Bonanza was in color, but most families didn’t have color sets when it first aired on September 12, 1959. We watched Ben Cartright and his sons Adam, Hoss, and Little Joe in black and white and could only imagine how they would look in red, white, purple, yellow and maybe a little blue. In the fall of 1960, the family of my friend, Dave Gladwell, bought a color console TV and Dave invited all his friends over to see Bonanza.
We sat spellbound while the peacock spread its colorful feathers, then watched in amazement as the foursome rode up on horseback, greeted the audience and then went on to solve problems on their massive Nevada ranch at Ponderosa.
It was only color, but you would have thought we were seeing the first Martians land on earth. When the portable color TVs came out, it put them withing reach of most family budgets.
It’s hard to fathom our fascination with color TVs. Today we have 42-inch flat screen TVs with vivid pictures that sell for less than $300. That is amazing. I don’t know how they can even ship them from China for that little.
In my generation, we have gone from listening to a small radio on the kitchen table to color TVs to automobiles with rear view cameras to computers on our laps that answer our every question.
But one thing I’d like to know – why in the world did Adam decide to leave Bonanza, one of the greatest TV shows of all time – and in full color.
