I know that film directors would choose, or sometimes alternate, between black & white and color films - why did all TV directors go with black and white? Did they think that it would add a little gravitas to shows like The Abbott and Costello Show?
"Professor Marvel never guesses - he knows!"
All TV shows in the 1950s were shot in color, but a much cheaper film stock was used for television programs, and TV shows were usually not as carefully preserved back then (in fact, many kinescopes were simply thrown away), so the colors faded
after just a few short years. Rare exceptions of this included the 1958 TV special An Evening With Fred Astaire; Mr. Astaire, still a big movie star at the time, was able to afford to shoot the special on higher-quality color tape, which
is why the program is one of the few existing 1950s TV shows that has retained its
original color format.
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Hewwo.
All TV shows in the 1950s were shot in color
"Comparatively few series were produced in color in the 1950s because so few viewers had color sets. Color series were often distributed in black-and-white because it was cheaper to make b&w prints and cheaper to transmit them. Same with color movies. So even if you had a color TV, you weren’t guaranteed seeing all of the color shows then being produced in color. I remember my mother reading a letter from her brother in California in which he lamented buying a color TV for the first time and realizing that the only shows he could see in color were “Bonanza” and “Ruff and Reddy” (a Hanna-Barbera cartoon show)."
http://briandanacamp.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/early-color-tv-shows-the -1950s/, emphasis mine
Very few folks had color TV's and black and white filming was cheaper, both in the original filming and in copying.
I think using black and white was a simple matter of dollars and cents.
Interestingly, the Cisco Kid series, was filmed in color starting in 1950. The producers must have been very far-sighted as color TV's did not come on the market for several years.
I would be interested in knowing if there was a network show filmed in color prior to Bonanza. I don't know of one, other than I think Disney.
I can remember watching Howdy Dowdy around 1953 and the announcer saying the show was in color. Of course, I was watching on a black and white TV and saw no difference.
shareAlso, the last season,, 56-57, of The Lone Ranger was filmed in color.
shareI realize I spelled Doody wrong, but I paid attention to spell check.
shareI think it is probably because most people had b/w sets.
Also....The first National broadcast of a color show was of the 1954 Tournament of Roses parade. 'It was not until the mid-1960s that color sets started selling in large numbers, due in part to the color transition of 1965 in which it was announced that over half of all network prime-time programming would be broadcast in color that fall.'....Wikepedia
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Tommy Mottola
All TV shows in the 1950s were shot in color, but a much cheaper film stock was used for television programs, and TV shows were usually not as carefully preserved back then (in fact, many kinescopes were simply thrown away), so the colors faded
That's a redundant statement. Few TV shows were shot in color until the later part of the decade. Simply because there were no color TV sets widely available to consumers. Even then, it was a gradual transition to color, and programs weren't entirely in color until the mid-60's. The initial cost of color TV sets was high, and some households had black and white TV's until the 1970's. It was similar to the more recent transition to HD.