# CBS Colorized I Love Lucy Christmas Special



## Generic (Dec 27, 2005)

> On Tuesday, the network announced it would air "The I Love Lucy Christmas Special," made up of back-to-back colorized episodes of the beloved show, on December 20.


http://tv.yahoo.com/blogs/tv-news/fans-not-quite-love-colorized-love-lucy-christmas-172809256.html


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

BOOO for colorized shows.


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## Hot4Bo (Apr 3, 2003)

I don't like them either but I'll watch this because I do love that episode.


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## GoPackGo (Dec 29, 2012)

Meh. If you don't like the colorization, turn down the color on your TV


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## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

Did they pillar-box it too?

Greg


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

GoPackGo said:


> Meh. If you don't like the colorization, turn down the color on your TV


We did that one year that the only Miracle on 34th Street was in color on TV.

I won't mind the color on a sitcom Christmas show, though.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

Meh. I don't get the point (well I guess I do, people will be curious and want to watch). I Love Lucy in color just doesn't seem right.


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## panictivo (Mar 3, 2001)

I am waiting until I can see it in IMAX 3D.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

Thanks for the heads up. I set up the recording on TiVo. I never tried to setup a recording 2 months in advance before. I wasn't sure you could do it. 

And not a fan of colorization, but keeping an open mind.


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## spartanstew (Feb 24, 2002)

I don't mind colorization. Some things were made for B&W, for sure, but a lot of B&W is only in B&W because color wasn't available/was too expensive. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a style choice for I love Lucy. Bring it on.


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## Peter000 (Apr 15, 2002)

spartanstew said:


> I don't mind colorization. Some things were made for B&W, for sure, but a lot of B&W is only in B&W because color wasn't available/was too expensive. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a style choice for I love Lucy. Bring it on.


Agreed! Looking forward to this!


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## NorthAlabama (Apr 19, 2012)

in later years, other shows transitioned from b&w to color (bewitched).

ill was before my time, and i grew up watching other lucy shows in color. if i watched the special, and didn't know ahead of time, i would have probably thought these were episodes produced during the transition.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Colorized shows are nowhere near as good as the original black and white. The color never looks natural and tends to bleed across the image borders. It looks like a small child used a coloring book and couldn't stay inside the lines.

Ted Turner started this fiasco of colorization back when he purchased the library of one of the major studios many years ago (I forget which). Back in the days of B&W film, directors used lighting for better effects to create the mood. Colorizing the film destroys what the director originally intended.

The only reason studios colorize films is because the current generation turns their nose up at B&W movies and TV shows because they think they're lame or some other such nonsense. Kids today just can't appreciate true art.


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## SnakeEyes (Dec 26, 2000)

back in my day...


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

mr.unnatural said:


> Ted Turner started this fiasco of colorization back when he purchased the library of one of the major studios many years ago (I forget which).


It was MGM Studios. I was working for Ted at the time. We all thought he was nuts to stick his neck out so far financially at the time. But, what did we know? We were just concerned with our paychecks. 

Ted had some very creative financial "wizards" behind him. I remember that when the company was putting all its' assets and cash flow into building CNN, the accountants told us they were making payroll with the profits from the literally millions of Slim Whitman albums we were selling on SuperStation17.

Ted did love to colorize old movies. His favorite was Casablanca.


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## GoPackGo (Dec 29, 2012)

mr.unnatural said:


> Colorized shows are nowhere near as good as the original black and white. The color never looks natural and tends to bleed across the image borders. It looks like a small child used a coloring book and couldn't stay inside the lines.


In the old days, sure. I'm interested to see how this looks now though with modern digital techniques.


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## NorthAlabama (Apr 19, 2012)

GoPackGo said:


> I'm interested to see how this looks now though with modern digital techniques.


the story says that care was taken to maintain a "vintage" feel to the reproduction. i'm looking forward to the airing.


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## jamesl (Jul 12, 2012)

actually I Love Lucy WAS in color

its just the world was black and white back then

http://www.reoiv.com/random.asp?img=dadbandwandcolour.jpg&page=2


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

mr.unnatural said:


> Colorized shows are nowhere near as good as the original black and white. The color never looks natural and tends to bleed across the image borders. It looks like a small child used a coloring book and couldn't stay inside the lines.
> 
> Ted Turner started this fiasco of colorization back when he purchased the library of one of the major studios many years ago (I forget which). Back in the days of B&W film, directors used lighting for better effects to create the mood. Colorizing the film destroys what the director originally intended.
> 
> The only reason studios colorize films is because the current generation turns their nose up at B&W movies and TV shows because they think they're lame or some other such nonsense. Kids today just can't appreciate true art.


I think there is a huge difference between a B & W movie directed by a masterful craftsman and B & W TV shows and especially comedies like I Love Lucy. There was no subtlety of lighting or shadows. Pretty much they wanted everything lit brightly for the primitive TV equipment both on the production side and the viewer side.

I'm actually interested to see how it is. I haven't seen anything colorized in probably 15 years. I would hope that the process has advanced along with the technology available. Yes, some of the early stuff they did was pretty much unwatchable. I'm expecting this to be much better.

