What were ABC and CBS's First Color Series?

[tvnut]

"The Flintstones" aired in color on a limited basis (I think
just on the ABC o&os) at first; "The Jetsons" was the first
to be offered in color to the full network. Welk didn't switch
to color until 1965; prior to that, "Wagon Train" and "The Greatest
Show On Earth" (and maybe a couple more whose names escape me)
had been shown in color on ABC.

CBS had some color programming in the '50s, notably Red Skelton.
But eventually he went back to black and white; Lucy may have been
the first in the '60s, but I remember a mass switchover of most of CBS's
established shows to color in the fall of '65 (about half of CBS's primetime
lineup was in color at the time).


Trivia note: ABC had the last new black-and-white first-run daytime show
(reruns of the black-and-white Lucy shows, Andy Griffith, Dick Van Dyke,
"Beverly Hillbillies," and "Bewitched" don't count) in 1967: "Everybody's Talking".

Actually, "The Jetsons" was ABC's first color series, beginning September 23, 1962. Amazingly, ABC had no color transmission equipment, no color film chain, nothing, so the network rented facilities from NBC in Burbank. NBC fed the show (35mm and a 16mm safety) to AT&T on two lines which fed it to ABC New York and then out to the eastern half of the country, and then later in the West via ABC Hollywood.

Beginning the following Sunday, the same operation was used to colorcast "The Flintstones" on ABC, which had been filmed in color its first two seasons but shown in black-and-white.

Info from the great Bobby Ellerbee site: https://eyesofageneration.com/septe...-debuts-as-first-color-for-abcthis-video-cli/