TV of the 1960s

[Orcus]

It looks like it's more a problem with the source material to me (Eastman film from the 60s and 70s faded like this). TV broadcasters often used to air faded film and/or degraded VT. Often, these were old copies that had gone around other TV stations many times before. To get better copies was deemed cost prohibitive and, anyway, TV broadcasters have never cared about the viewing content so much as the advertisers - the ones who bring the money in.

However, I don't recall seeing anything on TV during the 1970s or 1980s in such shocking quality. Perhaps broadcasters in your local area were especially contemptuous of their audience...?

 

[Hober Mallow]

Nothing like an 800 gazillion pound console TV. You haven't lived until you've thrown a bowling ball through the screen and made a very big boom.

Not that I speak from experience or anything...

Ah... TV's that blow up... (nostalgic sigh...)

The worst that happened to us was losing the channel knob and having to use pliers.

My first job was working the loading dock of a thrift store. We unloaded charity trucks and took donations from the public. We weren't supposed to take console TVs, because most of the time they didn't work and even when they did we couldn't sell them because no one wanted to lug these monsters home. After the managers went home for the night, however, we would take them. And we had a nice bowling ball handy inside the warehouse for a little fun. Sometimes, though, we'd just drive a forklift fork through the screen. Good times. The sonic booms would often shake the ground.

Think that is something, I used to try and fix those old monsters. Nothing like get zapped by 50 thousands volts (lol, not that much but felt like a million) from an non-discharged tubes.

I kinda miss 'em. They were a cross between a TV and furniture. You could serve a meal to a family of four on top of one.

 

[scotpens]

Well, one of the other factors for how it looked when it was originally televised was how the stations got it. As I recall, some markets got 35 mm prints while others got 16 mm, but all were using a projection technique that introduced the film grain effect and effected the saturation.

AFAIK, in the 1960s, most dramatic series and sitcoms were shot on 35mm film. The editing and postproduction were done pretty much the same way as theatrical feature films. From the master 35mm negative, 16mm prints would be made for broadcast. These were run on a telecine machine that was basically a combination film projector and TV camera. The detail level of 16mm film was more than adequate for the size and resolution of TV screens of the time. Today, on DVDs mastered from the original 35mm negatives, we can see details that were never meant to be seen -- like coffee stains on Spock's shirt!

That said, I grew up in the 80s and 90s, so it's fascinating looking at the videos of TV reception pre-cable. I always just assumed that before cable, the antennas on top of houses were strong enough to receive a reasonably clear picture.

They were -- at least for those of us living in the San Fernando Valley (yep, where the Valley Girls come from). We always got pretty good reception on our round-tube Admiral color set -- except during rainstorms when the rooftop antenna would be sitting in a puddle.

 

[Zaku]

This clip may give a better indication of what a late 1960's color TV would have looked like. Though, this is a PAL set and I assume that he is using a small nearby transmitter for this clip, which wouldn't necessarily look the same as catching the broadcast from a tower in a nearby city.

PAL has higher resolution than NTSC (625 lines vs 525) and a better color reproduction. However pal framerate is lower than NTSC (25 Hz vs 30 Hz).

For a technical analysys:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC#Comparative_quality

Reception problems can degrade an NTSC picture by changing the phase of the color signal (actually differential phase distortion), so the color balance of the picture will be altered unless a compensation is made in the receiver. This necessitates the inclusion of a tint control on NTSC sets, which is not necessary on PAL or SECAM systems. When compared to PAL in particular, NTSC color accuracy and consistency is considerably inferior, leading to video professionals and television engineers jokingly referring to NTSC as Never The Same Color, Never Twice the Same Color or No True Skin Colors

(sorry for my terrible english...)

 

[Maurice]

It's a little like silent films. People who see them now typically get to hear them accompanied by tinkly piano music, and often displayed at the wrong frame-rate, and they think that's what they were like. Sure, small theaters might have a pianist, but the big theaters has small orchestras or (late in the silent era) giant Mighty Wurlitzer pipe organs, so the music could be tremendous. But that's not what people get when they see them now most times.

I don't know. Most of the silent movies I watch feature piano as only one of a few instruments. In fact, when it comes to Lon Chaney films or German Expressionism or darker films like that, then it's often pretty edgy new compositions created for specific DVD releases, with synthesizers and everything.

Of course, on the couple of times I went to the Silent Movie Theater in Hollywood, they had an organist who would use a piano for the cartoons and shorts and then switch to an organ for the main picture (the first time I went it was a Mary Pickford melodrama called Sparrows. The second time, it was a Lon Chaney classic, The Unholy Three--the only one of his films to be remade later as a talkie with him reprising his role.).

Maybe. But I still run into a lot of silent films even on TCM, with piano-only scores. There's more of a movement now to play them with more elaborate scores, and some DVDs even feature mutliple scores (like the Harold Lloyd films and the four-soundtracked Pandora's Box), but even the Silent Film Festival in San Francisco falls back on piano a lot, so I think my point remains valid.

P.S. I've seen The Unholy Three silent. Fun film.

