A Question For Those Who Watched TTT In Color In 1966

That is an interesting question.

TV technology was not very advanced in the 60s. Nobody worried (much) about contrast ratio, color points or accuracy, and pixel counts.

Anyone who had B/W for all their TV viewing lives was thrilled to get color, even if by today's standards it wasn't very good.

Something important at the time was for color TV signals to reproduce as a 'normal' B/W picture on a B/W TV set. The answer at the time was to transmit the color information at a far lower resolution than the B/W information. Although it was a trade off, it actually worked fairly well. Your eyes saw color, the fine detail (for the time) was there, even if it was B/W.

Now with HDTV, every pixel is the right (or close) color.

TTT was shot and edited on 35mm film, the originals of each episode would probably be suitable for remastering into HDTV, if there was enough interest.

Not to malign Irwin Allen, but it did seem he was skilled at making money for the networks, so if some corners were cut in buying cheaper filmstock, or scrimping on editing and preparing for broadcast, remember, nobody was going to see much of a difference on their mid 60s color TVs any how. And if there is limited commercial potential in these older shows, preservation efforts are going to be modest.

The DVDs look as good if not better than other shows of the time. The colors and definition look good, better than a lot of shows from the eighties and nineties.

My first taste of THE TIME TUNNEL was on a black & white TV at a summer cabin with a slightly fuzzy reception on the ABC affiliate. The show captured my imagination and I couldn't wait for us to be at home on a Friday night so I could see this show in dazzling color.

The first episode that I saw in color was the tenth episode, "Reign Of Terror". It was somewhat of a disappointment the much of the episode took place at night or in drab prison settings. The part where Kirk meets Querque in the tunnel lab was the most colorful part of the episode.

So it turned out that the anticipation was greater than the reality, at least in the case of that episode. Other episodes had outstanding color sets, costumes, and characters, and to me the DVDs look far better than anything that we could see on ABC on the TVs of 1966-67.

When comparing a show like TIME TUNNEL to one of its contemporaries like STAR TREK, there's no comparison, color-wise. STAR TREK was made to pop out of the screen in color in an effort to sell those RCA color TVs. And it was probably THE most colorful show ever made with its bright primary colors all over the ship.

TIME TUNNEL by comparison was more realistic in its choice of color palettes. Doug's suit was a muted grey-brown, and Tony's turtleneck was a muted olive green - not colors that pop out of a color TV. Lab coats and Army uniforms also do not dazzle as colorful. But in the background there were always people in red or blue jumpsuits to add a bit of color to the proceedings, along with the blinking lights and changing colors of the tunnel itself.

The opening credits kaleidoscope effect was also a dazzler on a color TV of the era.