Old TV's In Old TV Shows
 

Being interested in old TV's and Stereo's, do you all try to spot old TV"s in TV shows from the 50's/60's ?.


A few I have spotted recently :

I got the first Season (1961-1962) of the old Sitcom Hazel. There is one episode shot in color( the rest of season one is in black and white) to promote color TV. In the episode Hazel's old TV breaks down and Mr. Baxter offers to buy her a new one. They go shopping and look at several models. I couldn't make out the brand they were looking at, but Hazel con's Mr. B. into using what he was willing to pay for a b&w table TV and she sets the rest up in monthly payments and gets a Color set.

Another episode of Hazel from this season show their neighbors the Johnson's watching TV and they have a big nice dark wood console. Looked like a Zenith.

I also got season one of Love American Style (1969-1970). In one segment, a color set is featured with remote and sliding doors. Couldn't make out the name, but it looked like the Admiral crown logo down at the bottom of the control panel.

In the B&W episodes of the Beverly Hillbillies, the Clampetts have a roundie console.

In season one of The Brady Bunch (1969-1970), the Bradys have a portable on a stand with remote control.

There is a screw up in "One who flew over the cuckoo's nest" movie with Jack Nicholeson.
The scene that shows the TV store has TV sets on display in the window that had the newer square V picture tubes. Those tubes were not even invented at the time the story line of the movie was to take place, which I think was 1965. The tubes shown were not in TV sets till after 1970.

IIRC, there was another scene in that movie with a TV mounted on the wall. Jack's character wanted to watch a baseball game scheduled to be on at the time, but the head nurse wouldn't put the game on. Something about messing up the viewing schedule of some of the patients.

The HAZEL show you mentioned is show #6, titled "What Shall We Watch Tonight?"

"Hazel, The complete first season," is available from Amazon and other outlets. It includes episode 6, the only color episode in the '61-'62 season. RCA-NBC were promoting color tv and shot one or two episodes of various series in this period. Of course, Bonanza and Disney's Wonderful World of Color were telecast weekly in color and helped sell a lot of color tv's.

Image: Hazel - The Complete First Season
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/ima...F8&n=130&s=dvd

-Steve D.

Nicholson was great in that movie. Nice tv-usage-error spotting, too!

One that i can think of is in an episode of "Seinfeld" they show Kramer's place has a little red late 70s Zenith B&W set... which might be accurate since the guy didn't have a job and was kinda quirky. :D:D

If I am not mistaken, and I MIGHT be, in the HAZEL show #6, the Baxters family TV was a B/W Zenith, until the end of the episode, when a quick shot of an RCA console is revealed.

Hazel's tiny B/W set is an Emerson, I think.


As for Donna Reed, I think that after 8 seasons, her show was getting a bit long in the tooth. The kids were growing up, and they were running out of ideas.

Donna is another old series that NEEDS to be seen to be believed. I loved these old sit-coms first run. HAZEL needs to make a come-back, too! SONY, are you listening?

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Although not a TV show, the movie "Pleasantville" with Don Knotts as a TV repairman(with special powers) has a bunch of old TVs in it.

In those lame color Andy Griffith shows, they show a color roundie. It is shown several times in the episode where Howard Sprague goes on TV to do a stand up act. What strikes me odd about that set is that it looks like a early 1950's B&W set, but it was color.

Another Movie with an old TV in it is "The Majestic". There is a Motorola console(just like one that I have) that appears to be playing. For once, the picture is B&W, proper for this TV. The scene is near the end of the movie.

In the late, lamented "Crime Story", which was supposed to take place c.1963, one of the characters has an early roundie, which was even ON in a couple of scenes, IIRC.

Another good movie with lots of old sets is "Forrest Gump" I watched it last night and thought wow, I never noticed those back in the '90s when I saw it in the theater.

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In one of the earlier B & W Andy Griffith shows, the plot is a delapidated house, possibly being taken over in foreclosure with a poor man in it. The community gets together and paints his house for him. An "interior" of the house shows a 7" Sentinel (the upright wedge shaped one) sitting high on a shelf in the dining room over the buffet which is most unusual and would make no sense.

Not anything to do with TV but remember Wally's Service Station? One time they did a close up in it and all or most of the oil products were "taped" so you could not see the brand name but it was obvious they were all Citgo or Cities Service products. Remember them?

I bought a Sony KX-270M in 1986 and saw them used in TV shows.

As a prop they watch in the bar on the show "Cheers"

As a studio monitor on "The Gary Shandling Show"

As a studio monitor on "Home Improvement" (I think).


In the movie "American Graffiti", a scene of a storefront with TVs on display are early 70s models with big price tags covering the VHF/UHF tuners...

In the movie "American Graffiti", a scene of a storefront with TVs on display are early 70s models with big price tags covering the VHF/UHF tuners...[/QUOTE]

I remember that ! I remember it from when I saw "Graffitti" when it came out & thinking "How lame..." They'd done such a good job of "1962ing" everything else. Another big-time goof I remember, not TV-related-but, was in "GoodFellas"- There's a shot of a 747 landing, & there's a caption "Idlewild Airport, 1963" & the 747 didn't enter service til '70.

Ditto On The Forrest Gump, zenithfan... another flick with an old vintage set was "Pulp Fiction". There is a very brief scene of Bruce Willis' character, Butch, as a kid watching an Eskimo cartoon on an old color console, circa 1960's.... anyone know the make of this set (or the show he was watching)? DVD chapter title is "Captain Koons' Story" (which leads to him hearing about 'The Gold Watch'.

