[drh4683]

those are neat photos. I always like those 50's-60's motels. Before the yuppies moved into Downers Grove and destroyed its character, there were many 50's era motels on Ogden ave. All of which had that "COLOR TV BY RCA" sign which was hanging below the motel sign. All the motels had those great neon signs and most even had "TV" in the neon.
Unfortunately, I wasnt around when those mural TV's were in use. I doubt any motels were using tube type color sets in their rooms back in '83.


Id like to find these old motel color sets, but I think they are long gone. I was fortunate enough to find a motel set last year. However, I wasnt aware that it was a motel set when I found it. It was a tube type Ford Philco hybrid set. It had a peice of woodgrained contact paper that covered the entire top of the set which matched the rest of the cabinet (plastic photofinish). I figured it was to hide some bad scraches. Captianmoody was interested in it and I gave it to him. When he pulled the contact paper off, it revealed "DAYS INN" which was branded onto the cabinet top. Most likely from a local Days Inn in berwyn where the set came from. that one was from around 1972 I think.

This thread reminds me of a movie with what appears to be a CTC-38 or 39 in a motel room. Heres a few screen shots from the 1974 film "The Conversation". Gene Hackman is in the motel room with the CTC-38/9. Notice that it has the mural TV vhf tuning knob. The movie was supposedly filmed in december of '72. So that set was probably 1 or 2 years old at the time.