TFTP's Monochrome Monday: "Break the Bank" from ABC (Dec. 1955)

Posted by YouTube by user 'Shokus Video'
Length - 27:35

TFTP's Monochrome Monday brings you a classic black & white TV program or clip every Monday morning to kick off the week....

"Break the Bank" was a pretty simple game show, both from a gameplay perspective and from a production values perspective. Host Bert Parks and contestants simply stood on a mostly bare stage as Parks asked questions for progressively higher amounts of money ($25, then $50, then $100, $200, $300, and $500). At the top of the money ladder was a final question that if answered correctly would "break the bank" and win the contestants whatever amount the "bank" had built up to (starting at $1000 and rising with each set of contestants that didn't win it).

Contestants generally were couples or groups, as with the young family and then the older couple in the above episode. The family in the first part of the episode is successful in its attempt to "break the bank" (to the tune of $1300), whereas the older couple is not. In some respects, as with a lot of 1950s game shows ("You Bet Your Life" for sure, probably others), on "Break the Bank" it's the interaction between host and contestants that is just as important as whatever game is being played.

"Break the Bank" was sponsored by Dodge automobiles, so there are a couple of filmed Dodge ads in the mix in this episode, as well as the Dodge logo that is displayed prominently on the backdrop on stage.

TFTP's Monochrome March Will Return After These Messages: Miscellaneous Commercial Block from the 1950s

Posted to YouTube by user 'MattTheSaiyan'
Length - 12:25

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

And every Wednesday, TFTP takes a break from regular programming to bring you a selection of classic commercials. Monochrome March will return after these messages...

This block of commercials from the 1950s features (among other products) cigarettes, bread, autos, and soap products. There are ads for Palmolive bar soap (for the "schoolgirl complexion look"), Snickers candy bars (an animated look at the layers of a Snickers bar), Jello Instant Pudding, and Spic & Span cleaning solution. There are three different Camel cigarette ads--two of which are animated, one with a lion tamer and lion, the other featuring water skiing. There are also three different Sunbeam bread ads--and only one of them is the same as those TFTP featured a few weeks ago.

As we begin to wrap up this year's Monochrome March, it's worth considering how different these ads are from those we are familiar with today. To begin with, they're much longer; a couple of the ads here clock in at around two minutes. Animation was much more prevalent in ads from the 1950s and '60s; animation is almost never used in commercials now. And there is an unmistakable air of innocence to many of these ads--a girl jump-roping to sell Sunbeam bread, clean-cut teenagers featured in the Palmolive ad. Heck, even in the cigarette ads the worst thing going on is whether or not the cigarettes will irritate your throat.

Maybe, in that era, things really were more black and white.

TFTP Will Return After These Messages: Miscellaneous Commercials from the 1950s

Posted to YouTube by user 'MattTheSaiyan'

Here's an assortment of commercials from the 1950s, not from any one commercial block but just a miscellaneous grouping.

Commercials from the 1950s do not resemble later commercials in a variety of ways. They were often presented as inserts in the program, by an announcer or even a cast member associated with the program (most shows at this time had a single sponsor); they could be much longer (some of the ads in this block clock in at over a minute); and they are often much more demonstrative in nature, showing the product in use.

Products in the commercials in this block (in the order they are seen): Kodak Brownie cameras, Coca-Cola (a Thanksgiving-themed ad), Betty Crocker cake mix, Olde English Peanut Brittle, Carnation Evaporated Milk, Chef Boy-Ar-Dee spaghetti sauce, another ad for Coca-Cola (a football-themed one), Dodge automobiles, Ivory Soap, and Dodge auto dealers (this last one a spiffy animated ad--cartoon ads were prevalent in the '50s and into the '60s).