book specifically mentions the engineers on Long Island.

My addition to this story:
My former boss at Zenith, Charlie Heuer (RIP) was the junior engineer for the Zenith prototype on Long Island. He told me that the senior Zenith engineer (a crusty old fellow named John Rennick) was so sure of the Zenith set that he took one look, said "You've got the phase reversed!", shut off the set and went to dinner.

Thereafter, RCA traditionally included a blue banana somewhere in test material for new television systems.

I liked this story so well that I also included a blue banana in test material for the Zenith/AT&T proposed HDTV system as an inside joke.