Mad Men TVs

[Robert Grant]

The fourth one looks a little like a 1959 GE 21T2425 I had watched decades ago, though the knob panel under the channel selector looks different (and a little newer).

None of the sets look obviously post-1963, but it is a little too dark for me to tell.

About bad rabbit ears reception:
A TV show or movie will often alter image or sound to remind the viewer that the show is set in the past. It is not uncommon to see vintage color footage de-colorized and scratches added, or an old record player or radio that had decent fidelity portrayed with audio that's been fed through filters to sound like a telephone.
However, anywhere at ground level in Manhattan (with the possible exception of Central Park), rabbit ear reception would certainly be miserable (the signals could be strong, but you would have multipath problems up the wazoo).
In the other areas of the city, full of brick and brownstone row houses, rabbit ears wouldn't work so well either.
But I can assume that thousands of viewers in wood frame houses on Staten Island would have had excellent reception with rabbit ears.

My own personal experience in the day, two Detroit single family homes, both 15-20 miles from the transmitters: one was a brick-to-belt bungalow, set in first floor living room, no UHF tuner - all four VHFs came in perfectly in all weather conditions. The other was a two-story brick colonial with like houses seperated by narrow driveways, RCA CTC-38 with rabbit ears and loop on first floor - VHFs usually fine, household appliances would mess up channel 2, UHFs iffy. In windy weather, 7 could suffer some fading, and UHF was hopeless.

[Steve D.]

Amazing how emotional I still get when I watch a drama that portrays that infamous day. Looks like they went to the CBS/NBC archives and borrowed some aircheck tapes for replay on the sets. I have NBC's coverage from that day in my library.There were, I recall, many technical gliches that day in '63. Hasty network connections made for many sync problems as ATT's overworked techs tried to satisfy all the media demands for radio & TV feeds from all over the country. Talk about breaking news at a time when TV news coverage was still getting its legs. I am impressed with Mad Men's accuracy in it's depiction of that era. The correctness of the various TV's do add realism to the scenes. Don't recall any color sets. You'd think a large advertising agency would have one in the conference room. Stay tuned.

-Steve D.

[leadlike]

Great episode. I was glad to finally see Don Draper's tv in a closeup, as it has typically only been shown from the side. I guess he has a late 50's RCA 21"?

I've been surprised by the lack of color sets on this series. Peeking into the lives of some of the most highly paid businessmen at the time, I would think someone would invest in color, or some kind of custom combo. For this episode, I guess it wouldn't have been relevant as I can't imagine there being any live JFK coverage that was in color.

[Steve D.]

A little off topic here. But in response to the previous post. We had an RCA color tv in 1963. I recall very well when NBC New York threw to the local anchors at their Dallas affiliate WBAP-TV. The Dallas video was live in color. I have this on tape. I remember that at first there was picture and no sound and going back to New York, NBC's Frank McGee apoligized and explained they were having technical difficulties. They then threw it to Dallas again and had sound and no picture. Back to NBC. Finally they got it right and the color picture and sound synced up. WBAP provided live color cut ins several times and then for some reason went to B&W. I also recall on the next day NBC provided a concert of classical/patriotic music in honor of the president. This was a color telecast from Chicago. I recall no network color coverage involving network anchors.

-Steve D.