Gene Autry & Television in 1936
 

Those of you interested in history of not only color but television in general may be interested in viewing a Gene Autry B western from 1936 titled "The Singing Cowboy." This is a pretty prophetic movie for not only Autry who later became a TV mogul but television in general. In this movie, to pay ofr an operation for a little girl Gene and his musical pals decide to approach a company called "Covered Wagon Coffee" and offer touse television to promote their product. So they goouton the prairie with some covered wagons and do on location TV broadcasts. Those viewing on their offices at the sponsor are watching these broadcats on large flat screen wall TV sets, I guess unheard of in 1936. You never see any cameras at all only the images on those wall TV sets. pretty prophetic for television 72 years ago and prophetic for Mr. Autry himself; this may have been the beginning of his own personal interest n the new medium of television. encore westerns is airing this month but probably could be bought or rented. Not a bad B western either, quite entertaining.

Over 10 years before TV was available!
 

It's very interesting to me to learn of how advanced technology was way back because most things we have today are thought to be created decades later than they were.
I suppose the producers of this Autry movie must have been investors in the creation of television. I guess it was intended to be a vehicle to interest the public in the future product most knew nothing about. I think most original viewers of that film would have not believed they would have such a device any time soon. It makes me think the producers expected TV to be available much sooner than '47.

IMDB doesn't say anything about the studio investing in TV, but Autry's westerns were big on technology, including cars and planes, so why not TV? This was in the general spirit of attracting children and especially boys to see the pictures, I think.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000810/bio

I was speculating.
 

I have not seen Autry films but I intend to. I had no idea any western films had technology in them. Knowing that makes me want to see the films sooner than I had planned.

I remember one Autry film that had him helping a team of rocket scientists not too long ago, it was quite interesting.

Technology in Westerns
 

For those that aren't aware, just about all of Autry's movies were "current" time period, i.e. 1935-1953, save just a few. Radio was used quite often in his films, the plot taking place in a radio studio or wherever. I remember one of his features recently took place in a town that would shortly receive electricity for the first time from a new dam being built. Part of the action was in an appliance store where all the latest "1936" appliances were in display such as clothes washer/dryers, electric stoves, radios, hair dryers, etc etc with most of the brand names visible during the film--this was quite a comedy sequence with Smiley Burnette (as "Frog" Millhouse) and a couple of women singing one of his nutty tunes. Another involved Autry's character 'becoming' a singing cowboy in the movies with interesting scenes of the Republic Studios backlot and location filming used within the film. 'Modern' cars, trucks, puses, airlplanes, etc were used all the time. His films showcased technology of the time quite well.

The concept of television was being kicked around since WW1 and maybe before that. I remember seeing a magazine cover dating from the 20's showing someone watching a football game on an oval shaped color TV set, a little like a Philco Predicta. And the football players not having real helmets or other protective equipment used today.

We almost ended up with television in 441i and an amplitude modulated sound subcarrier, but WW2 happened. Imagine all the interference into that AM sound from the video sidebands leaking in when the set isn't well tuned. Some radio sets were touted as "television ready", with an audio jack, or were they expecting to get the AM subcarrier and the radio would tune it in as if it were an actual radio station? Maybe, if the set had shortwave bands, you could tune in the 4.5MHz sound subcarrier directly off a tap on the TV set IF strip (or whatever the sound carrier's frequency was back then).

In 1936, RCA engineers were still working fast & furious trying to develop a feasible television broadcasting system, from studio design to receiver design. They had the basics down pretty well by then, but apparently a lot of what they were working with was about at the technical limits of what was possible to produce then..."Kinescopes"-picture tubes- had tiny screens- 4X6 inches, yet were as long as a man's arm. 441 line images were The Bee's Knees, I think they were aiming for pictures that were at least as good as newspaper photos.TV was alive & well in '36, but it was VERY primitive.