The 1961 Nationals

[FSWer]

Say,I was watching the 1961 Nationals DVD. I ordered,and I've always wondered something...and those of you who watched it might know what I'm talking about (the format of how it was broadcast)...does anyone know if what you see on the DVD.( the Black and white telecast) Becides it possibly being that way because of it coming from year back...dooes anyone know if THAT is EXACTLY how I would have seen it,if I had been watching it back then? Or is it just because it's old? BTW. does anyone happen to know in what year did we switch from that format,to what we know today?

[sk8er1964]

When I was a kid (in the 1960's), television was black and white, so yes, that would have been what you would have seen on the tv if it had been shown back then. I think it was the late 1960's when color tv became common.

[FSWer]

1950's? For some reason I always though color came out at the end of the 50's. LOL,I guess color must help to bring things out..as well as make taped programs look more Live too. As even though this was taped years ago,you don't get caught up in it as in todays taped Skating. BTW. the camercals that are on it...is that actually how commercals were back then?

[sk8er1964]

Color tv did come out in the 1950's, but not a whole lot of people had the color tv sets in their houses until later so I don't think too much was filmed in color. Kind of like the 3D tv sets coming out now - yes it can be done, but nobody has the tv sets to watch it.

i don't know about the commercials, though, because I haven't seen RISE.

[Sasha'sSpins]

1950's? For some reason I always though color came out at the end of the 50's. LOL,I guess color must help to bring things out..as well as make taped programs look more Live too. As even though this was taped years ago,you don't get caught up in it as in todays taped Skating. BTW. the camercals that are on it...is that actually how commercals were back then?

I remember reading that there were doctors and such doing tv commercials smoking cigarettes or something to that effect.

[reckless]

I remember reading that there were doctors and such doing tv commercials smoking cigarettes or something to that effect.

More Doctors Smoke Camels Than Any Other Cigarette

[~tapdancer~]

There was a funny commercial (for L&M cigs, I believe) showing a pairs team on the ice skating, then taking a break at the boards for a cigarette!

[Frau Muller]

Yes, FSWer, those were the ads and most homes in the US had b&w television sets until around 1966/67. It was a big deal when Disney's Wonderful World of Color weekly program began on NBC, in the early 60s. By 1965/66/67, there was a big push in middle-class homes to switch to color sets. The first Olympics that I saw in color was Grenoble-1968 (Peggy Fleming and the Protopopovs).

From Wikipedia's article on Color TV History:

Although introduced in the U.S. in 1953, only a few years after black-and-white televisions had been standardized [in the US], high prices and lack of broadcast material greatly slowed its acceptance in the marketplace. Although the first colorcast being the Rose Parade occurred in January of that year, it was not until the late 1960s that color sets started selling in large numbers, due in some part to the color transition of 1965 in which over half of all network prime-time programming would be broadcast in color that fall, and the introduction of GE's Porta-Color set in the Spring of 1966 which would bring the first all-color primetime season beginning that fall.

By the early 1970s though, color sets had become standard, and the completion of total colorcasting was achieved when the last of the daytime programs converted to color and joined with primetime in the first all-color season in 1972.

[zaphyre14]

1950's? For some reason I always though color came out at the end of the 50's. LOL,I guess color must help to bring things out..as well as make taped programs look more Live too. As even though this was taped years ago,you don't get caught up in it as in todays taped Skating. BTW. the camercals that are on it...is that actually how commercals were back then?

Keep in mind too that skating wasn't very popular back then. "ABC's Wide World of Sports" did the broadcasts - usually 15 to 20 minutes sandwiched in between boxing (with Howard Cosell) or maybe, if we were lucky, skiing or diving.
It wasn't until Peggy Fleming and Dorothy Hamill came along that the networks decided there was money to be made from skating, other than the Olympics.

[berthesghost]

so, is it generally accepted that "format" = b&w vs. color? I must admit I read the original post and was completely lost.

anywho, color film also became much more common in the 60s even though Hollywood had been using it for decades. The Howard Cracker films went from B&w to color in the late-60s. iirc, 67 nats is still b&w but 69 nats is in color.

[Rob]

I remember when we got ours because we all stood around staring at it. It was a Zenith console TV in a wooden cabinet. Looked sort of like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wth_e1DPPSk but the controls were not quite as fancy. Must have been between 1967 and 1969.

