When I was a little girl, we had a black and white television set. It wasn’t big. It sat on a tv stand. There wasn’t a remote. We had to walk to it to change the channels. There weren’t 500 channels, either. Maybe we had twelve. It didn’t matter. We had it good. My cousins only got two channels besides PBS. (No offense, PBS. I adore you now, but not so much when I was little…)
The first movie I can remember watching on tv was The Wizard of Oz. I couldn’t wait to see it. You know, you had to wait back then. No VCRs. No DVRs. No copies you could rent or buy and watch any time. The television stations controlled our viewing habits.
Being little, and the movie being so long with commercials included, I couldn’t stay awake passed the scene in the poppy fields. Not when I was four. Not when I was five. And I don’t even think when I was six. But then, then I turned seven and the yearly showing of The Wizard of Oz came around again. Oh, and did I mention, we had a color television by then.
So I am watching the movie, in black and white of course, and it suddenly turned to COLOR! Color! I remember being so excited! Everything was beautiful…Dorothy’s shoes, Glinda’s gown, the witch’s socks, even the yellow brick road. What a magical moment for a little kid who had no idea what was coming…
Flash forward forty years. I am watching more episodes of Dark Shadows. The online episodes are over and I am back to discs. Only the discs have changed. They eliminated the opening shots with the voiceover and the clapboard. Sad because I really enjoyed those few seconds that could be filled with silliness…
Now the storyline is fine. Dr. Hoffman agrees to keep Barnabas’ secret if he agrees to let her experiment on him. She is certain she can cure his condition if he is willing. He is game and their little escapade begins. Meanwhile Burke proposes to Vicky and Maggie tries to get a little control back in her life. That is all well and good…but here’s the twist…
SOME OF THE EPISODES WERE IN COLOR! Holy smoke! I watched the first three episodes on the disc and they are black and white. Suddenly the fourth episode comes on and the screen fills with color. It didn’t matter that the furniture isn’t the deep red velvets I assumed, but an unimpressive brown or that the clothes are rather dull compared to what I envisioned. Maggie does have lovely red hair, though ( and I am a big fan of red hair). Not all of the episodes are in color, so it was a bit disconcerting.
I will admit though that my reaction to color was exactly the same as when I was seven…and, really, as an adult, how often do we get to experience such moments of complete wonder?
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