 

[Tom]

Nothing like an 800 gazillion pound console TV. You haven't lived until you've thrown a bowling ball through the screen and made a very big boom.

Not that I speak from experience or anything...

Ah... TV's that blow up... (nostalgic sigh...)

Think that is something, I used to try and fix those old monsters. Nothing like get zapped by 50 thousands volts (lol, not that much but felt like a million) from an non-discharged tubes.

Anyways, I remember most shows looking shitty like that. Keep in mind in those days (well for me, the 70's) cable was not available to most (we got ours in the 80's). So, to get a crystal clear pic was very hard unless you lived in close range to the broadcast towers. For me, I lived 35 miles from Boston where most towers and stations (the good stations) were/are based.

In what direction? I grew up in a suburb of Springfield, so about 70 miles WSW of Boston. So, I got a mix of Springfield, Boston, Connecticut, and even WPIX 11 from New York City.

I grew up in Milford, Ma of 495 about 35 miles southwest of Boston. in the 70's through the air (with rabbit ears) I could only really get channels 2 ,4, 5 and 7, 56, 38 and 25 from Boston and channels 6,10 and 12 from Providence. I could not get in any NH, CT, NY or Springfield channels.

 

[Neutral Zone]

I remember our first colour tv in comparison to the one that we have now, and Shawn's pics sum it very well. But when I first saw Star Trek we had a black and white tv, and then seeing it in colour for the first time was fantastic no matter the quality. Now i have th DVD's that have been remasterd which brings out the full quality, but there are times when I feel that a little ofthe magic is lost.

 

[Doug Otte]

How old was the physical film that those screen-caps were taken from? The age of the film and method of storage would make a pretty big difference in quality. I'd be surprised if if it looked that bad at the time of broadcast.

ETA: I'm talking about the film itself, poor reception and picture tube television resolution would cause their own problems.

My family had only a B&W set until after I went to college, and for a few years of bachelorhood, I only had a B&W set as well. When I was visiting other homes and got to see Trek in color, I was amazed at the vivid colors.

I agree that the examples in the OP are not what most people saw. Yes, the colors were vivid, but as others noted, there were other problems w/ broadcast TV - ghosting, static, actual loss of the image, etc.

And, I don't see how this relates to "camp," which is an intentional exaggeration of popular culture in the content of the entertainment.

Doug

 

[Shaw]

While I'm sure there was a variety of color depths that people saw, one of the things that makes me pretty sure that most people were seeing something similar to what my families television was receiving was the fact that many ardent TOS fans believed that in WNMHGB there were only two uniform colors. We have had threads on this site recently that discuss those uniform colors and what people thought they were seeing.

For me, other than images in magazines, the first time I saw truly vivid colors was while watching an episode at a convention (where it was being shown via a projector).

Oh well... opinions and experiences vary.

And, I don't see how this relates to "camp," which is an intentional exaggeration of popular culture in the content of the entertainment.

It shouldn't relate... but unfortunately it often is associated (and too often sited).

 

[Forbin]

Th OP needs to adjust his tint away from the green.

Getting good flesh tones was the mark of a master TV adjuster.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I don't live in the 1960s and I don't want to; I already did and finished with it.

 

[Christopher]

My family had only a B&W set until after I went to college, and for a few years of bachelorhood, I only had a B&W set as well. When I was visiting other homes and got to see Trek in color, I was amazed at the vivid colors.

I only had a black & white set until I was in my teens, and my experience was similar to yours. I vividly remember how awed I was by the colors when I got to see them. Although this was in the '70s.

And, I don't see how this relates to "camp," which is an intentional exaggeration of popular culture in the content of the entertainment.

I was wondering that myself. But I guess there are some people who think that, because campy shows like Lost in Space and Batman were vivid and colorful, any similar-looking show must be campy as well. Some people are superficial that way.

I just bet that 30 or 40 years from now, people are going to look at the dingy, green-tinged look of The Matrix and CSI, or the handheld, verite look of Battlestar Galactica, and laugh at how campy that was. People are slaves to fashion. If something doesn't look like what's current, they ridicule it, even if they loved it when it was new.

 

[Michael]

Okay, I guess I will open a can of worms here, but why exactly can't the original Star Trek be considered as camp? Where does this narrow definition of what constitues camp even come from? Who said camp has to be intentional? I'm really not trying to be a smartass; I'm honestly curious why I never defined camp as something that's done on purpose. Theorist Susan Sontag even seems to agree with me in her Notes on Camp, where she's saying that "pure camp is always naive", "the pure examples of camp are unintentional; they are dead serious" and that "camp rests on innocence".

I also fail to see how someone who finds aspects of Star Trek to be campy must automatically hate those aspects. Where does this definition of camp as a derogatory term even come from? I certainly never use it that way.

So please, would someone clue me in?

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I don't think that "camp" accurately describes TOS at all. Probably what the poster was looking for is something more along the lines of - but not exactly - kitsch. The series was never anything other than sincere, IMAO.

 

[Green Shirt]

I don't remember TV looking quite that bad.

