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Originally Posted by Ed in Tx
Not ON walls, but IN walls was what several family acquaintances and a couple of neighbors did back then, pretty popular thing to do. I can recall several who cut holes in walls and mounted the TV flush with the wall and framed it in, with the set in an adjacent closet, room or in one case I remember the TV was sticking out into the garage.
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In an old issue of, IIRC, the (now long defunct) Electronics Illustrated magazine, there was an article in which a TV repair technician told the story of a service call he made to a home with a recreation area in the basement, frequented by the owner's friends who were sports nuts and enjoyed betting on games. In that rec room was a wall in which were mounted several TVs, one of which had a shorted CRT. When the technician arrived, he turned on to a local UHF channel the one set that had been reported as defective, and found a smeared picture, which would intermittently clear when the neck was tapped. However, I remember how the article ended. "When I left," the technician wrote, "they still had on the UHF channel -- broadcasting continuous stock market tapes!" I guess the owner's friends followed the stock market closely as well.
Replacing old worn-out TV chassis in big 3-way consoles was also popular in the '70s. Two of my great-uncles, both long deceased, had large combo consoles in which the television chassis failed after 25 years or so, developing expensive repair problems, so they decided to replace the TVs with modern sets -- retaining the stereo components. Both consoles were RCAs; one set's TV was replaced by an Emerson table model, the other's television was replaced by a Zenith CCII, IIRC. I wish I had pictures of the converted sets, as the conversions were very well done; they both looked like factory jobs. Today, the only way to even come close to having a 3-way entertainment center is to buy a large armoire or EC cabinet (or a stand, like I did with my components and which I still have, now with a flat screen TV on the top shelf -- replacing the RCA CTC185 which once graced that spot) and install your TV, video and stereo components in it.
We will never again, unfortunately, see the likes of the large, stately 3-way consoles popular in the '60s and '70s, the trend now being towards nondescript-looking FP sets on their jet-black stands. The only things that make today's FPs look good in modern living rooms/dens/family rooms when they are turned off, IMHO,are the entertainment-center cabinets or stands in or on which these sets are often mounted, along with a VCR, DVD player, and often a 5.1-channel AV receiver. An old friend of mine has a floor-to-ceiling entertainment center in his family room (which is huge), in which he mounted his TV (formerly a large Toshiba CRT, now a large FP), DVD and stereo system. I saw the installation some years ago when he had the CRT TV and was amazed at the size of the EC cabinet -- but I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised, since his family room has very high ceilings.