First game show to broadcast in color?

[johnnya2k3]

50 years ago this past week, the first color TV sets rolled off the assembly line at RCA. They were $1,000 a pop, which was big money for 1954.

But what was the first game show to be seen in color? Well, earlier posts at ATGS had us going back to the Bill Cullen TPIR. The NBC run may have been colorcast, but the last few years on ABC weren't.

Also, Password did 13 weeks of shows at Television City in 1966 while its New York studios were making the switch to color. "To Tell The Truth", "What's My Line", and "I've Got A Secret" were the next G-T shows to go to color when they went to syndication thereafter. And even though the pilot episode was in black and white, the original "Hollywood Squares" were always done in color.

Here, KFAR-TV (now KATN) was the first station to broadcast in color in 1967; KTVF would follow suit in '68 a few months after the flood knocked them off the air temporarily. They broadcasted from the basement of the Northward Building and later moved to the second floor where they remained until 1990 when they moved to their current digs off Van Horn Road.

Jonathan Allen

[DjohnsonCB]

CBS' "Bride And Groom" was said to have been one of the first audience participation shows in color, in 1954.  It was during that same year that the first color commercial aired--for Pall Mall Cigarettes.

[DrBear]

Quoting Dave Mackey from this Google Groups a.t.g.s thread

As to another message in this tag, the first color game show telecasts would
have to have been the "What's My Line" experimental broadcasts about 1954-1955
or so. I doubt they were preserved in color, as few color TV sets existed and
black-and-white kinescopes served the general purpose.

[Fedya]

[quote name=\'johnnya2k3\' date=\'Mar 27 2004, 04:12 PM\'] 50 years ago this past week, the first color TV sets rolled off the assembly line at RCA. They were $1,000 a pop, which was big money for 1954. [/quote]
 Sorry to be a nit-picker, but since this topic came up an another board I frequent, I suppose I should add this link on the CBS Field Sequential Color System.  CBS was doing experimental color broadcasts three years earlier.

[chris319]

Mmmm, I don't think I'd count tests of the CBS color system as anything more than the laboratory tests they were -- they couldn't even be picked up by regular B&W receivers around New York because the CBS system was not backwards compatible. I doubt in 1954 they had even come up with a way of recording those broadcasts in color.

Here, KFAR-TV (now KATN) was the first station to broadcast in color in 1967

Where's "here", Jonathan?

[Jimmy Owen]

This may not be the first, as my TV Guide collection only goes back to 1956, but the first game show listed as being regularly in color at that time was NBC's primetime "Break the $250,000 Bank" in the fall of '56.  Interestingly, while I was looking this up, I noticed TV Guide had a blurb about a new game show for kids to start in January of 57 on ABC, "Penny for Your Thoughts," to be hosted by Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.

[johnnya2k3]

[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Mar 28 2004, 08:04 AM\']

Here, KFAR-TV (now KATN) was the first station to broadcast in color in 1967

Where's "here", Jonathan? [/quote]
 Here in Fairbanks. But over in Anchorage, KENI-TV (now KTUU) was the first Alaskan station to go color in 1966.

Jonathan Allen.

[Ian Wallis]

. The NBC run may have been colorcast, but the last few years on ABC weren't.

NBC was the first network to push for color - I think they were owned by RCA at one time, who had a stake in color sets.  Quite a few NBC shows, daytime and nighttime, were regularly broadcast in color even starting from the late '50s, while the other networks stayed mostly black and white until the mid '60s.

ABC was more reluctant to go to color, partly because of the increased costs it brought.  While they switched to full color in primetime in 1966, most of their daytime lineup remained in black and white through the late '60s.  In fact, when shows like "Bewitched" and "The Fugitive" were seen in daytime repeats, ABC showed the color episodes of those series in black and white.  It wasn't until January 1970 that ABC had aired their full daytime lineup in color.

[Tony]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Mar 29 2004, 09:15 AM\']I think they (NBC) were owned by RCA at one time[/quote]
More like: NBC was founded by RCA.
 NBC has remained in RCA's possession until RCA was acquired by General Electric, hence GE's current ownership of NBC.

[DrBear]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Mar 29 2004, 08:15 AM\'] ABC was more reluctant to go to color, partly because of the increased costs it brought.  While they switched to full color in primetime in 1966, most of their daytime lineup remained in black and white through the late '60s. [/quote]
 In fact, it wasn't until 1967 that it ran its nightly news in color, and expanded it to the half-hour the "big two" had run since 1963. (The anchor at that time? A VERY young Peter Jennings).

In fact, in 1966, many shows on the ABC lineup had their premieres — the pilot episodes — produced (and of course shown) in black and white with a crawl underneath apologetically explaining "this show will be in color beginning next week." Of course, that's when shows were given more than one week to succeed.

Ah, nostalgia.

OBGameShow - One wonders if shows that were shown in B&W gave away color TV sets as prizes.

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'DrBear\' date=\'Mar 29 2004, 07:15 PM\'] OBGameShow - One wonders if shows that were shown in B&W gave away color TV sets as prizes. [/quote]
 I would guess that "Concentration" gave away color TVs fairly regularly, even though it was the last program on NBC, The Full Color Network, to be telecast in black-and-white.  After all, RCA wanted to promote color for all it was worth.

[ChuckNet]

ABC was more reluctant to go to color, partly because of the increased costs it brought. While they switched to full color in primetime in 1966, most of their daytime lineup remained in black and white through the late '60s. In fact, when shows like "Bewitched" and "The Fugitive" were seen in daytime repeats, ABC showed the color episodes of those series in black and white. It wasn't until January 1970 that ABC had aired their full daytime lineup in color.

What was the last ABC show to go to color? One source lists it as being American Bandstand in 1966, but I'm unsure now...

ObGameShow: AB's host...'nuff said. :-)

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

[rugrats1]

What was the last ABC show to go to color? One source lists it as being American Bandstand in 1966, but I'm unsure now...

I read somewhere that "Dark Shadows" didn't go to color until 1967 or 1968. On that show's first color episode, they even proudly announced: "Good news -- Dark Shadows is now in color" (never mind that that episode's only surviving print was a black-and-white kinnie).

I also recall seeing an "All My Children" anniversary special in 1990 (I think), which featured some videotaped clips in black-and-white -- and that soap debuted in 1970.

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'rugrats1\' date=\'Mar 31 2004, 09:47 PM\']

What was the last ABC show to go to color? One source lists it as being American Bandstand in 1966, but I'm unsure now...

I read somewhere that "Dark Shadows" didn't go to color until 1967 or 1968. On that show's first color episode, they even proudly announced: "Good news -- Dark Shadows is now in color" (never mind that that episode's only surviving print was a black-and-white kinnie).

I also recall seeing an "All My Children" anniversary special in 1990 (I think), which featured some videotaped clips in black-and-white -- and that soap debuted in 1970.[/quote]
"AMC" was in color from the start--but they may've only saved a B&W dub (if you'd told anyone at ABC that a cable channel owned by the network would come along 30 years later to show repeats of soap operas, they'd think you were hallucinating).

ABC used to bicycle tapes of shows to its secondary affiliates (those affils in small markets with an affiliation with CBS or NBC or both).  The shows usually aired in the secondary markets two or three weeks after the rest of the country, and until the 70s they were still sending out kinescopes--and not necessarily color kinescopes.