But, yeah, I couldn't watch Casablanca, or It's a Wonderful Life, or Citizen Kane in color.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

waynomo said:


> I think there is a huge difference between a B & W movie directed by a masterful craftsman and B & W TV shows and especially comedies like I Love Lucy. There was no subtlety of lighting or shadows. Pretty much they wanted everything lit brightly for the primitive TV equipment both on the production side and the viewer side.
> 
> I'm actually interested to see how it is. I haven't seen anything colorized in probably 15 years. I would hope that the process has advanced along with the technology available. Yes, some of the early stuff they did was pretty much unwatchable. I'm expecting this to be much better.
> 
> But, yeah, I couldn't watch Casablanca, or It's a Wonderful Life, or Citizen Kane in color.


That's what I'm hoping too, that technology will at least make this watchable. I've actually wanted to take old pictures that I have that are in B&W and colorize them to see how they would come out.

That said, it's really a pointless exercise done for nothing more than a publicity stunt. To make sure this isn't going to happen again, I'll pass on watching this (I generally don't watch Christmas specials anyway, at least not since my daughter became too old for Rudolph).


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## Langree (Apr 29, 2004)

waynomo said:


> I think there is a huge difference between a B & W movie directed by a masterful craftsman and B & W TV shows and especially comedies like I Love Lucy. There was no subtlety of lighting or shadows. Pretty much they wanted everything lit brightly for the primitive TV equipment both on the production side and the viewer side.
> 
> I'm actually interested to see how it is. I haven't seen anything colorized in probably 15 years. I would hope that the process has advanced along with the technology available. Yes, some of the early stuff they did was pretty much unwatchable. I'm expecting this to be much better.
> 
> But, yeah, I couldn't watch Casablanca, or It's a Wonderful Life, or Citizen Kane in color.


One thing they have to adjust for sometimes is the color of wardrobe and some other props. Sometimes the color represented is not the color being worn/used. George Reeves' Superman outfit was not blue and red in the BW episodes, and in the famous shower scene in Psycho, Hershey's Syrup was used as blood going down the drain. So to colorize them means to alter them.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

Chocolate syrup was the blood of choice for B&W movies. If it was Red they'd probably still be using it. Finding a good blood substitute has been a problem for special effects artists in the age of color. 

I know for the better colorized movies they researched as much as possible to find the original wardrobes, etc. to try and replicate the original colors. 

Do you know what the colors were for the B&W Superman costume?


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## zordude (Sep 23, 2003)

Steveknj said:


> (I generally don't watch Christmas specials anyway, at least not since my daughter became too old for Rudolph).


I'm 37, and I'm not too old for Rudolph yet


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

Looking at the photo in the OP, can anybody tell that it was colorized? If so, how would you know without anybody telling you?

Couldn't it have been a color publicity still taken on the set?

Comparing it to the B&W image, it looks a whole lot better than me. (Separate issue of which looks better.) That grainy image from the infant days of TV does not look great.


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## Donbadabon (Mar 5, 2002)

Herman Munster was blue in the black and white versions of the show, since that showed up better in b/w. For the color show they had to change it to green.

So some shows are not accurate, while others will be.

I generally don't mind colorization. I am looking forward to this Lucy episode.


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## Langree (Apr 29, 2004)

waynomo said:


> Chocolate syrup was the blood of choice for B&W movies. If it was Red they'd probably still be using it. Finding a good blood substitute has been a problem for special effects artists in the age of color.
> 
> I know for the better colorized movies they researched as much as possible to find the original wardrobes, etc. to try and replicate the original colors.
> 
> Do you know what the colors were for the B&W Superman costume?


Reeves's red-blue-and-yellow Superman costume was originally brown-gray-and-white, so that it would photograph in appropriate gray tones on black-and-white film.

They started filming in color the third year.


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## That Don Guy (Mar 13, 2003)

spartanstew said:


> I don't mind colorization. Some things were made for B&W, for sure, but a lot of B&W is only in B&W because color wasn't available/was too expensive. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a style choice for I love Lucy.


There were some color TVs during the time _I Love Lucy_ aired, but not enough to make producing color episodes feasible (among other things, how many color TV cameras were there?). The only significant show I remember being made in color in the early 1950s was a Christmas episode of the original _Dragnet_; Jack Webb felt that the story would pass the test of time long enough for it to be broadcastable when color TV was widespread. (What he didn't count on was that, when color TV did become widespread, Dragnet would be remade, and a new version of that episode filmed. The original is on YouTube, but AFAIK only in B&W.)



NorthAlabama said:


> in later years, other shows transitioned from b&w to color (bewitched).


I think the main switch (in the USA, anyway) was in the fall of 1966. Ironically, there are some shows whose black and white episodes are considered better; the best example I can come up with is _The Andy Griffith Show_, as the B&W ones mainly had Don Knotts as Barney while the color ones mainly have Jack Burns as his replacement Warren. I have heard this said about _The Beverly Hillbillies_ and _Gomer Pyle, USMC_ as well. Of course, a number of these may simply be "the show's not as good as it used to be" syndrome.

