Does anyone remember those color screens you put in front of black-and-white TVs?

[begin_within]

Am I dreaming this, or do I remember correctly that you could get this clear thing, which was blue at the top and brown near the bottom, and you put it in front of your b/w TV, and it made it appear that you were watching a color TV? My neighbors had one in approximately 1965 or so, when color TVs were available but still expensive. The problem with it was that it only worked for Westerns - it made the sky blue and the land brown. But it didn't work for any other type of scene.

[LostinVA]

1. They had them, but they didn't work

Or so my Mom told me.

[Orsino]

2. I don't see how it could work.

Color information just wasn't in B&W TV signals, and only a smart device would be able to create it.

[jmowreader]

6. Think "pseudocolor"

This thing was a strip of blue gel and a strip of brown gel.

What you were supposed to do with it was turn on a western, put it in front of your TV, and drop a LOT of peyote. In your peyote-influenced haze, you'd think the sky was blue and the earth was brown.

[mikeytherat]

3. Saw one once at a yard sale many years ago!

It was stuck (permanently - glued, maybe?) to a 19-inch black and white TV. The top was blue, the middle clear, and the bottom a greenish brown (like partially dead grass). The TV was tuned to the Mary Tyler Moore show, and it was the most bizarre, Neapolitan-looking picture you ever saw. Very strange!

mikey_the_rat

[sarge43]

4. Remember them well.

As memory serves but seldom reenlists, they were around in the late fifties.

[Rabrrrrrr]

5. I remember them for video games

Coleco, maybe? I can't remember for sure which consoles, but I'm positive that some video game consoles (the ones that only did black and white) had color sheets to put on the TV.