Two things happened on this date. Well, of course, they did. A lot of things happened on this date, like in 1655, the astronomer Christiaan Huygens discovered Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. But I’m not talking about that today. And. I’m not talking about the fact that in 1898, the famous writer O. Henry was sentenced to 5 years in prison for embezzling $854 from a bank. Nope.
Today I’m hovering around the world of entertainment.
So this.
I can’t remember getting our first color TV. But I’m pretty sure we had a black-and-white set at the start of my life.
Here’s a thing about me. I love the old movies. The old black-and-whites. The kind with Jimmy Stewart and Irene Dunn or Cary Grant. Gary Cooper. Hedy Lamar and squirrely little Peter Lorre. Those movies. We subscribe to HULU, and they do me a great service. They have a wealth of those old movies in their arsenal. I put them on when I’m working around the house just to hear the banter between the characters. It is so classic.
Why do I tell you all of this? Because in 1954, RCA manufactured the very first color TV set. The screen, on the diagonal, measured 12½ inches. And it would cost the good folks of 1954 about $1,000 if they wanted to put one in their living rooms.
A little FYI. That TV set, according to the inflation calculator, would cost $11,121.56 today.
You see, some of the big broadcasters of the time, like NBC, CBS, and ABC, announced they would be filming most of their shows in color. And by golly, people wanted to have a peek at that. NBC made the first coast-to-coast color broadcast when it aired the Tournament of Roses Parade on January 1, 1954. And then those folks at Disney premiered Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color in September of 1961. Disney created a turning point that made many people run right and purchase their color televisions.
For many years, only the rich and famous had those TVs in their homes. They were too expensive for the common folk. But by the mid-1960s, those TVs were running about $300 a shot. That is still about $2800 by today’s money.
Today, we can buy a 55” flat-screen television for under $300. And so we do.
And. More from the entertainment world. Also on this date, March 25, 1939, Billboard Magazine introduced the “Hillbilly Music” chart. These days it is better known as country music. The number one song was “Wildwood Flower” by the Carter Family. And right behind it was “Waiting For A Train” by Jimmie Rodgers. They were popular, those two. Jimmie Rodgers held nine of the Top 20, and the Carter Family had three.
I can’t run on about country music. I’m not a big fan. I’ve liked a few songs over the years, but it just isn’t for me. Too much twang. Too many wives leaving. Too many dive bars.
Rolling Stone Magazine rated the top 100 country songs of all time. “I Walk The Line” by Johnny Cash was at the top of the list, followed by Patsy Cline’s “Crazy.” I like “Crazy.” But then, I would.
Yes. Those things happened on this date, along with so many others. Things that color our world. For real.
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“Entertainment is there to improve people’s quality of life. After your basic needs, there’s entertainment.”
— Satoru Iwata
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“No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.”
— Mary Wortley Montagu
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“If television’s a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who won’t shut up.”
― Dorothy Gambrell, Cat and Girl Volume I
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Color it. In a big way now.