Does anybody else have the complete _I Love Lucy_ set? That has a colorized episode (the one where they are in England and Lucy dreams she's in Scotland, facing a two-headed dragon); the colors were based on color publicity shots taken from the set.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

Langree said:


> Reeves's red-blue-and-yellow Superman costume was originally brown-gray-and-white, so that it would photograph in appropriate gray tones on black-and-white film.
> 
> They started filming in color the third year.


Now I admit, I'm going back 40 years in my memory bank. When I was a teen, I had a 12" B&W TV in my bedroom (my parents had a 19" color set which was the house's main TV). I watched quite a few color shows in B&W and never noticed the colors looking funny in B&W. SO my question is, do shows filmed in color look better in B&W than B&W shows look on a color TV? I guess it only has to do with FILMING colors in B&W and not just WATCHING colors in B&W.


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## stahta01 (Dec 23, 2001)

Steveknj said:


> Now I admit, I'm going back 40 years in my memory bank. When I was a teen, I had a 12" B&W TV in my bedroom (my parents had a 19" color set which was the house's main TV). I watched quite a few color shows in B&W and never noticed the colors looking funny in B&W. SO my question is, do shows filmed in color look better in B&W than B&W shows look on a color TV? I guess it only has to do with FILMING colors in B&W and not just WATCHING colors in B&W.


I remember my little sister always wanting to watch the Wizard of Oz; she saw it on the B&W TV so many times; she thought it had been colorized when she saw in at college in color. I still think she say it in color once or twice at home.

Tim S.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

BTW, even though I booed colorized shows/movies, I still may watch this.. (and turning down the color ISN'T the same, btw)..

and another thing is that I actually don't think I Love Lucy is all that funny, I think it's overrated.. But since it essentially (or completely?) invented the multi camera sitcom, I give it credit for that, and am still vaguely interested in seeing this since it probably wasn't in the regular syndicated runs?


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## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

waynomo said:


> Do you know what the colors were for the B&W Superman costume?





Langree said:


> Reeves's red-blue-and-yellow Superman costume was originally brown-gray-and-white, so that it would photograph in appropriate gray tones on black-and-white film.
> 
> They started filming in color the third year.


I recall this being mentioned in the 2006 movie about George Reeve's death investigation, "Hollywoodland".



stahta01 said:


> I remember my little sister always wanting to watch the Wizard of Oz; she saw it on the B&W TV so many times; she thought it had been colorized when she saw in at college in color. I still think she say it in color once or twice at home.


Weren't the Kansas scenes at the beginning and end of "The Wizard of Oz" shot in B&W, but the Oz scenes were in color? Or was that an artistic colorization choice done by someone after the fact?


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

waynomo said:


> I think there is a huge difference between a B & W movie directed by a masterful craftsman and B & W TV shows and especially comedies like I Love Lucy. There was no subtlety of lighting or shadows. Pretty much they wanted everything lit brightly for the primitive TV equipment both on the production side and the viewer side.


I agree. TV was limited to B&W back in the 50's and early 60's because color TV hadn't saturated the market yet. Colorized TV may not be quite as bad as I suggested, but it all depends on how well they do it. I grew up watching a lot of shows in B&W and it just seems like an injustice to screw with many of them.



> But, yeah, I couldn't watch Casablanca, or It's a Wonderful Life, or Citizen Kane in color.


I wouldn't even consider watching a classic B&W movie that's been colorized. It's sacrilige, plain and simple. Many of the classics, especially most of the old horror films, would be ruined by colorizing them. They just don't have the same feel as they would in the original B&W. Although rare, there are a number of movies still shot in B&W to get the lighting effects only available in a monochome image.



mrdbdigital said:


> It was MGM Studios. I was working for Ted at the time. We all thought he was nuts to stick his neck out so far financially at the time. But, what did we know? We were just concerned with our paychecks.
> 
> Ted had some very creative financial "wizards" behind him. I remember that when the company was putting all its' assets and cash flow into building CNN, the accountants told us they were making payroll with the profits from the literally millions of Slim Whitman albums we were selling on SuperStation17.
> 
> Ted did love to colorize old movies. His favorite was Casablanca.


He should be drawn and quartered for colorizing Casablanca. Somebody should have just given him a coloring book and a box of Crayolas so he could play with them in his private box during the Braves' games while Jane Fonda nodded off. He may have built CNN, but it's become a laughing stock of the news industry.

Just for a hoot, I took my wife to a Slim Whitman concert at Prince Georges County Fair in MD about 25 years ago. I had to see for myself this guy who sold more albums in the UK than Elvis and the Beatles combined (I remember the SW commercials quite well ). I don't think there were more than 200 people in the entire audience. The opening C&W act was absolutely horrendous to the point of being laughable. Slim was actually quite entertaining and I enjoyed the show. He had his son on stage with him who was a complete moron. He sang a couple of songs and then spent five minutes waving to the audience as he slowly exited stage left.


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## Langree (Apr 29, 2004)

getreal said:


> Weren't the Kansas scenes at the beginning and end of "The Wizard of Oz" shot in B&W, but the Oz scenes were in color?


