View Full Version : Farnsworth screen capture


OvenMaster
06-11-2010, 10:58 PM
I happened to be watching the DVD of Season 1 of "The Addams Family". During the episode titled "Gomez, The Politician", Uncle Fester and Grandmama were watching a political convention... on a Farnsworth TV.
http://img815.imageshack.us/img815/4727/vlcsnap2010061123h57m59.jpg (http://img815.imageshack.us/i/vlcsnap2010061123h57m59.jpg/)
Given that the show was from 1964, I wonder how many others noticed this at the time? In 2010, it's positively ancient!

Bill Cahill
06-12-2010, 07:41 AM
Well, in Happy Days, the family used two different tv's. One, a Motorola 16" metal table model, and, the other, a 16" metal table model RCA.

In the Munsters, they used an actual kit tv with a 3" picture.
Very plain case. Looks like mid to late 40's Meisener to me.

Look all over, and, you can be surprised what you can find.
There was a movie, slips my brain, made, I think, in mid 40's, that has an Art Deco 30's comb. radio, phono.

Interestingly enough, though correct period, one episode of the 3 stooges actually had a late 30's Dumont tv.
I even saw a gangster movie with the 30's Zenith art deco radio upright with horizontal speaker grill work, and, curved front.
Bill Cahill

edison64
06-12-2010, 08:56 AM
On green Acres arnold had an rca model t c 166 color set. Also the beverly hillbillies had several zenith tvs love the episode where granny thanks the tv is a washing machine. Hey i just realized my tc 166 must b an oddball as it has no color

pugs5061
06-12-2010, 11:48 AM
I didn't know the pig had a TV on Green Acres?:D

Bill Cahill
06-12-2010, 02:47 PM
I don't remember the color part, but, in one episode, Arnold was watching black and, white westerns....

I think Mr. Haney actually had a small set. May have been a 7" Motorola....
Fred Ziffel often had to fight his wife over Arnold's tv watching habits..
I love that show!

Then, of course there's the Honeymooners. Ed buys a tv, and, Alice convinces Ralpph to buy one.
I love Lucy had Lucy destroying their set trying to take it apart to try to convine Rickey to let her be on tv.
Oh, and, On the Phil Silvers show, Sgt. Bilko had an auction, and, in that there was a non playing 3" Pilot tv.
Bill Cahill

John Marinello
06-21-2010, 10:00 PM
Addams family Farnsworth??

Sandy G
06-21-2010, 10:09 PM
Me likey ! Somewhere I have an old, old, old book about the principles of television, & it has a Farnsworth that has a sort of odd, oblong shaped clear lucite case...This book is so old that it didn't really have much about color TV in it, except to say that there were several systems "under development". IIRC, it was copyright 1947...

wa2ise
06-21-2010, 10:23 PM
Speaking of TV material in entertainment media, I remember a 2 page article in a Dennis the Menace comic book describing raster scanning in television broadcasting and receivers. It was actually a pretty good article written so 8 year old kids could make sense of the process of how television works.

Years later in Dennis the Menace comics, the father takes the back off the family TV set and pulls the tubes to take them to a tester at the store. He needs something to hold the tubes, his wife gets an egg crate. At the store, he tests the tubes, finds a bad one and gets a replacement. Then they stop for some groceries at the supermarket, and you guessed it, the egg crate of tubes gets mixed up with an egg crate full of eggs. Dennis won't be able to watch his favorite show "Cowboy Bob" for a month, as it will take that long for dad to get paid and be able to buy all new tubes... Hopefully, whoever bought eggs and ended up with TV tubes would bring them back, and Dennis' dad would get them back in a few days.