November 3, 1956…The ‘Oz’ Tradition Begins On CBS
The first time ‘The Wizard Of Oz’ was shown on television was a Saturday night in November of 1956. Many have said that the debut broadcast was not in color, but this add from the Vineland Times Journal, in Vineland NJ settles that argument. It was indeed in color and this music store, which also sold color television sets, invited the public to watch at their store. By the way, RCA color sets sold for $495 and black and whites for $279 in 1956.
The year before, on March 7, 1955, NBC’s color broadcast of ‘Peter Pan’ from Brooklyn’s Studio I was a smash and CBS wanted a big color family affair too and broadcast ‘Oz’ as the last installment of the CBS anthology series ‘Ford Star Jubilee’.
It was a hit, but the annual tradition did not start till 1958 when CBS aired it a second time, but from then on, it was moved to an air date between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I’m glad to be able to say that I saw both the ‘Peter Pan’ and ‘Oz’ debuts, but only in glorious black and white. I think we got a color set in 1964. Do you remember? Thanks to David Crosthwait for the ad. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
I attended St. Columbkille’s School in Brighton, Massachusetts 1957-1970. It’s a Catholic school, and every year, grades 1-8 would put on a Christmas play, or “Cantata.” While we were waiting to go onstage, we would wait in classrooms behind the stage, and watch “The Wizard of Oz” on black and white TV’s loaned to the good Sisters of St. Joseph by our parents.
CBS always made it an event……and it was always good to watch it. The one program that we dropped everything as a family to watch every year. Even after it hit video in the 80s (i have it on Beta and CED)……it still drew the TV audiences.
For a while there, in the 60s, CBS showed the Wizard of Oz on Sundays. We got our first color tv when I was a Senior in high school (Christmas, 1969).
This local ad was aimed at a broadcast presumed to be from the NYC network feed. Did it air to the entire net at this time or did TV City have a color film chain and ran their 35mm print three hours later?
The ’56 broadcast was in color coast to coast. CBS did repeat the Wizard of Oz in B&W for a couple of years when sponsors wouldn’t pay a premium for the color telecast.
Didn’t NBC run it for a few years too ?
Technically 50% colour đŸ˜‰
We went to my cousin’s house to watch it when he got a color TV (our TV repairman Harold Hazzard real name! Told my Pop “color TV ain’t good yet” so we didn’t get ours until 1966 or so) but my cousin’s set was out of adjustment (or WNBF TV was) and we didn’t get a color burst until after the mid break…still, wow. I watched the movie on BLU RAY on Halloween night and am still amazed at the technology in 1939..75 years ago!
Great programming strategy by CBS to wait for the kids to go to sleep at 9pm so they could protect their minds from this “dark” movie ;).
In Lo-def !
And I can barely remember if I saw this or not. I was only 4 years old at the time. Wow. This makes me feel ancient.
The Ford Star Jubilee airing of the Wizard of Oz was not just the movie. The program was hosted. I remember Bert Lahr telling a very young Liza Minelli — making her TV debut — that he chased her mother around a tree in the forest in this movie. It was a big deal that the movie was being aired in color, but some of the confusion you are mentioning might be because of the B&W Kansas segment which runs a long, long time when you are wondering if your finicky color TV is working right! By the time they got to Oz you probably screwed up all the adjustments!