The original TV broadcast looked much more colorful and crisp than a worn out low def videotape or kinescope which was the apparent source of this episode. I was around in the 60's and TV didn't look this bad as long as you put tin foil on your rabbit ears.

 

[plynch]

UHF in Detroit looked that bad when the wind blew. Plus their prints were very faded after awhile.

I am ETERNALLY grateful they "stripped" Trek (showed Mon-Fri) in the '70s however, so overall, I'm not complainin'.

 

[Joanna McCoy-Kirk]

We got our first color TV in the early '70s, around the time of the advent of "automatic" color in TV sets (color was adjusted by turning difficult-to-access screws instead of fiddling with knobs, which was supposed to enhance picture quality). I watched syndicated Star Trek on a primitive cable TV system that carried some pretty fringe stations (channel 42 in Birmingham, for instance--over 100 miles away and which didn't come in clearly unless it was raining). Fortunately Star Trek was also shown on WAAY channel 31 in Huntsville, and the reception was much better. [By the 90s, my mother complained about the lack of "automatic" color in TVs of that era, and I had to tell her TVs no longer needed "automatic" color.]

 

[Christopher]

Okay, I guess I will open a can of worms here, but why exactly can't the original Star Trek be considered as camp? Where does this narrow definition of what constitues camp even come from? Who said camp has to be intentional? I'm really not trying to be a smartass; I'm honestly curious why I never defined camp as something that's done on purpose. Theorist Susan Sontag even seems to agree with me in her Notes on Camp, where she's saying that "pure camp is always naive", "the pure examples of camp are unintentional; they are dead serious" and that "camp rests on innocence".

The problem, though, is one of context. Star Trek did not exist in a cultural vacuum. It was a contemporary of shows such as Lost in Space and Batman. Those shows are extreme camp in the intentional sense. At the same time, the other Irwin Allen shows were campy in the unintentional sense. By the standards of the time, ST was just the opposite of camp -- it was the first non-anthology SF show that approached SF in a serious, adult manner, that aspired to realism rather than larger-than-life fantasy. Yes, it had the occasional episode that fell short of that aspiration and had campy elements -- especially in the third season -- but it would be unfair to characterize the whole series as camp when overall it was the first step in the maturation of television SF beyond camp.

Camp is intrinsically unrealistic, something that makes the audience laugh at its absurdity. A key part of the reason Star Trek gained such a devoted following is because it succeeded in creating a future that felt real (even with its fanciful elements), that audiences could invest in emotionally and intellectually and really care about. Camp can't do that.

 

[Hober Mallow]

That said, I grew up in the 80s and 90s, so it's fascinating looking at the videos of TV reception pre-cable. I always just assumed that before cable, the antennas on top of houses were strong enough to receive a reasonably clear picture.

They were and they weren't. It depended on the channel you were watching and whether it was a VHF or UHF channel. Most VHF channels looked good on our TV, but the UHF channels were another story. Often you'd have to buy a loop antenna to see anything. And even with the VHS channels every channel was often at a different level of clarity.

I think also we remember TV being clearer than it actually was because we didn't really demand as much clarity back then. If the color was okay and the image wasn't bouncing around the screen, we'd settle for a little snow. We might not even notice it. Nowadays, no one would put up with an even slightly snowy screen for very long before they'd get on the phone to their cable company.

Once they became less common, you would need rabbit ears, a dial antenna, or later, a DTV box to receive programming, which would always be spotty at best.

Imagine, nowadays tin foil is only used in the kitchen. It used to make great rabbit earmuffs.

Camp is intrinsically unrealistic, something that makes the audience laugh at its absurdity.

So is "Ernest Goes to Camp" camp?

 

[Eric Cheung]

Okay, I guess I will open a can of worms here, but why exactly can't the original Star Trek be considered as camp? Where does this narrow definition of what constitues camp even come from? Who said camp has to be intentional? I'm really not trying to be a smartass; I'm honestly curious why I never defined camp as something that's done on purpose. Theorist Susan Sontag even seems to agree with me in her Notes on Camp, where she's saying that "pure camp is always naive", "the pure examples of camp are unintentional; they are dead serious" and that "camp rests on innocence".

I also fail to see how someone who finds aspects of Star Trek to be campy must automatically hate those aspects. Where does this definition of camp as a derogatory term even come from? I certainly never use it that way.

So please, would someone clue me in?

In my Media Criticism and Theory class I took junior year I learned that camp was a self-conscious delivery of art or media--it's inherently post-modern. Things like parody and punk rock (especially sub-genres with prefixes like Post and Neo) can sometimes fall into that category. It's usually ironic and meta.

I specifically asked about Star Trek in that class and was told that Star Trek is rarely that (even with Kirk's game, dynamic, and over-the-top acting), but that the 1960s Batman show was. Both shows had similar looks to them, but they had different goals and philosophies. Star Trek was an attempt to bring serious grownup science fiction in a space opera context, whereas Batman was a study in the comic book form itself, and how a show could transfer comic book traits to a seemingly incompatible medium.