Ed Reitan's Color Television History

KTLA's 1955 Colorcast of

The Tournament of Roses Parade

January 1, 1955

Finally, there is confirmation that KTLA did colorcast the rainy 1955 Tournament of Roses Parade. It was KTLA's second coverage of the parade that day - the first was from the Elk's Club in black and white - the second was this further down the parade route so that the entire parade could be repeated in color. After the announcers (including Stan Chambers) finished their black and white coverage, they were wisked by police escort to the second coverage location to repeat the same. There is no indication that in 1955 NBC repeated its first historic color coverage of the parade done in 1954.

KTLA was the first West Coast station to have live color capability when they obtained two TK-40A color cameras during 1954. There had been a question if KTLA had cancelled the color coverage of the January 1, 1955 parade because of the poor weather that day in Pasadena.

Steve Dichter had found newspaper items that mentioned plans for KTLA to carry the parade in color and an ad by Motorola with an invitation to view the parade in color at dealer showrooms.

This clipping from Variety was provided to Don Kent by Dan Einstein of the UCLA Film and Television Archive.

V1.00 01/30/2007

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