Right above the "1963" caption is a 1965 Chevy.

I also noticed this and thought, "Who the hell would put a TV way up there?"

several roundies in movies and tv shows
 

In the movie Corina, Corina with Whoppee Goldberg and Ray Liotta there was a working ctc 5, also in some of the B & W beverly hilibillies there were several shots of round crt models in different episodes. In some of the Doris Day and James garner movies there were lots of Zenith roundies in the early 60's In one of the twilight zone episodes called "to serve man" they used two or three tk 40 color camera's in the show, even though the show was in B & W.

TCM is doing Sinatra this month. Last week they showed "The Tender Trap". A large-screen B/W roundie built into the wall had a prominent role in the movie. I couldn't identify it though.

The bar in Cheers was never intended to be trendy. I thought the old set fit nicely with the thread running through the show. The show started in 1979 or1980, so that set was only about 10-12 years old. I use a 20 year old Mitsubishi as my daily watcher (because I'm too cheap to pay over $500 for 42 inches of HD).

I remember the Kingdome in Seattle using the same Conrac black and white monitors in the walkways for almost the entire 23 year life of the 'Dome. The concession stands likewise had the same TV's in them as well. The pictures on them were getting pretty bad at the end.

They did replace the seating monitors in the 200 and 300 levels about 10 years before they blew up the "concrete hamburger".

Could have been a fake so that a movie clip could be inserted?

Leave it to Beaver episode, Wally buys a car,, not the one where he buys and parts a car. The one where he gets a droptop chebby. Closing scene when they come back from supper. I have wondered what that set is. Also, Glenn Beck on Headline News has old set/sets on his set, if you will.
Dan

That is a 1959 Philco "Seventeener"-----I had one . James:yes:

In the movie "Back to the Future" there were some scenes with TVs. One with McFly's father's place where his father was messing with a new TV. And Doc had a TV that Marty was playing a videotape from the 1985 camcorder he brought from the future.

In that Leave it to Beaver episode where Wally buys his first car, it was a 1953 Chevrolet convertible that he paid $35 for it. I have a showroom 53 BelAir Convertible in my warehouse but I paid a little more than $35 for it!! Remember the Beverly Hillbilliy episode where Jethro wants to be a swinger and gets a white 54 Chevrolet convertible and takes two girls to a drive in and starts to put the top up and it gets "stuck" and then just about tears it up to put it down?

Here's the Saturday Evening Post September 29, 1962 ad (in B&W) for the Hazel color episode. On the back of that page is a COLOR ad for a Magnavox B&W TV/Stereo "Theater"

Star Trek was also an RCA marketing tool for color sets.
EDIT: Although I realize ST was a latecomer compared to Bonanza and Disney.

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Seeing this thread brings to mind something that always irritated me about seeing TV's in old shows. Perhaps I pay attention to stupid details, but it always annoyed me to see someone turning the TV off by turning the on-off volume switch CLOCKWISE! Seems like that happens way to often in the old shows. Or if its a TV that you know has a pull on volume switch! Also, Ive seen many TV's that were either RCA, or japanese made sets, yet the person who happens to be changing channels with the remote has a Zenith space command! haha, Just had to bring it up!

After reading this thread a bit, I do remember forrest gump, I think every TV they had was way too new for the time period(s) they were in.

I thought the same thing. How about the Zenith with the obviously missing guts and a modern color tube put in that didn't quite fit. I still love that movie though.

I think the use of the old set was good. "Cheers" the bar wasn't exactly a high faluten joint. That set added to the ambience. I do remember episodes where it was shown working, for sports highlights I think. :>)

Archie Bunker's Place frequently showed an older portable set as well.

There was one episode of Cheers where a color roundie was used. It was thanksgiving at Carlas house and the Cheers regulars came for dinner. I believe Cliff and Norm were watching the roundie. I think it was a Zenith.

I always pay attention to get a glimpse at TV's in old shows. One thing that bugged me was when they would take a b&W set and mat a color picture in it.

Speaking of old sets, this past weekend TVLand showed the 1963 Christmas episode of The Beverly Hillbillies " Christmas at The Clampetts". Granny gets a new RCA color roundie in a french provincial cabinet. She thinks it's a washing machine. I also got a DVD of the 1969 ABC Movie of the week " Gidget Grows Up" starring Karen Valentine (she was a looker). She is watching what looks to be a Sylvania console, but can't be sure. I might take a screen cap and post it. I also have the first season of Love American Style on DVD from 1969, and there is one episode with Red Buttons who is watching a remote console. It appears to be an Admiral. Red uses the remote several times. He plays a sports fanatic who pays no attention to his wife played by Carolyn Jones. His long lost love Kioko a Korean girl shows up and pampers him. Later on Carolyn threatens divorce and say's she wants everything including the TV which he freaks out.

The same Zenith porthole table set turned up frequently on Love, American Style and at least one episode featured a DuMont 183. Regis Philbin appears in that segment and is seen on the DuMont being watched by old cowboy John McIntire--in a barn!

I was watching the Three stooges "A plumbing we will go" This rich lady was showing off her television receiver. They were watching WXZ1 live from Niagra Falls. Everyone got drenched!

That is my absolute favorite Stooges short! The first time I saw it I laughed until my eyes teared up! I still LMAO! (lady says) "I need a drink of water" (cook) "Turn on anything! you'll get it" (cook runs away)

How about in the Simpsons? They have a 70s or 80s knob tuned TV in all of the episodes, yet Homer uses a remote for it. Kind of an odd way to do it.