Hi Gang!!! Well a lot of talk pro and con about the colorized episodes on Christmas night. Being in broadcasting, I get several email newsletters from those "in the business", including CBS. Below is one about their colorizing process, very interesting reading, and thought I would share with you...mike peacock ----- For the first time ever, "The Christmas Story" and "The Pickle Story" - which originally aired in black-in-white (in December 1960 and '61, respectively) - were colorized by CBS, which has mined ratings gold with colorized episodes of "I Love Lucy."
(7.4 million viewers watched two colorized "I Love Lucy" episodes Wednesday night - the evening's top-rated telecast.) "A lot of parents want to get their kids into watching these types of family-oriented shows, and for a lot of kids, black-and-white can be a barrier," says Ken Ross, executive vice president/general manager of CBS Home Entertainment, who oversees the colorization of CBS shows. "Kids are much more open to color episodes on television, especially when they see how great it looks." In "The Christmas Story," Mayberry sheriff Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith) and his deputy, the nervous Barney Fife (Don Knotts), are stuck at the town jail on Christmas after locking up a moonshiner. In "The Pickle Story," Andy and Barney pretend to love Aunt Bea's (Frances Bavier) less-than-stellar homemade pickles. They secretly switch them with a store-bought brand, then panic when Aunt Bea decides to enter her pickles in the county fair. (Hey, it happens.) Ross says that, when CBS decided to colorize "The Andy Griffith Show," "The Christmas Story" episode - the only Christmas episode in the show's eight-season history - was an obvious choice. "It hits all the right notes - family, the holidays, goodwill," he says. "And what's better than giving families the opportunity to watch something that's pure, joyful and wonderful? Who doesn't want to be in Mayberry?" Choosing "The Pickle Story" was "a tough decision," he says. But the original black-and-white master tape was in terrific condition, which made it easier. (Imperfections are more prevalent in a colorized product when the original isn't pristine.) "I also consulted with The Andy Griffith Show Fan Club [for 'The Pickle Story.'] It's clearly a top 10 fan favorite, and what would be cooler than showing those black-and-white pickles in green?" he says. "You get to see Barney in a red santa suit in one episode and green pickles in the other, so we've got red and green: the colors of Christmas." The colorization process takes six-to-eight weeks per episode. Ross and his team used color photography - and color home movies - shot on the set of "The Andy Griffith Show" in 1960 and '61 to match colors to individual scenes from each original episode. From there, computer technology took over. "We also had the advantage of three seasons of the 'Griffith' show airing in color, so we had a basis for knowing what our color selections were . The color of [Andy and Barney's] uniforms, the colors of the walls in the sheriff's office," he says. "Obviously there a few things with colors - cars, street signs - that we didn't know. Then it boiled down to making decisions that are hopefully tasteful." And Ross has a quick answer for those who oppose colorizing classic TV shows. "Some people will never like it or accept it, and what we say . is that nobody is taking away the black-and-white versions," he says. "This is fun and is a fresh take." _______________________________________________ WBMUTBB mailing list WBMUTBB@wbmutbb.com http://www.mayberry.com/tagsrwc/wbmutbb/
