The Development of Color Television -- 1956 RCA Film

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Originally Posted by RCAGuy

The 21-CT-55 was, indeed, given a name -- "The Spectacular" -- as seen in this posed shot from the Bloomington, Indiana production line. But no one knows exactly why that name never stuck.

[IMG]M0962_BOX13_FOLDER15_SPECTACULAR by David Arland, on Flickr[/IMG]

At this time, of course, NBC was staging "color spectaculars" to show off color TV to the very, very wealthy who had it at home.

I found this shot in the RCA archives at the Indiana Historical Society -- and Ed Reitan and I used it in an ETF Presentation about the first year of color receivers a few years ago. RIP, Ed!

-Dave Arland

Dave,

Thank you for posting this. What a great find and piece of history. I’d be curious to know the date of this photo. I’m guessing about early December, 1954. The two RCA executives are posing with “the first” off the line. I found evidence that a very few of these sets were delivered to buyers just prior to Christmas, 1954.