Winky Dink and You
Winky Dink and You was a
Interactivity
The central gimmick of the show, praised by
Another use of the interactive screen was to decode messages. An image would be displayed, showing only the vertical lines of the letters of the secret message. Viewers would then quickly trace onto their magic screen, and a second image would display the horizontal lines, completing the text.
A final use of the screen was to create the outline of a character with whom Jack Barry would have a conversation. It would seem meaningless to viewers without the screen, further encouraging its purchase.
Origin
Harry Prichett came up with the core idea in the 1950s of drawing on the screen when working as a graphic designer for an advertising agency that had the account for Benrus Watches, a principal sponsor of Your Show of Shows, NBC's Saturday evening variety show starring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. Benrus reported that a number of its dealers had to deal with viewers who were angry to find that the expensive wristwatch on one of the commercials could not be bought for $39.95. (This is roughly equivalent to $460 in 2023, but was considered a modest price for a fine watch at that time.) The agency was concerned that viewers were not seeing the "and up" after the "$39.95" because early TV sets varied in overscan by which they "cut off" the edges of the picture. Agency staffers were asked to watch the show and report back what was visible on their screens. Prichett decided to put a piece of cellulose acetate film, a standard tool in graphic arts at the time, over the screen so he could use a grease pencil to sketch exactly which parts of the commercial were visible. As he waited, he started to add drawings to the images on the screen, then erase them and add new ones. It seemed obvious to him that children would enjoy working this way with their television sets.
Cancellation and revival
The program was successful because of its pioneering interactive marketing scheme, and Winky Dink became one of television's most popular characters of the 1950s. However, its production was halted despite its popularity, because of concerns about
The show was revived in
References
- ISBN 0-8108-1557-5. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
- ISBN 978-1476665993.
- ^ Bob Greene (March 31, 2013). "Winky Dink and ... Bill Gates?". CNN. Retrieved March 27, 2018.
- ^ Peter Hartlaub (April 13, 2002). "In sync with Winky Dink / Vintage TV show, now out on video, wins over kids in the joystick set". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved March 27, 2018.