Thursday, January 03, 2008

TVB- the 1st decade: 1967-1976

Looking at TVB Weekly Issue 540’s special article on the first decade of TVB’s history with a few series highlights for each year, I realized that I have not seen any of these shows at all. Heck, I wasn’t even born then. Nonetheless, these are TVB first ‘pioneer’ series and shows produced, which makes these series truly classics...

An avid TVB fan would realize that the TVB anniversary is on November 19th of every year. However, not many would know the whole date TVB was established, which is November 19th, 1967. From that date onwards, TVB aired many of its first shows including the stage show Enjoy Yourself Tonight with one of TVB’s famous faces today, Lydia Shum. Since I have not watch any of these series, I am very unfamiliar with the names of these series, but I’ll just mention whatever I find interesting.

From 1967-1972, most of the series highlighted were black and white. In 1973, the series highlighted had more color, but it was still a little blurry. In 1974, the series mentioned were mostly ancient but the pictures were a bit lighter and clearer. This is also the year in which Lee Si Kei’s series, 啼笑姻緣 (she was the wax figure for this character in 2007’s anniversary gala wax museum comedy skit) and TVB’s first version of 西遊記 (otherwise known as Journey to the West for today viewers) was shown. In 1975, TVB’s first version of 洛神 (otherwise known as Where the Legend Begins for today viewers) was shown. In 1976, TVB’s version of 黃飛鴻 (otherwise known as Wong Fei Hung for today’s viewers) was shown. In the same year, and the only serie I believed to be the most widely known in this decade for today’s viewers is 陸小鳳 (known as Luk Siu Fung) starring Damian Lau. Other famous faces I see in this decade include the young Liza Wang, young Adam Cheng, the young Sek Sau, and Ng Wai Kwok (from Drive of Life).

Even though I have not watched these original series myself, this decade seem to have quite a few influences on future adaptations. I was surprised to learn that there were several popular series that were later remade from this decade. I mean, who knew, I always thought Dicky Cheung’s version of Journey to the West was the first one TVB ever made. There are many other series made during this decade that was either part of the highlights and I did not mention or not part of the highlights at all. Are there any particular series during this decade you, your grandparents, or your family have watched and enjoyed? Do share.

If you are a big fan of this decade and would like to see the scans, email me at jadedreams@gmail.com or leave your email in the comments section.

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