[berthesghost]

^lol ours was like this http://www.adclassix.com/a5/70sylvan...etvstereo.html
it seems so funny now to think of how it was like furniture and my mom would put knick-knacks and framed photos on top.

[Flatfoote]

Our first color TV was a little 13" set that I purchased for the family with my first ever income tax return. The very first program we watched in color was Fantasy Island!

[Sasha'sSpins]

More Doctors Smoke Camels Than Any Other Cigarette

Thanks for the link! Scary stuff! And downright surreal!

Come to think of it I remember seeing photos of a very pregnant Jacqueline Kennedy smoking-and she ended up losing the child she was carrying (not that it was just due to smoking but...).

[FSWer]

Yes, FSWer, those were the ads and most homes in the US had b&w television sets until around 1966/67. It was a big deal when Disney's Wonderful World of Color weekly program began on NBC, in the early 60s. By 1965/66/67, there was a big push in middle-class homes to switch to color sets. The first Olympics that I saw in color was Grenoble-1968 (Peggy Fleming and the Protopopovs).

From Wikipedia's article on Color TV History:

Although introduced in the U.S. in 1953, only a few years after black-and-white televisions had been standardized [in the US], high prices and lack of broadcast material greatly slowed its acceptance in the marketplace. Although the first colorcast being the Rose Parade occurred in January of that year, it was not until the late 1960s that color sets started selling in large numbers, due in some part to the color transition of 1965 in which over half of all network prime-time programming would be broadcast in color that fall, and the introduction of GE's Porta-Color set in the Spring of 1966 which would bring the first all-color primetime season beginning that fall.

By the early 1970s though, color sets had become standard, and the completion of total colorcasting was achieved when the last of the daytime programs converted to color and joined with primetime in the first all-color season in 1972.

Is THAT when we switched over to as of today (1967)? If so...that would explain why I (being born in 67) have no memory of such odd camercals. BTW. I think I've figured out what's so strange about the oening of that Compeition. There calling it the 1961 NATIONALS. isn't that what the United States Figure Skating Championships is to us...today? I remember reading somewhere that Skaters call it Nationals (or United States Figure Skating Championships to us). I BET that throws us off too. I think the openng has also been made more drumatic (the music we hear at the begining that has become the tademark amphem) over he years.

[Nomad]

Thanks for the link! Scary stuff! And downright surreal!

Come to think of it I remember seeing photos of a very pregnant Jacqueline Kennedy smoking-and she ended up losing the child she was carrying (not that it was just due to smoking but...).

I remember episodes of I Love Lucy during which a very pregnant Lucille Ball smoked. Today it's inconceivable, but back then the risks weren't well-known.

[Sasha'sSpins]

I remember episodes of I Love Lucy during which a very pregnant Lucille Ball smoked. Today it's inconceivable, but back then the risks weren't well-known.

That is true. Anyone know what year the discovery was made that there was a link to cancer and smoking?

Wow-I watched "I Love Lucy" reruns as a child-I don't remember the smoking but I sure do remember a very pregnant (in real life) Lucille Ball!

[berthesghost]

That is true. Anyone know what year the discovery was made that there was a link to cancer and smoking?

Wow-I watched "I Love Lucy" reruns as a child-I don't remember the smoking but I sure do remember a very pregnant (in real life) Lucille Ball!

From wiki:

German scientists identified a link between smoking and lung cancer in the late 1920s, leading to the first anti-smoking campaign in modern history, albeit one truncated by the collapse of the Third Reich at the end of the Second World War.[4] In 1950, British researchers demonstrated a clear relationship between smoking and cancer.[5] Scientific evidence continued to mount in the 1980s, which prompted political action against the practice. Rates of consumption since 1965 in the developed world have either peaked or declined.[6] However, they continue to climb in the developing world

I don't remember ball smoking on tv,but if she did its was possibly an early case of product placement. The tobacco industry fought the health warnings tooth and nail, out of pure greed. Hence the bought and paid for "doctors who smoke" ads.

[aftershocks]

^^ Yes, thanks for the link to this info re the dangers of smoking, berthesghost. In addition, Reader's Digest magazine published hundreds of articles starting in the 1920s about the discoveries of the links between smoking and cancer. The founders of the magazine also refused to include any cigarette advertisements in their publication.