[David Roper]

Match Game was always in color, even the original version in the early 60s on NBC. But sponsors had to pay a premium for live commercials in color. For a non-color plug Gene Rayburn had to walk over to another area of the studio where there was a black & white camera just for the black & white commercial plugs!

A tiny list of early color shows would include the very first one ever: a TV version of the Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy radio sitcom The Marriage which was broadcast live in color (so sadly nothing of it remains) for all of seven weeks in July-August 1954. Susan Strasberg played one of their two kids. Then there's Norby with David Wayne in the title role and Jack Warden playing his neighbor. That ran on NBC January-April 1955 and was filmed, though no trace of it has ever turned up that I'm aware of. Then there's My Friend Flicka which was re- run on NBC in color ca. 1957-58 after being first run on CBS in black & white! Similarly even after Desilu started filming The Lucy Show in color CBS continued to broadcast it in black & white. For two years. With that example it should be obvious that syndicated shows like Superman and Cisco Kid aren't great examples to cite because it's hardly certain that the owners of the first color sets were actually seeing those shows in color. But it was common for a while in the mid fifties to see special one-time-only color episodes being done of otherwise black & white shows. It was far easier to do so with a live series, but some filmed programs got the one-off color treatment too.