I often wonder why there wasn't more color episodes. After the 60's there were more color tv's. I think it would have been more interesting if there were. Of course people I guess were used black and white in some instances.
sharePM's last season was just before color took hold. Lost in Space was in B+W that year. In 1966 ABC went all color with CBS and NBC following suit there after. That was the reason for the one color episode. In case the series was renewed one more year.
shareColor film and film processing cost more than black-and-white. The producers obviously decided to save money by shooting in black-and-white as long as they could (which turned out to be the whole of the series).
shareWell, sort of. 1965 was actually the year when all three networks started shooting two-thirds of their programming in color. NBC did it for virtually all their shows except I Dream of Jeannie, which the sole reason why that wasn't was because the special effects were still imperfect to be achievable in color. CBS, which was PM's network, already transitioned a majority of its programming towards color for the 1965-66 season. While many were still in B&W, like as you said Lost in Space, The Munsters, and The Wild Wild West, others like Gilligan's Island, Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Hogan's Heroes, The Andy Griffith Show, and The Ed Sullivan Show made the shift to color. To be sure, all three networks agreed to complete the color transition for its prime-time programs by the fall 1966 season, owing much to the success of ABC's Batman, it was actually 1965 that began the permanent transition towards color.
shareIn an interview a while ago, Barbara Hale explained that after that single color episode aired, everyone on the crew knew it was a mistake to film in color. So they went back to what she called "glorious black and white." They felt that b&w was the only way the show should ever have been filmed. I think it's because of the somewhat "noir" tone of the show.
This sentence is false. -- The Zurich Gnome
Yep. And Ms. Hale was 100% right.
shareI think it would have been better if they had of been in color.after the color one it made the show even better.Black and white was kind of out dated. But it has been 50 years so it is as it is until some can be colorized. I think color lifens it up.
shareMy cousin bought an RCA color in 1965. The screen was small and color was horrible, very bright and with terrible bleeding. Color tv was still quite a neuvo rich thing until a few years later when Magnavox finally made a very nice color set with a standard size tube and fairly affordable to the average family (about $500 for a cabinet set which today would cost about $4000.)
The UNITED States of America. July 4, 1776-June 26, 2015.
RIP.
There are two film genres, Shelly, that gain nothing from color photography: horror and film noir.
shareThe final season of Perry Mason was ranked #69 in the A.C. Neilsen Ratings opposite Bonanza at #1; both shows were Sunday nights at 9 pm. Color filming would have made Perry Mason more competitive with Bonanza, which had been in color since it's debut in 1959. But during the 1965-66 TV season, CBS sitcoms and variety shows (Gilligan's Island My Favorie Martian, Green Acres, Hogan's Heroes, Ed Sullivan, Red Skelton) often got the color, while dramas (Rawhide, The Wild Wild West, Perry Mason. Gunsmoke, Lost In Space) were black and white. This was generally so, though at least 3 sitcoms (The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Munsters, and The Smothers Brothers Show) were also in black and white, as was The Jackie Gleason Show. I don't know what the deciding factor was at the big three networks as to whether a show would be in black and white or in color?
sharemy parents waited to buy a color TV till 1967, early ones were rounded picture tubes and cut off part of the picture. My Dad did get a good deal, though, $375 for a consol Admiral Color TV, but he also had to get a Rotary antenna at a additional cost. Up till about that time, not many people had color TV's. In the mid 60's people were still buying black & white TV's and up till about 1965 most shows were not done in color
shareHey, color was not introduced to tv until September of 1966. I don't know why though.
Well, that's because it's not true.
The first color broadcasts were from CBS, using its klutzy, incompatible field-sequential system. Only a few CBS bigwigs could see them.
The first NBC color broadcast occurred in late 1953, with "regular" colorcasts starting with the Rose Bowl parade on New Year's Day, 1954.
Color TV requires more than shooting a program on color film. It requires color cameras & studio equipment, and an infrastructure having the bandwidth and phase characteristics to maintain accurate color throughout the US. The latter was pretty much in place by 1954. However, CBS had an idiotic color system it had been wedded to until the FCC revoked its approval, and ABC -- in last place among the three major networks -- didn't have the money (or didn't want to spend it).
