My Dad LOVED television, and I think despite having to make many payments we always had the cutting edge ... including color TV in I think in 1967. It continued to his passing in 2021, as I stared at his 80-inch screen in the living room. RIP,
That was the Rolls Royce of televisions in 1961. We never had a color TV when I was growing in the 60s and early 70s. Every time I asked my father if we were going to get one, he would bark "You want color? Go to the movies!" I bought my first color set in 1977 when I was 19. I didn't have a TV with a remote control until 1988.
I got one of these FREE in about 1972. The lady across the street gave it to me because it did not recieve channel 7 well. LOL......nobody in the entire city got that channel well but I guess she did not know that. The thing weighed a TON but i got it home with the help of a friend. It lasted about another 5 years. Was a pretty cool TV
My Dad didn't buy a color TV until 1975. He kept saying he was waiting until they perfected them. He bought an RCA color cabinet model set and the picture tube went out after a few years.
That was like the Rolls Royce of TVs back in 1961. Our family didn't even own a TV until about 1964. When I was a kid in early 60s we entertained ourselves with comic books and games. We danced to the record player in the living room and sang to the radio in the kitchen. No TV but we were never bored.
@@fluffymacaw933 TV cost about $500 new in 1961, which adjusted for inflation would be about $4600 now. Today you can get one at a thrift store for $20.
Man, look at all of the great events that occurred in 1961. JFK became president...RCA introduced this great television technology...Alan Shepard became the first American in space...And, I was born!
Way ahead of its time. I can't imagine what it must have cost back then. Only rich people would have had a remote controlled televison set. Very few people had color. Our early 60's RCA color set was very basic, but cost a fortune. It didn't even have a UHF tuner. Of course back then we only had three networks, and they were on VHF channels. You got them with a rotary antenna on top of the house.
Dog whistle remote control. It used ultrasonic tones of various frequencies in the 40KHz range. It was extremely loud too! Humans couldn't hear it. But, it drove pets mad! Some people noticed their dogs yelping in pain when they would use certain remotes. The other problem that could come up was when you tossed your key ring on the kitchen table and the TV would turn itself on! Most people never made the connection. I recall frustrated TV owners coming to the shop claiming their house was haunted while holding a ring keys so large, they should stay clear of deep water. (diving weights) In the late 1960s, I used to get junked TVs from the dump just to pull out the remote control receivers. I had many remote controls people would give me after they bought a new set too.... and then told me they took the old one to the dump!
Priced at $995, $7,995 in 2016 dollars. The cheapest RCA Color set, the same 21 inch round picture tube, manual controls, basically same guts, one speaker in a purposely ugly black-painted sheet metal enclosure, with no legs ("table model") was $495 $3,975 in 2016 dollars. This was not a TV commercial, but a training film for salespeople to be able to show all the extra features of this model. Most sales then were the non-remotes in a reasonably nice furniture style cabinet for $595 to $695.
My grandparents had one. Probably the only ones on their block with a color TV. Unfortunately, I remember that not all shows were color yet! I also remember my Nana always being the one allowed to hold the remote.
I was trying to find someone who says grandma or grandpa because I felt those words for love and grandparents are respect based and here you are said nana you must love your grandma or was i wrong ?
Ah, color tv back then! Much bulkier, and more expensive than we have now. With a much wider, stylistic array of real-wood-work-of-art cabinets, that qualify as unique and beautiful furniture in the modern age! And the circuit of each, was a unique, memorizing puzzle of analog wizardry!
Can't believe the size of that control, looks like a brick. But, in the day, remote control TV was the schiznitz. I still remember when my folks bought their first color set in '69 and the salesman asked if they wanted the remote. It was something like $100.00 for it, my dad said no.
