[Jeffhs]

Given the high failure rate of 1990s Zenith CRTs, I am amazed a few of them (1996 and beyond) survived this long (until 1993-'95, when the tubes strted failing again). I have a 19" Zenith color set, SMS1917SG table model, that's still going strong, including the CRT. The last time I tried it, several years ago, the picture and everything else were every bit as good as they were when the set was new. The TV is now in my bedroom and isn't used much (or at all, to be perfectly honest) these days except for an occasional test.

Heater-cathode electron gun shorts killed most '90s Zenith CRTs; these shorts often took most of the set's HV plant as well when they did, before or after blowing the HV fuse in the HV cage. Being Zenith, I would have expected these CRTs to last years or even decades without problems (as did earlier Zeniths), but I get the feeling by the late 1980s or '90s these tubes were being outsourced from foreign countries (!) and were no longer Zenith-built products, even though they may have had the Zenith label on the CRT bell.