Yes.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> I agree. TV was limited to B&W back in the 50's and early 60's because color TV hadn't saturated the market yet. Colorized TV may not be quite as bad as I suggested, but it all depends on how well they do it. I grew up watching a lot of shows in B&W and it just seems like an injustice to screw with many of them.


I agree. The first time I saw Herman Munster in color it just looked SO wrong. Then again, we have many shows of that era that were originally in B&W and then moved over to color (Bewitched, I Dream of Jeanie to name a couple). It's interesting to note that we don't have the same qualms about porting our SD shows over to HD. It's kind of the 21st Century of the same thing.



> I wouldn't even consider watching a classic B&W movie that's been colorized. It's sacrilige, plain and simple. Many of the classics, especially most of the old horror films, would be ruined by colorizing them. They just don't have the same feel as they would in the original B&W. Although rare, there are a number of movies still shot in B&W to get the lighting effects only available in a monochome image.


I would never watch those classic B&W movies in color. I think those were meant to be in B&W, and some were shot when color was available (yes, I know in many cases it was cost). Again, they just look wrong.


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## That Don Guy (Mar 13, 2003)

Steveknj said:


> I agree. The first time I saw Herman Munster in color it just looked SO wrong. Then again, we have many shows of that era that were originally in B&W and then moved over to color (Bewitched, I Dream of Jeanie to name a couple).


In terms of sitcoms, here are the ones I can think of, besides the two you mentioned:
_The Beverly Hillbillies
Petticoat Junction
Gilligan's Island
My Three Sons
The Lucy Show
The Andy Griffith Show
Gomer Pyle, USMC
F Troop_
and one I'm not sure about: _Please Don't Eat the Daisies_

Also, the pilot to _Hogan's Heroes_ (which did air regularly in syndication) was in black & white, although the rest of the series was in color.


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## allan (Oct 14, 2002)

Langree said:


> Yes.


I used to tease my mom about that. She's from Kansas, and I'd ask her if Kansas really was BW.


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## allan (Oct 14, 2002)

That Don Guy said:


> In terms of sitcoms, here are the ones I can think of, besides the two you mentioned:
> _The Beverly Hillbillies
> Petticoat Junction
> Gilligan's Island
> ...


When I grew up, I had a BW TV. When I got color, it seemed strange how some eps of those shows were BW and some color. I don't remember all of them, but I do remember Gilligan, Bewitched, and Jeannie having both BW & color eps.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Steveknj said:


> It's interesting to note that we don't have the same qualms about porting our SD shows over to HD. It's kind of the 21st Century of the same thing.


It is? Stretching or cropping is (and many, many complain about that), but not converting to HD. Full bandwidth SD is actually very sharp and clear. It is not the same at all.


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## trainman (Jan 29, 2001)

getreal said:


> Weren't the Kansas scenes at the beginning and end of "The Wizard of Oz" shot in B&W, but the Oz scenes were in color?


Technically, the Kansas scenes are sepia tone, not black-and-white.

For many years, though, the TV print of "The Wizard of Oz," the one which was broadcast annually, had the Kansas scenes literally in black-and-white. I remember it being made a big deal when the sepia coloring was "restored" for the TV broadcast -- might have been for the 50th anniversary (1989).


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## Pralix (Dec 8, 2001)

trainman said:


> Technically, the Kansas scenes are sepia tone, not black-and-white.
> 
> For many years, though, the TV print of "The Wizard of Oz," the one which was broadcast annually, had the Kansas scenes literally in black-and-white. I remember it being made a big deal when the sepia coloring was "restored" for the TV broadcast -- might have been for the 50th anniversary (1989).


All of the film was technically filmed in B&W. The media that was used was B&W film.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technicolor


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

TonyD79 said:


> It is? Stretching or cropping is (and many, many complain about that), but not converting to HD. Full bandwidth SD is actually very sharp and clear. It is not the same at all.


It's the next progression in TV, that's what I meant. This is the progression I think of with TV tech.

Small B&W pictures
Larger B*W pictures as TV's popularity grew
Color replacing B&W
Solid state TVs replacing tube TVs improving picture quality (the end of rolling TV pictures and such)
Stereo TV
RP TVs (first large screen TVs)
(the above two might be reversed)
Wide screen TVs
HDTV and flat screens

To me anyway, getting my first HDTV felt the same to me as my parents getting their first color TV. There was little content outside of a few shows and gradually over time replacing the old format.

I don't hear for instance any big issues with porting old SD shows like Seinfeld into a wide screen format the way we do about colorizng B&W. Nobody thinks it's abnormal, or looks funny, or just wrong.


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

mr.unnatural said:


> He should be drawn and quartered for colorizing Casablanca. Somebody should have just given him a coloring book and a box of Crayolas so he could play with them in his private box during the Braves' games while Jane Fonda nodded off. He may have built CNN, but it's become a laughing stock of the news industry.


Ted caught a tremendous amount of resistance and protest to his colorizing of old movies. I think that's why he finally stopped.

