I spelled that to the best of my knowledge. Everyone is saying Tatiana was the first Disney princess. I watched the live action Cinderella version, and Disney has it's little classic Cinderella castle logo announcing this is their movie. I'm so confused?


Oh, and the song "impossible" from that movie is stuck in my head. Just like when I was a kid.

with Brandy in the lead role. And I'm assuming you mean Tiana from The Princess and the Frog as the first African-American Disney princess. They probably aren't counting Cinderella as it was live action and an adaption of another studio's work.

"Cinderella is the only Rodgers and Hammerstein musical written for television. It was originally broadcast live on CBS on March 31, 1957 as a vehicle for Julie Andrews, who played the title role. The broadcast was seen by over 100 million people. It was subsequently remade for television twice, in 1965 and 1997. The 1965 version starred Lesley Ann Warren, and the 1997 one starred Brandy, in the title role. Both remakes add songs from other Richard Rodgers musicals."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodgers_and_Hammerstein%27s_Cinderella

Even though it was broadcast in color, the only version that exists was filmed in black and white from a television set.

I'm not old enough to remember the original version, but I remember the 1965 Lesley Ann Warren version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27K6nlVEdSc

It ('65 version) was recorded in color, but very few people owned color TVs at the time. We didn't have one. That said, by the mid-60s, many specials and some weekly series were filmed in color, mindful that future reruns (or annual re-presentations) would have added value in color, even if most of the public saw the debut in black and white. "The Lucy Show" seasons 2 and 3 (1963-65) were filmed in color, but broadcast in black and white. The color versions were seen only in syndicated reruns. The first year "Lucy" was seen in color in prime time was the 1965-66 season.

With respect to the recording of the original (1957) version, black and white videotape for tv station use began about 1957, while the first color systems were introduced c. 1958. The oldest surviving color videotape of a network show is a 1958 NBC Fred Astaire special. In addition, videotape was VERY expensive, so even when a show was recorded on videotape, often it was re-recorded after having been show, to save money. Keeping an archival copy of each show would have been prohibitively expensive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videotape

A less expensive, but technically inferior, recording system was the "kinescope": basically, a motion picture film of a television monitor was recorded. Image was poor, but the raw material was cheap. Old episodes of the "Honeymooners" were preserved in this manner.

Most of the old live tv series of which recordings exist were preserved with kinescopes. A notable exception would be "I Love Lucy", which was filmed using regular motion picture cameras. The reason film was used was because originally CBS assumed that Lucille and Desi Arnaz would move to New York to do their show (debut 1951), as most live shows emanated from NYC in those days. Desi came up with the idea to film the show like a motion picture (it was in front of a live audience on a soundstage, but it was not broadcast "live" and they had a chance to edit or correct mistakes), mainly to persuade CBS to let them do the show from Los Angeles.

Desi felt that the higher picture quality of filmed (vs. kinescoped) episodes would compensate CBS for not doing it "live" from NYC. What he did not realize initially was that he in essence created the re-run, because he offered studio-quality images rather than kinescopes. At that time, the fact that fans of a show might want to see old episodes again---or see shows they had missed---was not appreciated by the show's creators or by the sponsor. When you consider how many times people have seen the "Vitameatavegemin" or "candy factory" episodes, it's mind boggling.