Eighty-five years ago, the United States was on the eve of war. In New York and a handful of other cities, electronic television was already on the air. There were very few televisions in homes, other than for the very well-to-do. Most sets were in bars and restaurants exploiting the novelty value.
But long before the concept of “home theater” came along, this cartoon in the October 1941 issue of Boys’ Life shows exactly that.
For a snapshot of 1989 consumer prices, this ad for Sun Television and Appliance appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on September 29, 1989. The lowest price color television was a 13-inch off brand for $137. That works out to $370 in 2026 dollars.
By way of comparison, check out this 12-inch portable digital television at Amazon. There’s been a lot of inflation over the years, but electronics are one area where the prices have come way down.
This is vividly shown by the least expensive 1989 camcorder, which sold for $687, or $1855 in 2026 dollars. Chances are, you have a much better video camera in your pocket right now. You might have paid a lot of money for that phone, possibly to make sure it had the best camera. But if you got the free loss-leader phone from your cell provider, it’s probably still better than the 1989 version. But if you want to compare for yourself, they’re always available on eBay at a reasonable price, in various states of repair.
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Shown here are the mug shots of Joseph Bernard Lynch of Boston. When his cellmates asked him what he was in for, he would have to tell them “tube rebranding.”
His scheme is exposed in the July 1956 issue of Radio News. He bought bad tubes for two or three cents each. The magazine noted that the sellers should have been suspicious, because there was no legitimate use for them. He then fraudulently rebranded them, and labeled them to show that they were still under warranty. He then returned them to the manufacturers and got replacement tubes, which he sold at a discount.
But the long arm of the law eventually caught up with him, and he was sentenced to two years. The magazine gives his address as 82 Carver Street. That was apparently the bad side of town. The address no longer exists, having given way to urban renewal in the 1960s.
Eighty years ago, there were about 10,000 families in the United States with television, but it was rapidly growing. They would soon be guaranteed four hours per day of programming, as the FCC was about to adopt rules conditioning licenses on providing 28 hours per week.
The June 1946 issue of Popular Science reported on the state of television in the United States, and the cover picture showed the transmitting towers of WNBT atop the Empire State Building. Thirty feet had been added to the building, and with gain antennas, the station boasted a range of 60-70 miles. The next big event was said to be the Louis-Conn fight on June 19, which was to be telecast.
The youngsters in this picture are now octogenarians, but 75 years ago, they were the test audience for “The Chimps.” They are shown in the April 23, 1951, issue of Broadcasting, which explains that the series of 13 15-minute films had been produced by Bing Crosby Enterprises, and featured chimpanzees in “western and whodunit dramas.”
Try as we may, we have been unable to find much information about this early television program. We’ll keep looking, but if anyone has any information, we would be most interested in learning. And, of course, we would really love to watch an episode or two.
At first glance, this appears to be a picture of Abe Lincoln upset by being provided with a map produced by AI hallucinations, as he points accusingly at Nouth Calorina. He probably hasn’t even noticed that the Dakotas are there, despite not being admitted to the Union until a quarter century after that fateful night at Ford’s Theater.
But the map is actually the result of artistic license by the producers of the Japanese production of John Drinkwater‘s play Abraham Lincoln. And that’s not Honest Abe; it’s actually actor Chojuro Kawarasaki playing the role. The photo appeared in the April 8, 1946, issue of Life Magazine, which notes that this was the first such production since long before the war, at Tokyo’s Imperial Theater. The play was “very carefully tailored for Japanese playgoers’ consumption,” and the theater was off limits for American GIs. Despite wearing elevator shoes, the 5 foot 7 actor was unable to get up to Lincoln’s 6’4″.
The magazine noted that “many Japanese, including Emperor Hirohito, have recently been professing themselves great admirers” of the Great Emancipator. Audiences were reportedly “large but not house-packing.”
While we don’t have a video of the Japanese production, the 1952 CBS-TV Studio One production can be viewed at the following link:
In the 1960’s, tube testers were common fixtures in many retail stores. In my case, if I had a tube to test, I would take it to the neighborhood drug store. And I generally treated the results as gospel. But the machine was there for one reason, and that reason was to sell tubes. So they tended to err on the side of caution, and caution meant giving a slightly pessimistic evaluation. Maybe the tube would still function OK in its circuit, but the tester said it was time to replace it.
Apparently, this was also the state of affairs in Italy, as shown by this cartoon in the March 1966 issue of Radiorama. In this case, the meter on the tester is calibrated “bad” and “worse”. The caption reads merely, “speechless.”
If you were in Washington 75 years ago tonight, here’s what you could expect to watch. There are a few familiar names here, such as Kate Smith, Steve Allen, and Kukla Fran and Ollie. There are also some staples of early television, such as wrestling and roller derby. “Western Theater” on channel 9 doesn’t specify what movie they are showing, but it looks like channel 5 is showing the 1935 crime film “Now or Never” at 11:15 PM.
These listings appeared in the February 13, 1951, edition of the Washington Evening Star.
Seventy-five years ago, if you wanted to upgrade your television, you could add FM reception, as detailed in the January 1951 issue of Popular Mechanics. As we’ve noted previously, it wasn’t unheard of to swap out the front end of the set and put in a rebuilt tuner. Thanks to Dumont, you could buy a tuner that included, nestled in between channels 6 and 7, the FM broadcast band. As an added bonus, you would probably get a better picture, since the tuner exhibited more gain, especially on the upper channels.
The article explained which models were candidates for the swap.
If you were looking for a home entertainment system 75 years ago, you couldn’t go wrong with this 19 inch Muntz TV, AM-FM radio, and phonograph combination, for only $399.95, which could be paid over 15 months.
The ad appeared in the January 28, 1951, issue of the Washington Evening Star.