CNN is a very small shadow of its' former self. It's really sad in a way, and what most people don't know is the the downfall started when Ted was forced out of the company by the AOL Time Warner merger. With Ted gone, the vision was gone, and the new execs just screwed with everything until CNN went down the tubes. This is a common topic of discussion in the CNN Alumni group on Facebook. A lot of the original employees are quite irritated with what has been done to CNN. I think any hope for recovery is too late; CNN is too far gone to save. I give it only a few more years.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Steveknj said:


> It's the next progression in TV, that's what I meant. This is the progression I think of with TV tech. Small B&W pictures Larger B*W pictures as TV's popularity grew Color replacing B&W Solid state TVs replacing tube TVs improving picture quality (the end of rolling TV pictures and such) Stereo TV RP TVs (first large screen TVs) (the above two might be reversed) Wide screen TVs HDTV and flat screens To me anyway, getting my first HDTV felt the same to me as my parents getting their first color TV. There was little content outside of a few shows and gradually over time replacing the old format. I don't hear for instance any big issues with porting old SD shows like Seinfeld into a wide screen format the way we do about colorizng B&W. Nobody thinks it's abnormal, or looks funny, or just wrong.


I believe some of those shows were actually done in widescreen but cropped for showing in SD.

Again, the difference would be altering after. There is a huge contingent of OAR advocates. I am one. But the change from OAR is often forgiven if it was part of the original vision.

There is absolutely no comparison you can find.


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## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

OAR? Why couldn't you use the full phrase along with the acronym before resorting to the acronym alone? Not everybody here has access to your brain.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

getreal said:


> OAR? Why couldn't you use the full phrase along with the acronym before resorting to the acronym alone? Not everybody here has access to your brain.


Because it is a standard acronymn on the interwebs when talking about video. Would you expect someone to define RBI in a baseball forum? Or GNP when talking about the economy?

Oh. And google it if you don't know.


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## Langree (Apr 29, 2004)

getreal said:


> OAR? Why couldn't you use the full phrase along with the acronym before resorting to the acronym alone? Not everybody here has access to your brain.


Since you asked so nicely...

Original Aspect Ratio


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Langree said:


> Since you asked so nicely... Original Aspect Ratio


The way he asked is exactly WHY I didn't tell him.


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## tvmaster2 (Sep 9, 2006)

if DesiLu could have afforded to shoot color film, would they have? or did they shoot B&W because at the time color television hadn't even fully developed?


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

tvmaster2 said:


> if DesiLu could have afforded to shoot color film, would they have? or did they shoot B&W because at the time color television hadn't even fully developed?


There's a whole development of broadcasting to consider. The earliest TV shows were broadcast live with B&W cameras. It took some time to figure out how to even record a show just so there was a copy. Forget rebroadcasting something. Eventually they figured out how to broadcast something that was on film. My point is there were processes involved before they started using film. (forget color film)


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

mrdbdigital said:


> Ted caught a tremendous amount of resistance and protest to his colorizing of old movies. I think that's why he finally stopped.
> 
> CNN is a very small shadow of its' former self. It's really sad in a way, and what most people don't know is the the downfall started when Ted was forced out of the company by the AOL Time Warner merger. With Ted gone, the vision was gone, and the new execs just screwed with everything until CNN went down the tubes. This is a common topic of discussion in the CNN Alumni group on Facebook. A lot of the original employees are quite irritated with what has been done to CNN. I think any hope for recovery is too late; CNN is too far gone to save. I give it only a few more years.


In a way CNN's situation is similar to what happened to Apple after Jobs, the company's visionary was forced out. The "suits" only vision is making money and with CNN (as with Apple) it couldn't be sustained without a clear vision as to what the company should be. You wonder if Ted was allowed back in, assuming he'd even want to do it, if he could turn CNN around.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

tvmaster2 said:


> if DesiLu could have afforded to shoot color film, would they have? or did they shoot B&W because at the time color television hadn't even fully developed?


Were there even enough color sets in that era to make it worth the expense? It's totally different than movies where a theater owner would probably have projectors that could handle color and B&W because there have been both for years. I don't think color TV even took off until the early to mid 1960s. It would have been pointless to go to the expense for DesiLu.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

Early on shooting in color wasn't an option. They didn't have the technology to do it. Later on it might have been an expense issue.


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## tvmaster2 (Sep 9, 2006)

however, Desi Arnez insisted on doing the show on film, likely so it would be easier to distribute, physically, wherever he wanted. 'I Love Lucy' was one of the first worldwide syndication mega-successes (remember the scene from 'Crocodile Dundee').
If there had been color at the time, Arnez would have shot in color, and likely wouldn't mind the colorization updating for future compatibility. I mean it's all about her red hair, yeah?
But like a lot of people, I personally think you change history when you start mucking with these things. It's a paradox


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

tvmaster2 said:


> however, Desi Arnez insisted on doing the show on film, likely so it would be easier to distribute, physically, wherever he wanted. 'I Love Lucy' was one of the first worldwide syndication mega-successes (remember the scene from 'Crocodile Dundee').
> If there had been color at the time, Arnez would have shot in color, and likely wouldn't mind the colorization updating for future compatibility. I mean it's all about her red hair, yeah?
> But like a lot of people, I personally think you change history when you start mucking with these things. It's a paradox