Color TV sales rose in the early '60s, especially when RCA introduced a 21" table model in a metal cabinet. * By the mid-'60s, color TV sales finally outpaced B&W, giving color programs a 1 or 2-point ratings advantage. Once NBC went to all-color programming in 1966, CBS and ABC had no choice.
As for color versus B&W... My "automatic" preference is for really good color -- especially color that's appropriate to or enhances the story. Most people don't care for B&W, because they've never seen good B&W. It's an art form of its own, Perry Mason -- and especially Gunsmoke -- practiced it magnificently. Gunsmoke was so beautifully photographed, I'd be happy even if all the episodes were in B&W. Watch the current MeTV B&W episodes (from 35mm prints), and see what you've been missing.
* The claim (made elsewhere) that early color TVs had "smeary" pictures is only partly true. Most sets -- including RCA's -- were not properly aligned, causing color fringing. Philco's sets were correctly aligned, and the company ran magazine ads showing the difference.
* The claim (made elsewhere) that early color TVs had "smeary" pictures is only partly true. Most sets -- including RCA's -- were not properly aligned, causing color fringing. Philco's sets were correctly aligned, and the company ran magazine ads showing the difference.
The TV sets weren't really good until the early 70's...tubes vs solid state made a big difference in the reception...the colors had to actually warm up ...it was like watching ooze...so keeping PM bw was a...ok with me!
sharePM just seems to be a B&W-type show. It originally began on radio and thus depended entirely on dialog and when it was moved to television, it remained a dialog-driven show. The one episode filmed in color adequately demonstrated that fact color tipped the balance in the wrong direction in that color automatically took the emphasis off of the dialog.
share>> I think it would have been more interesting if there were.<<
PM was a Courtroom Drama. Color doesn't enhance anything.
On an original PM DVD, the Producer said that Color increased production costs 3 fold!!
$250K to $750K per episode.
They had the number one show on TV. B&W not withstanding. Why increase their production costs?
Added to that, PM was a CBS show. Color TV was patented/owned by rival NBC, whose inventive Parent, was RCA. CBS really resisted the RCA Color System, as long as they could.
CBS had actually had a rival Color format introduced in the late 1940's. It involved shooting with a 3 color lens filter, that constantly rotated. A mechanical approach, as opposed to RCA's fully electronic technique.
But Color TV didn't become hugely prolific until the 1970's. When Solid State devices (Phase Discriminators) had rendered well known color TV problems in the home, obsolete.
On an original PM DVD, the Producer said that Color increased production costs 3 fold!! $250K to $750K per episode.That increase probably applied only to that orphan episode. Virtually everything about the show would have had to have been re-thought and re-done to look right in color, and that probably represents the difference (though it seems awfully high).
The cost of having to redo all of the sets. With B&W, they just had to do colors that showed up well in grey.
shareRemember that audiences were less accustomed to and spoiled by color back then. Many photographers like b&w because it better shows shadow, and viewers were used to b&w so they could appreciate that aspect of it. Modern viewers often can't appreciate that mood and the interesting lighting because they're too busy saying, wtf happened to muh colors?
Also Bonanza seldom filmed at night, because cowboys sleep at night. Murderers, on the other hand, often work in the dark. Night photography is tricky today and was far more difficult then. Color film was slower, so shooting in the dark often produced useless black film, and the colors were liable to get out of balance when you could see anything at all. They often shot night scenes by day and set the camera to underexpose everything--that way they could be sure you could see SOMETHING. That's why you sometimes see strong shadows at night.
I like the film noir quality of it. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Really good B&W cinematography is beautiful -- on a large screen.
With 50" (and larger) displays, we can appreciate Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, et al, in a way that home viewers of 50 years ago could not,
CBS Chairman Bill Paley, who was a fan of Perry Mason, ordered the color episode to. See how it would look. Since the show had plummeted in the ratings and was on the verge of cancellation, he hoped it might save Perry Mason. It didn't. The competition of Color Bonanza on NBC did it in. BTW, NBC became "The Full Color Network" around that time.
this is an admittedly nit-picky kinda post, but I'm truly curious - on your side of the 49th, is it grammatically correct to say (as this post does) "why WASN'T there more..." as opposed to "why WEREN'T there more..." there are buckets of differences, eg, we'd add a U so that COLOR IS COLOUR blah blah yada yada - as an amateur linguist I like to learn/get feedback, also whether it's national, regional,(even county?). Thank y'all kindly for tolerating an internet newbys' odd questions "de temps en temps"🇨🇦
share"Color episodes" is plural. Therefore, "weren't" (were not) is correct.
