Norby

[David Roper]

The first filmed color series, debuting on NBC in January, 1955, was an obscure sitcom starring David Wayne, who quit rather than continue the show live in black & white after the thirteen very expensive filmed episodes had been broadcast. I'd like to see the one episode that's known to exist, but somebody has been kind enough to at least upload the...

opening title

and

fancy end credits

to YouTube.

[Rinehart]

Yes, I would like to see that, too. I owe David Wayne (and Jim Hutton) a lot. In 1975 they were in an Ellery Queen television series on NBC, with Hutton as Ellery Queen and Wayne as his father, Inspector Richard Queen. It was done as a period piece set the immediate postwar era; the pilot episode establishes the time as February of 1946, and the solution to the murder depends crucially on the fact that the victim was watching television at the time she was murdered. I was ten years old at the time and I remember being surprised that it had gone back that far, and when in due course I discovered that television had been around in the 1930's, I was hooked. It's because of that show that I am writing this now.

[David Roper]

I remember the show well, including that episode. I was one year ahead of you and had already been bitten by the collecting bug (just a couple of 50s sets) but I also knew TV went back to 1939 thanks to visits to the Henry Ford Museum. Back then they had a couple of prewar GE sets on display.

I remember at least one other episode that had to do with TV. It had a scene which took place in a 1940s TV studio, but egregiously showed a 70s era TV monitor in a couple of shots.

You were right though: that particular set did not go back quite that far If it had been up to me I would have chosen an RCA 8TV321 for that premiere episode rather than the set that was featured, which looks like a Magnavox though not exactly like any I've ever seen. I thought the action took place just a little bit further into the future, 1947 if not 1948, but the TV shown definitely has a 1950s rectangular tube.

[Rinehart]

I think that the television set in the episode is a 1949 General Electric 820. Here is a screen shot taken from a You Tube clip and a 1947-49 GE brochure for comparison. As for the dating of the episode, I think it is no later than 1947. Much is made of the fact that TV sets are rare things: Inspector Queen asks Ellery if he has seen one, and Ellery says "Yes. Once or twice." Unfortunately the clip began with the police at the crime scene, and so it doesn't have the television show she was watching when she was killed; I think that there was an explicit mention of the date.
The other episode to feature television was the one where the self-styled investigative reporter Frank Flannigan was given a television show. He is doing fine until he catches sight of himself in a studio monitor--he has refused to wear any makeup, so naturally he looks like death warmed over--and manages to say only one word to the audience, "hi," before succumbing to a full blown case of mike fright.

[David Roper]

I don't see any attachments to your post, but I did take a look at the GE brochure at tvhistory.tv. I cannot concur that the set in the episode is a GE 820 even though the layout is identical. OTOH you have persuaded me that either A) it should have been an 820 or b) it doesn't matter because the set they used is in effect a stand-in for a set that actually did exist in the period depicted...well, as close to that period as the stand-in is close in appearance to the real thing anyway.

To get back to Norby, I was pleased to see that somebody dusted off a publicity shot I had never seen before, a cute picture of Pearson Norby acting as vice president in charge of his kids' piggy banks, his wife with sponsor Kodak's camera at the ready. The reviews were mixed at best, one reviewer cautiously recommending the show because *maybe* the viewer will like what they see, another calling the title character a "suburban idiot."

[Rinehart]

Yes, I wonder what became of them. The picture of the TV set was pretty similar to the one you posted, and the GE brochure was from tvhistory.tv, the same one you looked at. My guess is that when they did the pilot, they probably just got one that was roughly the same period. Only the people who had owned one would be able to tell the make and model at a glance, and I am sure that Levinson and Link never imagined that 37 years later two people living maybe thousands of miles apart would be poring over grainy photos and sales brochures looking for a definite match.

As for Norby, well, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't very good, the talent notwithstanding. As Walter Podrazic and Harry Castleman point out, large amounts of mediocre TV began to show up after 1952, when all the networks had expanded their schedules to have four hours of prime time seven nights a week. As research, I have been watching old television shows, and some of it is pretty dreadful. There is a pre-Jackie Gleason Cavalcade of Stars hosted by Jerry Lester that I've tried to look at several times without success.