I was just reading up on this. I knew that Kinescopes were the process they used to record shows during the early years. The quality was really horrible and was the reason I Love Lucy was the first show filmed. I hadn't realized that.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinescope



> Change to 35 mm film broadcasts
> Filmed programs were also used in televisions early years, although they were generally considered inferior to the big-production "live" programs because of their lower budgets and loss of immediacy. This, however, was about to change.
> In 1951, the stars and producers of the Hollywood-based television series I Love Lucy, Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, decided to shoot their show directly onto 35 mm film using the three-camera system, instead of broadcasting it live. Normally, a live program originating from Los Angeles (for example, The Frank Sinatra Show) would be performed live in the late afternoon for the Eastern Time Zone, and seen on a kinescope three hours later in the Pacific Time Zone. But as an article in American Cinematographer explained,
> In the beginning there was a very definite reason for the decision of Desilu Productions to put I Love Lucy on film instead of doing it live and having kinescope recordings carry it to affiliate outlets of the network. The company was not satisfied with the quality of kinescopes. It saw that film, produced especially for television, was the only means of ensuring top quality pictures on the home receiver as well as ensuring a flawless show.[18]
> The I Love Lucy decision introduced reruns to most of the American television audience, and set a pattern for the syndication of TV shows after their network runs (and later, for first-run airings via syndication) that still continues to this very day.


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

Steveknj said:


> In a way CNN's situation is similar to what happened to Apple after Jobs, the company's visionary was forced out. The "suits" only vision is making money and with CNN (as with Apple) it couldn't be sustained without a clear vision as to what the company should be. You wonder if Ted was allowed back in, assuming he'd even want to do it, if he could turn CNN around.


I'm sure Ted would give it a try if he was allowed back in, but I don't know if even he could save CNN now. For a long time after Ted was forced out, there was a popular rumor (never confirmed) that Ted was going to start over with a new media company and a new news network. Then the AOL stock tanked and he lost most of his fortune.

All his former employees from the parent company TBS, and from CNN wanted to give this a go, and a lot of us told Ted we would go with him to start over. I personally told him this in the elevator one day at CNN Center, and he just grinned and thanked me for my loyalty. I never regretted my days at TBS, just regretted that I made the stupid decision to leave the company.

Ted has often said the two biggest regrets in his life are: 1) Losing CNN, and 2) Losing Jane Fonda.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

mrdbdigital said:


> I'm sure Ted would give it a try if he was allowed back in, but I don't know if even he could save CNN now. For a long time after Ted was forced out, there was a popular rumor (never confirmed) that Ted was going to start over with a new media company and a new news network. Then the AOL stock tanked and he lost most of his fortune.
> 
> All his former employees from the parent company TBS, and from CNN wanted to give this a go, and a lot of us told Ted we would go with him to start over. I personally told him this in the elevator one day at CNN Center, and he just grinned and thanked me for my loyalty. I never regretted my days at TBS, just regretted that I made the stupid decision to leave the company.
> 
> Ted has often said the two biggest regrets in his life are: 1) Losing CNN, and 2) Losing Jane Fonda.


Ted, quite often was looked at as a goofball but he really was a visionary. When you think about it, WTBS, the first big time "superstation" was the model for what SO many cable channels have become. And CNN, in the early days proved what 24/7 news could be. The Gulf War being it's shining moment.


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## alansh (Jan 3, 2003)

For a long time there was a hefty price-premium on color vs. B&W film, so if they weren't counting on a color release it would be hard to justify. "The Long Long Trailer" (1953) starring Lucy and Desi was released to theaters in color. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qbm-T_OSa4[/media]

Count me as one of the people irritated by changing the original aspect ratio. For SD shows shot on 35mm film, it's some combination of using portions of the 35mm frame that would have been outside the NTSC safe frame and cropping the top/bottom, and/or stretching the image.

The first messes up the director's framing choices. Shot choices (tight, wide, two-shots) are very much part of the filmmaking process and part of the storytelling. Cropping just makes it look like an amateur photographer cutting off the top of everyone's heads.

There's also often studio clutter outside the NTSC frame -- lights, the edges of sets, etc.

Stretching makes everyone look like Jabba the Hut. I really hate that.

For shows on videotape there's no larger frame, so the only way to make them widescreen is cropping and/or stretching.

It is of course possible to rescan 35mm shows at 1080p and show them pillarboxed. You get the advantage of the higher resolution without messing up the framing.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

allan said:


> When I grew up, I had a BW TV. When I got color, it seemed strange how some eps of those shows were BW and some color. I don't remember all of them, but I do remember Gilligan, Bewitched, and Jeannie having both BW & color eps.


In a book about "The Dick Van **** Show", Carl Reiner said they strongly considered going to color in the 3rd season. But they didn't.. I think due to cost.

Also, even though nowadays many of those old shows aren't broadcast as much as they used to be (though you could probably argue that TV reruns are in the same "look at 20 years ago" thing that culture seems to do generally), later in the "substantial reruns" of those shows (my term, just when they were more popularly rerun), they would only run the color seasons and not the black and white seasons.

