Evening star., 1951-10-10
On the Air
Look, RCA,
You Won
This One
Ry Jay cormodY

Macarthur (who is on vacation)
can stop worrying about this
whole television color dilemma.
1t is all settled now-at least in
the mind of one woman.
She is not an average woman,
being rather too pretty. too in
telligent, and perhaps too impul-
Isive and direct to be so classified.
This Joan of Arc, bent upon
saving the Nations televiewers
from further brain-battering by
the color issue, was assigned yes
lterday to the task of watching
IRCA's first big scale color broad
cast to all the black -and-white
sets In this area.
"It's coming on at 10 o'clock
this morning, WNBW, Channel T."
her husband said. "I've got a
million other things to do. You'll
have to take over and let me
know. RCA wants people to re-
port to them on how the pictures
look, but don't worry about RCA.
You just report to me. o. K?"
20. K" said Joan. Leave it
to me. No misgivings, now. Just
go on with the other things you've
got to do"
The husband left, but with one
misgiving. This was the express
sion on the woman'S face which
made 1t plain that she was quite
fed up with the whole contro-
versy about color and that she
was happy to be the one who
finally would dispose of it. AS
misgivings go, this was a whopper,
but men have learned to survive
them down the ages.
Joan Wastes No Time-At 1926
a m, five minutes after the broad
cast. the husbands telephone at
the office rang. 1t was Joan re-
Iporting in.
"It's all settled" she said. "The
whole thing has been sheer nom
sense"
Whats settled?" her husband
asked, land what's sheer nom
lsenSe?"
'The whole thing, of course"
Joan explained. II looked at the
program as I promised. The color
pictures looked perfect in black
and white. better than the usual
black and white pictures. I took
notes. Now. let me see.
We'll, there was Nanette Febray
(Joan has met Nanette and would
ibe predisposed in her favor). As
you know, Nanette is very pretty.
She is still very pretty in that
piquant way of hers on color sent
(, in black-and-white. There were
some birds, too. Naturally. they
would be lovelier in their real
colors, but they came up sharply
without them.
"Oh. yes, and there was an In
dian. Colorful types, Indians.
This one had plumage, of course.
I am sure it was very bright in the
studio. Naturally, it was not very
bright on our screen but I would
like to make a point about this.
have seen far more Indians in
black and white pictures, movies
and television, than I have seen in
real life'or Technicolor. Therefore,
this Indian today looked perfectly
normal to me. That is the way
life has arranged it, life and the
movies"
The husband was hanging on.
/ Anything else?" he asked
weakly.
Eyes, a big dance number"
How was it?"
"Just fine, in fact a very pretty
thing. I forgot to think how it
would look in color but in black
and white. I liked it. That's why
say the whole thing is sheer
nonsense. Why don't they just go
ahead and broadcast in any old
color system they want and stop
all this haggling?"
Well" the husband tried to
explain once again, Its really
quiet involved and only RCA, CHS,
the FEC and Harry Macarthur
understand it completely. Say,
come to think of it, aren't you a
very minor RCA stockholder?"
TOO minor to let it influence
me" came the cold, cold answer
+ X X Il
Coming Up
The Ezzard Charles-Rex Layne
heavyweight fight tonight CBS-
NTOP-TV at 10 o'clock from Pitts
burg will be the first bout to &c
coast-to-coast via. microwave.