I don't know about the British, but Americans have a poor sense of grammar. They usually parse the verb to the closest noun, rather than the actual subject of the sentence.
I had a feeling if anyone would be "grammar-savvy" it'd be you! thanks mate, have a Happy St Paddys' day
shareGrammar nazi!!
Lol, I'd go nuts if I tried to pick up on the misspellings, poor grammar, etc. I find in posts, and the "u" instead of "you" and "2" in place of to or too really drives me nuts. Good catch though, I thought the same thing.
Thanks mate!
I had joined IMDb just the day before, I'd never owned a computer before, and I'm (daily!) gobsmacked at how many errors I've seen.......grammar, spelling, context, syntax, pronouns.....î‚©

Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought an idiot - than to open it and remove all doubt!
This is new to me. But since everything else in the article that I'm familiar with is correct and the author gives specific references, I see no reason not to believe it.
I have two questions that need answering. Disney was producing Disneyland episodes on color (probably for future exploitation -- eg, Davy Crocket. Why didn't ABC broadcast them in color?
I'm also puzzled that Judy Garland's show wasn't in color. Or was it? The get reruns are in B&W. Did CBS have only B&W video recorders?
Anyhow, thanks for the reference.
All the networks went full color (in primetime) in the fall of 1966. Prior to that, each of the networks were in various states of transition (NBC was the furthest advanced, having regularly scheduled color shows on their schedule in the late 50s/early 60s: "Bonanza", "Walt Disney", "Hazel").
Prior to 1966, each network had a mix of B&W and color series. One of the factors that went into the decision to convert a series to color (prior to the fall of 1966) was the potential for further seasons of the series. A transition to color meant upfront expenses, such as redoing the sets, re-filming stock footage, etc. The networks and production companies preferred to invest in color for series that would be around a while longer.
Both "Perry Mason" and "Gunsmoke" were believed to be near the end of their respective runs in 1965, which is why CBS didn't transition them to color as they did some of their sitcoms that fall. "The Munsters" (on CBS), "Donna Reed" and "Patty Duke" (on ABC) stayed in B&W for the same reason. "Patty" and "The Munsters" actually ended because their networks wouldn't invest to do those shows in color for the 1966-67 season.
CBS did the test episode as a precursor to a possible tenth season of "Perry Mason", but clearly a full color transition was not meant to be. Probably for the best - that is a weird-looking episode. By contrast, Gunsmoke lost a lot in its transition to color - the B&W episodes are really beautiful to look at. Same with The Fugitive.
To the best of my knowledge, prior to the shift to "all color", CBS and ABC did not have a mix of color and B&W. Everything was broadcast in B&W.
As "proof", consider Judy Garland's show. It's in B&W.
Oddly, the pilot for The Munsters was shot in color.
ABC and CBS definitely had a mix of color and B&W series prior to 1966. All-color happened in the fall of 1966. Prior to this, CBS had multiple color series on its schedule in the fall of 1965: the Lucy Show, Andy Griffith, Gilligan's Island, Petticoat Junction, Beverly Hillbillies, Lassie, Hazel, and Green Acres. That same season, they also had shows like Gunsmoke, Perry Mason, and The Wild Wild West in B&W. On ABC, The Flintstones and The Jetsons were broadcast in color in the fall of 1962. By the fall of 1965 ABC had Voyage to the Botton of the Sea, Gidget, Ben Casey, The Big Valley, and Ozzie and Harriet in color, while several other series - like Peyton Place, Bewitched and Patty Duke - remained in B&W.
shareI lived during that era, and don't remember any of those shows opening with an announcement that it was in color -- something that NBC did until it switched to all-color.
It should be noted that Disney switched to NBC precisely because ABC could not provide it with color.
What is your evidence for this?
I lived in that era too. Where is your evidence that CBS and ABC didn't have any color series until the fall of 1966?
