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 Television Shows - Television shows may be a one-off broadcast or, more usually, part of a periodically returning television series. Read about some of the most popular shows on television complete with pictures...
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Old Television Shows. Among the oldest television shows included about 120 Westerns. Mostly in black
and white...
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Old Television Shows
The earliest TV shows were really radio and vaudeville moving to a new
medium. Some of these were quite successful. I Love Lucy and
Gunsmoke come to mind. Variety Shows populated the early years,
which gave many a vaudevillian comedian a chance to show off sight
gags that radio wouldn't permit.
1953 the FCC had settled on the technical specifications for colour
standards, but broadcasting in colour was expensive and few people
had replaced those black and white sets with colour ones. After all,
they had just bought the B&W.
This would quickly change. By 1962 a million colour sets had sold, by
1965, 5 million and the networks had gone to colour, by 1970 there
were 37 million colour sets in the U.S.
Among the first TV shows included about 120 Westerns. Mostly in black
and white, cowboys set the standards of right and wrong and taught
us about heroes. A few went to colour. Bonanza, the Virginian and
Wagon Train, the latter two experimenting with 90-minute formats.
Playhouse 90 and Howdy Doody end in 1960 but we have
doctor shows to replace them, Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare.
In mid Sixties you have the secret agents - Man From
U.N.C.L.E. , Mission Impossible, I Spy, the Avengers. The latter
half of the decade gave us our hippies, The Mod Squad and the
Monkees.
As a reflection of changing social sensibilities, Bill Cosby becomes
the first black lead on prime time TV in 1965 onI Spy. This paves
the way for Greg Morris on Mission Impossible Clarence Williams of
Mod Squad and Don Mitchell of Ironside.
Variety shows are no longer with us either. The sitcom thrives and
every one of those million dollar per episode Friend's actors owe
respect to Lucille Ball and Dick Van Dyke who paved the way.
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Site written by Gemma Littlemore