Holy cow. Remote control in 1960's - many people could only imagine of that, many people even couldn't imagine something like that already existed. I live in Czechia, former Czechoslovakia, which was behind iron curtain. Yes, we had television from like 1950's, first color broadcast was in 1975 from what I know, following France's color scheme SECAM (that scheme was used all over Eastern Block). We didn't have remote control. If something was called a remote control (in family), it was a child that simply ran up to the TV and flipped channel. Well, there wasn't much channels to flip through though, starting from 1950's, there was only one channel, and from like 1978-ish, there was a second channel. That's it. Nothing more. Channel 1 and Channel 2. Nothing else was used for broadcasting. The full potential of TV broadcast was used later after 1989, when the iron curtain fell apart, when new TV channels emerged. The first commercial TV channel in Czechia was emerged in 1993, which was called "Prima", following in 1994 by TV station called "Nova". Those were together with Czech State Television's Channel 1 and 2 the 4 broadcasting stations. Remote controls weren't pretty much needed before new TVs emerging up. I do not need to say that TV broadcast wasn't continous in the socialist era - TV stations simply signed off. The first continous TV signal was tested in 1985 I guess, on the main channel (the first one), however trend of TV stations signing off and turning their signal off was even in Western part of Europe, so no big deal, really. Seeing a remote control in 1960's, that is something...
They had stores like Walmart but everything was name brand and made in the United States. There was no such thing as generic products in 1961. That didn't happen until the early 1980s.
The living color offerings in 1961 were slim. But if you could keep the thing running for 5 years until 1966, the entire prime time network lineups were in color.
Love that neat compartment for the remote control. Had an Admiral tv from 1962 as a kid had a special place on the side for a magnetic remote control... and all it did was volume up/down channel up/down and on/off power.
lol... I remember going over a friend's house then to watch Saturday cartoons in color....one time the mother comes screaming in the room..."did I see you touch those color knobs?", we were askeered!
We had a RCA in 1965, If you walked by the TV set giggling you car keys, or coins, some times you could change the TV channels without the use of the remote.
Whoww! Back then, a TV this electronically remote-controllable certainly must've been for rich folks only! I think it would have cost a mint! Even in the '70s with our more rectangle-screened TV, my parents didn't have a remote-controlled version of it! And the one from the '70s that one set of my grandparents had didn't have that many remote-control functions! All it had was power, volume, and channels! So this model really looks to have been ahead of its time at least somewhat!
My parents had an all voice operated TV set. Me and my brother! Turn on the damned TV! Change the damned channel! Adjust the damned fine tuning! Yep, it worked like a charm and the battery was never dead in the remote!
@@videolabguy: I bet it wasn't always as reliable as they might've wanted it to be, though, ha! Right? Maybe sometimes your parents frustrated it and so it didn't always want to obey, huh? And maybe it wasn't always available when they wanted it to be, huh? :-D Happy 125th birthday of my state, Utah! (Jan. 4, 2021.) (Hint: ya gotta make that text-suspense gap bigger by one more line-space!)
Wow, awesome ad, thanks for sharing. My dad had a tv repair shop when I was growing up in the 70's, I recall many classic tvs around being worked on. I recently picked up a 25" Zenith console tv
I picked up a "Gold labeled SANYO 25"Color-Colour effective phosphor CRT Television with 24 Button Remote Control" at the "Salvation Army Thrift Store" for only $24 (NO Tax.). I operates like brand New from Sanyo in "Living Color-Colour". The 24 button Remote Control can control the "Color control", the "Hue or Tint Control of Colors", the "Sharpness Control", the "Brightness control" and finally the "Contrast Control". ALL operates like brand New "Living Colour-Color Programming whether Broadcast Channels Televisions or VHS-VCRs Televisions or DVD-Players and Recorders"! Its the BEST $24 Bargain I have ever got at the "Thrift Stores from the Salvation Army Stores of Super-Bargains Mint Conditioned Used Electronics"!!!!
Electronics repairman say that I can call my Sanyo CRT by its Full CRT Tube Diagonal as a 26 inch Color-Colour CRT Set too + Remote Control 24 buttons for only $24 Dollars at the "Used Thrift Stores of the Salvation Army Thrift Stores Used Electronics, you can test your electronics before you buy because ALL Thrift Stores have A.C. outlets to plug your Electronic Appliances before you purchase or buy your used electronic appliances, have a good day and enjoy!!!!!
