It did not crack where the yoke was at... I just kept calling the whole piece where the guns are at the neck. It cracked starting from the pins and evacuation nipple. And it was probably because after I gave up on the CRT since it was toast, I might have tapped it a little too hard by accident trying to clear the short.

The purple arcing inside was from whatever damage was cause by that discharge from the CRT neck board. I don't know why that happened, because this is the first time I've seen something like this happen. That did the CRT in right there.

But my problem now is indeed localized to that logic board that controls the digital tuner, power on/off, etc. As I said it was acting up when you first plug the TV in prior to all this (randomly turning itself on with no audio or control). And now it just finally quit working.

When you first plug the TV in, the LED channel display used to briefly light up 00 for like a fraction of a second when it was working correctly. Now it doesn't even do that. I'm suspecting that voltage regulator, or surrounding capacitors, etc. might be bad. There isn't too much to that board. I am going to try to find the data sheet on that micro controller IC and the voltage regulator, and see if at least the voltage inputs on it are correct for standby power. If not that is probably it.