Living in a Black and White World

I'm going to tell this story this story on myself because I tell so many on everyone else in my family. But, when it's all said and done, I still think it's a completely valid question.

Yesterday morning, Neal was trying to find some sort of happy medium on daytime TV. Apparently, Anderson Cooper has sold his soul to Ricki Lake and is now hosting an hour of parents who abuse their children/children who are transgender/why the plastic in baby bottles is turning our boys into girls, etc. I'm not saying these are not important topics to cover, but (as Neal put it best) Anderson was more valuable in the field, dodging bullets. Now he just looks like a eunuch.

So cross off AC360 the Jerry Springer-wannabe with the Ken doll hair and that leaves Hoda and Kathy Lee (I think I misspelled both of their names but they are collectively so obnoxious that I haven't even bothered to Google it) and Regis and Kelly (which will be playing on a continuous loop, projected on all 4 walls of a 10x10 prison cell if I happen to go to Hell). But it also leaves "MeTV", which I think is Georgia's daytime answer to Nick at Nite. Little House on the Prairie, westerns, and Perry Mason play throughout the week. Yesterday was Perry Mason....in black and white. Can I just say how bizarre it is to be watching a black and white television show on a 42 inch flat-screen, HD TV? And wasteful. Bizarre and wasteful.

As I was lying there in my PJ's, drinking eggnog coffee, and pondering the idea of filming a show that would be viewed in black and white, it forced the question...

"Do you think they wore clothes with color when they filmed these? Or just shades of black, gray, and white?"

Neal: You mean, is that woman wearing a blue sweater, or is just gray?
Me: Exactly.
Neal: hysterical, gut-grabbing laughter

I still see nothing extraordinary about the question. Why would you bother to wear a burnt orange blazer if the audience will only see gray?

Although once the color television made its big debut, it would have meant all new wardrobes for each studio and I can see how that would have been a problem. Also, now that I am sitting here typing this out, it occurs to me that when they converted all of those shows into Technicolor, that the actors were not in a continuous parade of shades of gray....which was quite insightful on somebody's part. And this is why I don't work in Hollywood.