8mm Forum: b&w of color tv shows

This is topic b&w of color tv shows in forum 16mm Forum at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Brian Stearns (Member # 3792) on November 09, 2013, 01:11 PM:

Just curious if anybody has a B&W print of a color TV episode on 16mm and there opinion. I got a Bonanza episode that's B&W I did not know it because seller listed as untested,It's funny it says part one on the reel but it's complete. I'm satisfied

I like the fact that it's low fade [Wink]

Has good contrast.

Posted by Robert Crewdson (Member # 3790) on November 09, 2013, 02:03 PM:

That's an odd one. The shows were filmed in colour, but in the UK, colour sets weren't available until about 1964, and I didn't see one until about 1967. The last series of the Lone Ranger in 1956? was filmed in colour but only viewed in black and white.
Paul Foster once had an episode of The Big Valley in B&W, and I have only seen that in colour.

Posted by Brian Stearns (Member # 3792) on November 09, 2013, 08:45 PM:

I wonder if they shipped to stations in two formats part 1 b&w version and Part 2 color. Thus the the part 1 on reel. See another film on eBay listed as part 1 but in color and full 2000 ft reel

Posted by Jim Schrader (Member # 9) on November 11, 2013, 04:34 PM:

alot of smaller tv stations were not able to show color or have not yet transferred to color so they showed B/W episodes instead of color, the show was filmed in color from the 1st season in '59 till its end in '73.

Posted by Michael O'Regan (Member # 938) on November 11, 2013, 05:07 PM:

Jim is correct. This is also the reason we see B&W prints of colour features on the secondhand market.

Posted by Joe Balitzki (Member # 438) on November 11, 2013, 09:32 PM:

99% of the available Bonanza prints have poor color due to age as they are not on Low Fade stock. So a B&W print is actually desirable. And B&W prints of Bonanza are as rare as prints that have good color. The only prints I have seen with good color were on AGFA print stock. There may have been prints struck on Low Fade stock but I have never seen any.

Posted by Brian Stearns (Member # 3792) on November 15, 2013, 05:49 PM:

I see a Get Smart episode on eBay that's black and white of color.Starting at 70.00

I've also seen some bewitched as well

Posted by Gerald Santana (Member # 2362) on November 15, 2013, 07:11 PM:

Hi Brian,

That's my episode of Get Smart, and yes, these were sent out to TV stations that would eventually upgrade to color. The same goes for the episode of Ozzie and Harriet that I have, which has bumpers for the TV show FBI in color! Eventually, you could run the episode with the color upgrade and transmit the show when in syndication with color spots still intact now, faded.

Posted by Brian Stearns (Member # 3792) on November 15, 2013, 08:17 PM:

Ok great, starting bid 24.99

How much do you hope to get for it?

I wonder what buyer think on eBay bw episodes of color?

Posted by Gerald Santana (Member # 2362) on November 15, 2013, 11:24 PM:

I'm adding reasonable starting bids to all of the items and Buy it Now is set for $70 on that one. It's a great episode, and a very clean print with hilarious writing by Buck Henry and Mel Brooks. It's also one of the only episodes I've been able to find in B&W.

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on November 16, 2013, 10:05 AM:

This takes me back forty years to my first colour television set in 1973, programmes then were mainly black & white with about a quarter of the output in colour, mainly reserved for the evenings. At first the TV listings didn't differentiate between black & white and colour.

A local television station, Westward TV, were scheduled to run MGM's "Singin' In The Rain" which I naturally assumed would be in colour. On the appointed day the family all sat down to watch the eagerly awaited film. It started. But it was in black & white. How disappointing.

I was so incensed that I wrote a strong letter of complaint. In their reply the TV station said they had had the print for some years in their collection and had originally bought it in a black & white print as at that time there had been no point in spending the extra money on a copy in colour.

It took quite a few years for TV stations to go into full colour, but before that the schedules would have a comment "IN COLOUR".

When American TV series eventually came out in colour, either a title or a voice-over would announce "IN COLOR". As Michael said above, this is often why 16mm copies of films/programmes are on sale in black & white because the TV stations quickly went to colour and then scrapped their b/w copies. Some obviously didn't get that far and somehow landed up in collectors' own personal libraries.

Posted by Brian Stearns (Member # 3792) on November 17, 2013, 01:17 AM:

Maurice thanks for the indepth explanation,it is indeed an interesting subject. I once had a 16mm film Randolph Scott Western Union B&W originally color film. I dont mind bw of color but some film must be in color.

Posted by Bill Phelps (Member # 1431) on November 30, 2013, 06:15 PM:

I have an episode of THE FLINTSTONES on 16mm in B&W...REEL TROUBLE. It is one of my favorites because it is about Fred trading in his still camera for an 8mm movie camera, taking movies of Pebbles and boring everyone with his "home movie shows"! There are actually some screen grabs from the episode in the 'projectors in movies' thread.

Bill [Smile]

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