Not the same thing at all, but there's still almost a whole season of Twilight Zone episodes (season 4) that I haven't seen, because they're hour long episodes that don't rerun. I know they're considered to be much worse, but even halfways decent "new" (to me) twilight zone episodes would be awesome. But they ALSO don't seem to ever show up on the streaming sites, even though the other seasons do show up.. So at some point I may actually just buy the DVD or BluRay set (and yeah, probably all seasons, as a completist). (I think 2 eps were edited together for a "TV movie" in the late 80s or early 90s.)



waynomo said:


> There's a whole development of broadcasting to consider. The earliest TV shows were broadcast live with B&W cameras. It took some time to figure out how to even record a show just so there was a copy. Forget rebroadcasting something. Eventually they figured out how to broadcast something that was on film. My point is there were processes involved before they started using film. (forget color film)


When exactly are you referring to? Do you mean literally the 1930s-1940s era of TV, or 1950s? There were kinescopes of course, literally pointing a film camera at a TV screen. (I don't know exactly how the playback of film to TV works, but of course that was done too.)


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

mattack said:


> When exactly are you referring to?


I was referring to late 40s early 50s. But it could be applied to earlier also. It was an evolution.

Of course I was really mistaken based on this thread. I didn't realize that ILL was always filmed from the first episode. It was the first show to do that.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

alansh said:


> For shows on videotape there's no larger frame, so the only way to make them widescreen is cropping and/or stretching.


*Don't* do either of those. Pillarbox them.


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## Donbadabon (Mar 5, 2002)

Related, kinda.

Color photo from the set of the original Addams Family black-and-white television show.

Look at all that pink.










http://boingboing.net/2013/11/06/color-photos-of-the-original-a.html


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## trainman (Jan 29, 2001)

Donbadabon said:


> Look at all that pink.


Looks like the color in this photo is faded to an extent, so it wasn't really _that_ pink.


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## tiassa (Jul 2, 2008)

mattack said:


> Not the same thing at all, but there's still almost a whole season of Twilight Zone episodes (season 4) that I haven't seen, because they're hour long episodes that don't rerun. I know they're considered to be much worse, but even halfways decent "new" (to me) twilight zone episodes would be awesome. But they ALSO don't seem to ever show up on the streaming sites, even though the other seasons do show up.. So at some point I may actually just buy the DVD or BluRay set (and yeah, probably all seasons, as a completist). (I think 2 eps were edited together for a "TV movie" in the late 80s or early 90s.)


They do turn up when Syfy does their TZ holiday marathons, so you might want to wait until after Thanksgiving and see what turns up then. I've seen several of them and they aren't as good, the extra time actually takes away from the Classic TZ "Twist ending". Note that when Rod Serling got a 1 hr network show (Night Gallery), he typicallly told 2 stories in the hour (and frequently they weren't 30 mins each.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

mattack said:


> ... (I don't know exactly how the playback of film to TV works, but of course that was done too.)


Google "flying spot scanner".


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

tiassa said:


> They do turn up when Syfy does their TZ holiday marathons, so you might want to wait until after Thanksgiving and see what turns up then. I've seen several of them and they aren't as good, the extra time actually takes away from the Classic TZ "Twist ending". Note that when Rod Serling got a 1 hr network show (Night Gallery), he typicallly told 2 stories in the hour (and frequently they weren't 30 mins each.


I guess I had only seen half hour reruns of Night Gallery.. I had thought it was a half hour show (though I *do* know that in syndication, they merged in an unrelated Gary Collins show).

But also, IIRC, for "Night Gallery", he was basically JUST a hired host... not heavily involved with it like TZ.


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## tiassa (Jul 2, 2008)

mattack said:


> I guess I had only seen half hour reruns of Night Gallery.. I had thought it was a half hour show (though I *do* know that in syndication, they merged in an unrelated Gary Collins show).


The "half hour" version of Night gallery was done for syndication purposes, and many of the segments from the hour long show were severely hacked up to make them fit


mattack said:


> But also, IIRC, for "Night Gallery", he was basically JUST a hired host... not heavily involved with it like TZ.


I think Serling thought he was going to have the same amount of control as he did on TZ, but the suits at the network thought otherwise, and by the end of the 3rd season "Creative differences" ended the show (at least according to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Gallery)


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## Donbadabon (Mar 5, 2002)

I liked seeing the Lucy Christmas special tonight in color. And for the flashback they used the original black and white.

One thing I found interesting is that Santa brought and decorated the tree on Christmas Eve. Is that how that generation did it? I've never heard of that before.


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## kimsan (Jan 23, 2002)

Donbadabon said:


> One thing I found interesting is that Santa brought and decorated the tree on Christmas Eve. Is that how that generation did it? I've never heard of that before.


I've only known one person who did that. Never heard of the tradition before or since until now.


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## TomK (May 22, 2001)

kimsan said:


> I've only known one person who did that. Never heard of the tradition before or since until now.


In the movie 'The Bishop's Wife' (Cary Grant, Loretta Young, David Niven) the Christmas tree is purchased early but not delivered until Christmas Eve. Maybe it was the custom to wait late into December.


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## gweempose (Mar 23, 2003)

I'm bummed that I forgot to record this.