All that one had was one button for on/vol. up/up/up/up/up/off or something like that, and then the other for channels. And in fact it had a motor that would turn the channel knobs! In fact, with that TV, I could control it in random ways by clinking a handful of coins (usually quarters) around! It was really weird according to what I'm used to with other remote controls!
those separate remote amplifiers that were always "on" with the tubes hot.......caused quite a few houses to catch on fire. A lot of people left that function on all the time because the set did not need to warm up and it would come on quickly. After a few years when dust built up inside the set the hot tubes woud ignite the dust then the cabinet would catch on fire etc. I now of at least 2 cases of this happening....one in my own town
I purchased a Quasar Color 25" Console,new in the early 1980's that still looked a lot like that.A 25" screen at that time was the biggest you could get.To get some of the higher Cable channels I had to purchase a tuner box from Radio Shack.
@apelly It did, the only family in my neighborhood to have one at that time owned a car dealership. I would go over on Saturdays to watch cartoons in color. We had to ask my friend's mother to change the channel as we weren't allowed to touch either the remote or the channel selector on the tv. As we said then, it was a beaut.
I love the modern rounded corners design that are starting to be in the mainstream. It's interesting to see the screen be a circle here. Makes me wonder who had the idea for this and what made everyone stick to the square designs
The square screen wasn’t introduced on color sets until 1965. On this set, you couldn’t run a vacuum cleaner underneath it without screwing up the picture.
Wow and to think here in New Zealand we just got TV in 1960, only 1 channel here until the 1970s and no colour until the 1970s. I can remember my parents getting a TV with a remote in 1984 and it seemed like such a new thing to go with our first colour TV. I am writing this just an hour before our analogue service gets switched off.
Imagine how expensive these were then. Nevertheless, it's pretty cool they tried making remote controls this early. Most TVs had knobs and black and white sets were more affordable.
These television sets were top of the line in 1961... I can't even imagine what this must have cost back in the day.. I'm sure only CEOs and the like were able to afford them; would love to have one today though, that's for sure!
A good example: a 1960 RCA Victor 21 inch tabletop model cost $495. VERY expensive to own- and few people did. Here's a print ad promoting it: www.tvhistory.tv/1960-RCA-Color21in-$495.JPG
that was a 600 dollar set( the remote control was an option, and cost an additional 100 dollars) and not many of those sets were sold, they took up warehouse space, due to the fact that most programing was not in color at that time, only" N.B.C." was broadcasting in color. it would stand to reason being that "N.B.C." was owned by" R.C.A.". R.C.A. released color sets in 1955. it was hard to justify the extra cost of a color set, with most shows being shot in black/ white. R.C.A. "FORCED" color programing by lobbing congress, and it became "LAW" on jan. 5 1968. most t.v. shows that "AIRED" in "B/W" at the time were cancelled, if the ratings were weak. to re construct the shows sets, and colorize the show would have cost an extra 10K per episode!!!! ( half hour show ---- that was really 20 min. in length)
We got a color RCA TV a year after this, for Christmas 1962. It didn't look like the one in this film, but it did have the same remote. Unfortunately, despite how wonderful the remote sounds here, it never worked very well. It was easier and faster to just go up to the set itself and do it that way - and you had to adjust the color and tint every time a new color program started. Not that there were very many of them then, since only NBC was showing color then.
Color tv set sales really started to take off by the early '60s. This ( 1961) was the year Zenith introduced world's first remote My parents didn't finally get a color tv until 1973. .
The sets of that day needed more adjustments than more modern analog sets did, with optimums varying from channel to channel, so the remotes of that day needed more settings to adjust. The digital age would bring us more things to select or adjust again, but now many of those are relegated to menus. Still, our modern remotes have a plethora of buttons.
During the world Fair of 1962 in NYC. I remember a show boot that has color TV from U.S.A.. The set cost $800.00 and Black and White 14" cost close to $200.00. My mother brought 14" Sylvania Portable with her whole month salary as a nurse in 1962.
In 1961, there wasn't much in the way of color television programming. Only NBC had an extensive schedule of programs broadcast in color. ABC and CBS had almost no color programs in the early 1960's. And very few local TV stations broadcast local programs in color.