Read this: http://www.tvobscurities.com/articles/color60s/
And try googling:
- ABC first color tv series
- "The Flintstones" color 1962
- "lucy show" color 1965
- "ozzie and harriet" color
- "My three sons" CBS color
The Disney example doesn't prove anything. They switched to NBC in 1961. ABC didn't start broadcasting a weekly series in color until the fall of 1962, with The Flintstones and The Jetsons.
CBS president William Paley said in 1959 that he was going to hold out against color for as long as possible. There were irregularly scheduled shows on CBS in color at that time, like The Red Skelton Show from 1958-60, until NBC complained that Red was using their NBC/RCA color system without paying royalties, so Skelton switched back to black and white. CBS also broadcast The Wizard Of Oz in color, annually, starting in 1956; later NBC showed it. Paley hated that viewers would switch channels from CBS's Ed Sullivan to NBC's Bonanza in living color, Sundays at 9pm, but couldn't figure out how to stop Bonanza. Wagon Train and The Greatest Show On Earth were early live action color shows on abc during the 1963-64 season, though Wagon Train went back to black and white and perished opposite Walt Disney's Wonderful World Of Color, in 1965.
shareNBC opened with an announcement "In Living Color" because it wanted to sell RCA color TV sets. David Sarnoff was the president of RCA.
In 1926, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) began a new division called the National Broadcasting system to sell its radios. NBC officially started broadcasting on November 15, 1926. It is the oldest major broadcast network in the United States.
During this period Sarnoff started funding research into early Television technoloy.
In 1939, RCA launched regularly scheduled television in America. A small network was set up in the east coast under the name of The National Broadcasting Company (NBC). NBC had until that time been strictly a radio network.
NBC's most ambitious "network" program during this time was the telecast of the Republican National Convention held in Philadelphia in the summer of 1940. NBC became the first television network in the United States.
At first TV set sales were disappointing but soon RCA became the leading seller of TV sets.
World War II put a hold on the development of TV and networks.
However after the war, there was an explosion in the sales of Black and White TV sets.
In 1950, CBS, NBC's rival, won FCC approval for a new color television system. General Sarnoff filed a suit in the United States district court to suspend that ruling but it failed. He appealed to the US Supreme Court. The court again upheld the FCC's decision.
Sarnoff was determined to win the "Color TV War" with CBS so he pushed his engineers to perfect the color system with a signal that could be used on existing monochromatic televsion sets.
CBS was not able take advantage of the color market even though it held its frist color premier on June 14, 1951. The CBS system was incompatible with black-and-white TV sets. Existing color sets were expensive and the price was outside what most people could afford.
Color TV production, however, was banned by the Office of Defense Mobilization in October 1951 due to the Korean War which caused more people to buy the monochromatic sets.
CBS was not able to take advantage due to the NTSC standard. The first NTSC standard was developed by the FCC in 1941 and had no provision for color so their color signal did not work with with black-and-white receivers.
The signal was reformatted in 1953 to allow the color signal to work on monochromatic sets and the FCC approved RCA's system as the new standard.
As a result of the new standard, RCA was able to become the leading manufacturer of color TV sets in the US.
NBC's first all-color prime-time program aired in the summer of 1954. It was called "The Marriage".
CBS had withdrawn its system in March 1953. Sarnoff had won the so-called "color tv war".
RCA and Philco, who worked together on the backward compatibilty system, were now the leading sellers of color sets.
In 1956 Chairman Sarnoff nicknamed NBC, the "Peacock Network", to promote its color programming and to sell RCA's color TV sets. The ability to sell color sets was a huge advantage to NBC and helped lead the network in color programming.
For the rest of the decade NBC continued to push color programming while the other two networks lagged behind, especially ABC, which did not have the financial resources to compete with either NBC or CBS.
CBS was reluctant to change to color because most Americans, at this time, owned black and white TV sets. CBS also had no financial interest in selling color sets as did NBC and its founder RCA.
Early color sets were also bulky and heavy until 1966 when GE introduced a more easier to use and convenient model called the Porta-Color.
This was the first "portable" color television set in America. The bulky and heavier models were also annoying to use and required frequent adjustments to the color.
By 1965, NBC was promoting itself as the full color network with 95% of its prime time schedule in color.
In 1972, sales of color sets finally surpassed sales of black-and-white sets and the remaining hold out to the color revolution daytime programming finally converted to color.
PM needs color cinematography like a nursery needs a guillotine.
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