# Color correction in 70's TV shows **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 26, 2010, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/color-correction-in-70s-tv-shows/551505 "2010-08-26T05:38:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2010, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/color-correction-in-70s-tv-shows/551505/21 "2010-08-26T17:47:56Z")
L.A. was notorious for its smog in the '70s. ---
**Author:** ![Kiyoshi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e19adc/32.png) [@Kiyoshi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiyoshi)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2010, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/color-correction-in-70s-tv-shows/551505/22 "2010-08-26T18:58:00Z")
Could it be because of low quality film stock? I don’t know about TV, but a lot of movies in the 70s used Eastmancolor, which was pretty cheap and nasty, and made everything look brown, grainy and washed out. ---
**Author:** ![Imasquare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Imasquare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imasquare)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2010, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/color-correction-in-70s-tv-shows/551505/23 "2010-08-28T13:04:01Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > There was a comment in some electronics magazine years ago, when TV was all analog and things like hue an contrast were adjusted with pot dial - that NTSC stood for “Never Twice the Same Color”, since the colour balance was subjective and impossible to nail down exactly on a transmission. > > I wonder if this is the same effect taht causes most really old movies to turn pink, namely fading of the blue and yellow dies - especially the blue die? The color errors with NTSC occurred during the transmission, so this would not have any effect on the source material. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2010, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/color-correction-in-70s-tv-shows/551505/24 "2010-08-28T15:30:35Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > I grew up in the 1980s in the UK and had the opposite view of American colour TV - the imported American TV shows (Dallas, etc) all looked incredibly garish. It was a standing joke in our family that all Americans were bright orange. It was like the effect you get when you turn up the colour control of your TV too far. I grew up in the 1970s in the United States. Where I grew up, it was possible to receive several Canadian television stations. While I also remember colors from American television programming of the era being muted and brown, Canadian programming was even more muted. Even today, when I flip back and forth between the same show on an American and Canadian station, the Canadian station will display more muted colors. Game and variety shows from the 1970s definitely had more vivid color than prime-time programming, news, and daytime programming. I don’t think it was the televisions of the era. Ever see the display on a 30 year old television on cable or with a DTV converter? If the TV isn’t broken, the display can be quite sharp and vivid. The RCA CT-100, the first commercially sold color television, was known for having one of the most accurate CRTs ever, with a much wider color gamut than CRTs that followed. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2010, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/color-correction-in-70s-tv-shows/551505/25 "2010-08-28T17:12:31Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > It was a standing joke in our family that all Americans were bright orange. I wonder if that is where the Simpsons got their coloring. > [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Not all – just the _Real_ Americans like John Boehner. Nah, he is actually an Oompa Loompa. [http://www.universalhub.com/2010/what-health-care-law-means-massachusetts#comment-122007](http://www.universalhub.com/2010/what-health-care-law-means-massachusetts#comment-122007) 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![randwill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a3d4f5/32.png) [@randwill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/randwill)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2010, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/color-correction-in-70s-tv-shows/551505/26 "2010-08-28T17:56:05Z")
The original post references _One Day at a Time_ which was taped, not filmed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/color-correction-in-70s-tv-shows/551505.md?page=1)