In July of 1928, John Logie Baird made history. The Scottish inventor demontrated the first color television transmission. He had already made his mark on the medium in 1924, having successfully transmitted the first television image, a shot of his ventriloquist dummy, Stooky Bill. In 1938, Baird shook the world again, making the first color television broadcast. Of course, it would take decades for the advancement to reach the masses.

The 1966–67 television season would be the first in which the three major networks broadcast their primetime lineups in full color. But not all networks were equal in their march to the full color spectrum. NBC was continually ahead in the game, thanks to the fact it was owned by RCA, which manufactured the color cameras for studios and color sets for homes. Meanwhile, in a sort of precursor to the VHS vs. Betamax war, CBS held out, as the company tried to push its own partially mechanical "field-sequential color system" of broadcasting color.

The slow transition from black & white to color is evident in many shows we have aired on MeTV. The syndicated Adventures of Superman switched to color in 1955 — despite that many did not have the capacity to see the Man of Steel in his spectacular red and blue. The first season of Gilligan's Island was in black & white, before the sitcom jumped to color in 1965, the same season that The Andy Griffith Show finally depicted Mayberry in a rainbow palette. Even Aunt Bee's show-within-a-show was in color, as you can see up top.

As we remember America's transition to color, let's take a look at some fascinating moments in the technology's timeline.