Seeing the thread here about the early TV sound inputs on radios, reminded me of something. Does anyone here remember them selling a plastic film to place over your B/W TV screen, with the tag line--'Turns any TV into a color TV!'
They were tinted blue at the top, green in the middle and tan on the bottom...so they basically only might work somewhat on a picture of a field and sky on a sunny day.
Somewhat related, I remember a show, Winky Dink, that would sell you a piece of film to place over your TV screen, so us kids could trace over drawings shown on the TV show, without marking our parent's TV screen. I think I had one of those. Anyone else?

:Seeing the thread here about the early TV sound inputs on radios, reminded me of something. Does anyone here remember them selling a plastic film to place over your B/W TV screen, with the tag line--'Turns any TV into a color TV!'
:They were tinted blue at the top, green in the middle and tan on the bottom...so they basically only might work somewhat on a picture of a field and sky on a sunny day.
:Somewhat related, I remember a show, Winky Dink, that would sell you a piece of film to place over your TV screen, so us kids could trace over drawings shown on the TV show, without marking our parent's TV screen. I think I had one of those. Anyone else?
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Winky Dink, I had one of those. Everyday they would give you part of a secret message and you would write it on the plastic screen, by the end of the week you would have the entire message.

I don't recall "Winky Dink", but as I recall, the Captain Kangaroo kiddie program on CBS hawked a clear thick vinyl plastic mat that would self-adhere (static electricity?) to the screen of a TV set. This was in support of the Terrytoons' "Tom Terrific" segment on the show, circa 1957 or so. I had one of these mats (it took several weeks -seemed like decades- to arrive via mail order) and it was one of the epic disappointments of my young life. It was too slick to accept Crayola wax crayons, and using one of the early acetone-based permanent Magic Markers on it was pretty much of a one-shot deal. It ended its days as a washable place mat under our mutt Cleo's food and water dishes, a function to which it was almost ideally suited.

I recall seeing ads for the "graduated color screen overlay" gimmick, but even as a six-year-old I wondered who would be dopey enough to purchase one of these things. At that time the RCA color TV system had been approved by the FCC but only a handful of people owned the expensive color sets and color broadcasting was extremely limited. The TV shows "Bonanza" (1959) and "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color" (1961) were picked up by NBC (owned by RCA) partly in order to cultivate market demand for color television, which really didn't happen until the mid-1960s. By 1966, consumer demand for color TV was running high but the sets were still way too pricey for most folks.

In the fall of '65 my Dad (he did TV work on the side to help pay the bills) bought a new Motorola Color TV, It cost around $600! They had introduced the first rectangular screen for a color TV that fall. Which may be why he chose that make.
It was fun to watch the color shows, which were growing in number to drive TV sales.
That set actually lasted thru 2 picture tubes..I started to learn some of the color TV theory, helping Dad install the new picture tube and doing the convergence alignments with him.

$600 in 1965 would equate to about $4,500 in 2014 dollars. Quite a chunk of change! By way of reference, I believe that you could purchase a brand-new Ford Mustang (no-frills base model, of course) for slightly less than 2 grand in 1965.

:$600 in 1965 would equate to about $4,500 in 2014 dollars. Quite a chunk of change! By way of reference, I believe that you could purchase a brand-new Ford Mustang (no-frills base model, of course) for slightly less than 2 grand in 1965.
:
:I used to work at a radio-tv & furniture store [I was the appliance repairman[ Went out on lots of house calls with the tv repairman. Seems first tv had to be "degaused" [ hope spelling correct] Anyway he used large coil and rotated it around pic tube to get the color correct. Also some early televisions has a piece of glass in front of crt. And of course that dirty inside and watched him take that glass off and clean it and crt

Way back when in the early 1950s (regards to older folks!!) CBS got the OK to manufacture color sets using a mechanical spinning wheel with color gels in it in front of a modified black and white TV. The system actually worked very well but as RCA put it it was not "compatible" with the present B and W system. David Sarnoff of RCA petitioned for more time and he got the tri color dot system to work , which is in use today with many variations.

The engineer who developed the spinning color wheel technology at the time later lost his job ( no longer the favorite son!! ).

PS: I still have a degaussing tool.

Lou

::$600 in 1965 would equate to about $4,500 in 2014 dollars. Quite a chunk of change! By way of reference, I believe that you could purchase a brand-new Ford Mustang (no-frills base model, of course) for slightly less than 2 grand in 1965.
::
::I used to work at a radio-tv & furniture store [I was the appliance repairman[ Went out on lots of house calls with the tv repairman. Seems first tv had to be "degaused" [ hope spelling correct] Anyway he used large coil and rotated it around pic tube to get the color correct. Also some early televisions has a piece of glass in front of crt. And of course that dirty inside and watched him take that glass off and clean it and crt

PS: The engineers name was Peter Goldmark and the year he started working on color was 1940.

Lou

:Way back when in the early 1950s (regards to older folks!!) CBS got the OK to manufacture color sets using a mechanical spinning wheel with color gels in it in front of a modified black and white TV. The system actually worked very well but as RCA put it it was not "compatible" with the present B and W system. David Sarnoff of RCA petitioned for more time and he got the tri color dot system to work , which is in use today with many variations.
:
:The engineer who developed the spinning color wheel technology at the time later lost his job ( no longer the favorite son!! ).
:
:PS: I still have a degaussing tool.
:
:Lou
:
:::$600 in 1965 would equate to about $4,500 in 2014 dollars. Quite a chunk of change! By way of reference, I believe that you could purchase a brand-new Ford Mustang (no-frills base model, of course) for slightly less than 2 grand in 1965.
:::
:::I used to work at a radio-tv & furniture store [I was the appliance repairman[ Went out on lots of house calls with the tv repairman. Seems first tv had to be "degaused" [ hope spelling correct] Anyway he used large coil and rotated it around pic tube to get the color correct. Also some early televisions has a piece of glass in front of crt. And of course that dirty inside and watched him take that glass off and clean it and crt

Here 'ya go Jim..an ad I found regarding TV screen cleaning from the March '57 issue of Radio-Electronics.