FIRE! 1961 Zenith

[maxhifi]

I thought it would be more dramatic Just a loose connection at the power cord.

The purpose of the plug and socket is to prevent people from operating the TV with the back off and burning themselves on tubes.

If you can trust yourself not to do that then any sort of power cord will work just fine - of course, the UL rating of the TV will be violated, but no reason it won't work.

Take the wires on the other side of the socket back to where they aren't crispy and splice in a new cord.