First color program you ever saw?

[oldtvman]

Originally Posted by ChrisW6ATV

I wonder if everyone over 65 (or whatever) grumbled and whined about color TV in its early days as some do today about HDTV. It would have been something like "the sets are too big and heavy", "they are WAY too expensive", "the picture is not as clear as my regular TV", "everyone I know with a color TV is always having to get it repaired" (you KNOW that would have been one of the biggest whines), "the color looks way too gaudy/bright" (that was MY complaint about almost every color TV I saw when I was a kid), etc. And, then when the first mentions of X-rays started, hoo boy, THAT must have been a big stink, and of course it even led to a specific law being passed.

The first time I remember seeing color TV for sure was about 1971 maybe, when I was 11. I went to a friend's house and saw The Flintstones, and I remember Fred's tie was orange and Dino the dinosaur was purple. In 1974, my mother and my aunt's family got together and bought my grandmother a 19" Hitachi color TV for Christmas, for over $400 (a massive amount of money in my family at the time). I would go over to her house and watch it a lot, and that is when I learned how to properly adjust a color TV ("Wow, this can be adjusted so colors look like they do in real life! The first thing to do is turn the color knob down eighty percent from where it was when it matched all the other color TVs I have ever seen!"). Five years later, I had earned enough to buy my own brand-new color set, and a VCR right after that.

I was always amazed going to peoples homes that had color and it was rare to see a set adjusted properly. Most people were content just setting on the couch and watching tv. Back in the day there was a big difference between color signals from different networks. I guess most people were happy just watching a picture. Until they started running sets with microprocccessors the set up issue always existed. Even today most old people are afraid of many of the new technologies where as kids grow up with this stuff and it becomes second nature to them. I miss the day of walking into someones house and watching green martians on Bonanza or The Virginian.