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## MScottC (Sep 11, 2004)

unitron said:


> Google "flying spot scanner".


Actually that was at least the second generation of film to television technology. Originally as early as the 50s (and maybe even the 40s) and for many years up into the 80s, maybe later in some markets, "film chains" were in play. They were basically a film projector pointed right into a TV camera. The 24 frames per second of film had to be converted to 30 frames or 60 fields per second of TV. This was done by a system called "3:2 pulldown" where one frame of film was transmitted on 3 fields of video, and the next frame of film was only transmitted with 2 fields. In many television facilities, three projectors, perhaps 1 16mm, one 35mm slide projector, and one super 8 projector, were pointed at a system of mirrors that would direct the light from one of the three projectors into the camera. 
Flying spot scanners only came into the mix in the early 80s if I remember correctly.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Donbadabon said:


> I liked seeing the Lucy Christmas special tonight in color. And for the flashback they used the original black and white. One thing I found interesting is that Santa brought and decorated the tree on Christmas Eve. Is that how that generation did it? I've never heard of that before.


When I was a kid (60s), there were some families that did their tree Christmas Eve and that was a minor topic of discussion about when different families did it. Those that did it were in the minority and I don't remember any saying Santa brought it. But then we didn't have Christmas stuff in stores until after thanksgiving.


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

MScottC said:


> Actually that was at least the second generation of film to television technology. Originally as early as the 50s (and maybe even the 40s) and for many years up into the 80s, maybe later in some markets, "film chains" were in play. They were basically a film projector pointed right into a TV camera. The 24 frames per second of film had to be converted to 30 frames or 60 fields per second of TV. This was done by a system called "3:2 pulldown" where one frame of film was transmitted on 3 fields of video, and the next frame of film was only transmitted with 2 fields. In many television facilities, three projectors, perhaps 1 16mm, one 35mm slide projector, and one super 8 projector, were pointed at a system of mirrors that would direct the light from one of the three projectors into the camera.
> Flying spot scanners only came into the mix in the early 80s if I remember correctly.


In my entire broadcasting career, I have never seen or heard of anyone having a super 8 projector on a broadcast film chain. Only formats I have seen on a traditional camera film chain are slides, 16mm, and 35mm.


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## jamesbobo (Jun 18, 2000)

The first thing I noticed was Ricky with a cigarette. You don't see too many smokers in sitcoms today.


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## heySkippy (Jul 2, 2001)

I watched a couple minutes at the beginning. The color is better than older efforts at colorization, but still jarringly unrealistic. Took me right out of the story.


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## Donbadabon (Mar 5, 2002)

This is pretty cool. It is mixing the actual B&W footage filmed along with a color camera that looks like it was filmed from the crew.


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## late for dinner (May 17, 2013)

My Wife and I enjoyed the memories. Color or not!

I find it interesting when an old show comes up I ask her "did you watch that as a kid" and it turns out that we liked and disliked the same shows. Maybe we were meant for each other.


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## sieglinde (Aug 11, 2002)

Decorating the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve is a German custom (actually the Kris Kind does the decoration while the kids are asleep). My mother who is not German insisted that Christmas started December 1st and we had a tree for the normal American duration not my Dad's German tradition.


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## Rkkeller (May 13, 2004)

I have not seen Lucy in years, but did they look old as heck???

I don't remember them being that old, but it has been years since I last saw the show.


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## n548gxg (Mar 7, 2003)

Rkkeller said:


> I have not seen Lucy in years, but did they look old as heck???
> 
> I don't remember them being that old, but it has been years since I last saw the show.


The episode was filmed on November 22, 1956. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_I_Love_Lucy_episodes#Season_6_.281956.E2.80.9357.29

Thus Ricky was 39 and Lucy was 45.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

n548gxg said:


> The episode was filmed on November 22, 1956. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_I_Love_Lucy_episodes#Season_6_.281956.E2.80.9357.29 Thus Ricky was 39 and Lucy was 45.


Desi was a hard 39. He drank, smoked and ran around.


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## MScottC (Sep 11, 2004)

mrdbdigital said:


> In my entire broadcasting career, I have never seen or heard of anyone having a super 8 projector on a broadcast film chain. Only formats I have seen on a traditional camera film chain are slides, 16mm, and 35mm.


Local Cable System, Middle School TV studio, and college (S.I. Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University) all had Super 8 on our film chains, along with 16mm and slides. Once I hit the professional level, I was strictly videotape. It seemed everyone working in Telecine at CBS was 20 years my senior .


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## Kamakzie (Jan 8, 2004)

Was it just me or did Fred look weird in color?


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## LlamaLarry (Apr 30, 2003)

sieglinde said:


> Decorating the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve is a German custom (actually the Kris Kind does the decoration while the kids are asleep). My mother who is not German insisted that Christmas started December 1st and we had a tree for the normal American duration not my Dad's German tradition.


I had some friends that put up their tree on Christmas Eve and they also took it down very quickly, maybe even Christmas Day. We always had ours up by Dec 1 and took it down after New Year's.


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## phox_mulder (Feb 23, 2006)

CBS is airing it again Christmas Day evening for those that missed it the first time.


phox


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