You had to be there

[Carmine]

Originally Posted by Carmine

The world wasn't actually in B&W back then was it? I had an ex-girlfriend who used to think that as a kid... Like somebody got up on a podium and proclaimed "Henceforth, the world shall be in COLOR!"

I don't know that I ever thought of the "old world" as being in B&W... I just used to have fun teasing my girlfriend about it! My grandparents had (1) 23" Color Zenith, bought in '68, so four years prior to my birth. However, this was the ONLY color set I knew about. My grandparents also had a "backup" B&W Admiral.

My parents had a 17" B&W Zenith and when they finally got a color set (19" Chromacolor II) we still watched a lot of stuff on the B&W set. By the 80s everything was color, but my favorite aftenoon block of shows (Leave-to-Beaver, Addams Family, Twilight Zone, Andy Griffith) were all B&W shows from the low-budget UHF channel. Evenutally, all the UHF channels turned into syndicated WB/UPN crap, the internet came along, and I pretty much forgot about watching TV in my spare time.

However, I do think I have experienced the "color shock" to some extent by watching hours of WWII footage in pretty good color on PBS. I'd wager that I know more about WWII than most people my age, but the color film certainly does make the war seem much more real... And you realize that those old guys (like my grandfather) you see now were once young.

I've also seen some very early authentic color footage of WWI! That will really blow your mind!