They had discount stores, K-mart, Zody's and Two Guy's to name a few. K-mart is the only one left. Zody's was slighty above a discount store, but not by much. Discount stores is those days sold names like Electrophonic and Soundesign. Big Names rarely sold products through discount stores, if they did it was a closeout model. It was beneath manufacturers to have their names associated with cheap discount stores.
and this button allows you to search media in any USB plugged device. Today you couldn't do such a meticulous description of the functions of each button in a remote control, let alone every function in a tv.
+supremes ballard Well,in my opinion it looks better than newer TVs. Todays TVs are just screens with a shell and the newest TVs when off look fugly (Fucking ugly).
They still have tint adjustment from the remote, all tv's have them, it's a secret code to get into meant for only the repairman. They manufacturers learned not to give the consumer to much to adjust or they will screw it up, so they just tell you it's all done automatically and made certain adjustments only for the repairman.
It can be frustrating watching a color TV with somebody who is colorblind. My mother was color blind too. She couldn't see green very well and had it jacked up too high. Everybody looked like they were under water.
This TV set is the RCA model "Worthington" with a CTC7 chassis. I'm a technician of vintage radio and tv sets, amplifiers, organs and every electronic apparatus. I'm looking for one of these tv set, if you know anyone that has one of them, please send me a message! :)
Wow..and now the remote is also in my phone now.even the console game and computer. But still we need virtual reality and holographic media in phones by now.
My uncle got one shortly after and I would go over to his house on Sat. morn. to watch my fill. Only problem, he was color blind! Difference was he would let me adjust his color to get it right. What I wouldn't give to go back to those days, no worries about the NSA, IRS or whatever is next. One could count on everyday being the same, well except for the nuke drills we had in S Fl., even that seemed fun.
Yes, in 1970 I bought a Zenith table model in Bartlesville, Oklahoma for $400. That would be roughly a grand in today's money, and the TV, although a good one, still had tubes and was not near the quality of today;s televisions.
I made a rant similar to that awhile ago. But with video games. I bought a Gameboy advance SP back in 2004(or 5), and I felt like the coolest kid on the block. (It actually made me), and it was also sticky with use. Now a few days ago I bought a Nintendo 3DS, and even if I just bought it, it is already collecting dust. Even 3 year olds have these things! Don't parents know when things are age appropriate?
Back then you had to spend a fortune to buy a colour tv only to find that most of the programmes were in black and white. When you did get a colour programme, the colour would often be poor and drift so badly that what you were seeing was nothing like the "Living Color" that was promised in all the advertising blurb. Not only that but the picture lacked sharpness compared to black and white. Fair play to RCA for introducing ground breaking technology for the time, and somebody's got to be the first, but perhaps in retrospect they should have sorted out the inherent flaws of their system before introducing what turned out to be a less than perfect design to the public.
If you are in a large market like New York Los Angeles or Chicago I'm sure the color looks good but in a smaller Market I'm sure they didn't have the latest technology at that time
The local NBC station in the 60's must have had some surplus first generation color equipment. The picture would be perfect for the network show and then the news would come on. The faces always trended to a bright green....
@@lowercherty Living in the Uk, I remember that when US news items or American videotaped shows, such as 'Laugh In', were shown here in the 1960's the picture was always inferior in terms of both sharpness and colour fidelity in comparison to UK or other European produced colour programmes.
if only i could get that in a 70 inch. lol. i could live in the back. oh imagine being able to go back to the past and tell them about today. they would call u crazy. lol
Did anyone else find that American colour broadcasts lacked enough green gun? Maybe it's just me, but from an early age I could spot a colour film on Technicolor. I'm sure it was just a question of adjustment, but does somebody know that American audiences don't want too much green or something?
I vaguely recall that in analogue colour tv, green is derived from what’s left over from red and blue signals - they basically had to broadcast red and blue (and luminance of course - the “black and white”) and derive the green from those. I had an early colour tv and green was the most problematic as the tv was a bit faulty. Maybe that’s part of what you experienced?
I was just talking about the menus. But yeah, the scanning feature is fast-forwarding or fast-backing while playing so you can see (and maybe in some cases, even hear) the signal while going through it quickly. Try it sometime. It's easy. (Just press the right double-arrow or the left double-arrow.)
