In 1965 BBC TV featured an interview with a professor who had just invented a device called "smellovision." This miraculous technology allowed viewers to experience directly in their own home aromas produced in the television studio. The professor offered a demonstration by cutting some onions and brewing coffee. A number of viewers called in to confirm that they distinctly experienced these scents as if they were there in the studio with him. Since no aromas were being transmitted, whatever these viewers thought they smelled coming out of their tv sets must be chalked up to the power of suggestion.
Comments
Listed in chronological order. Newest comments at the end.

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Mind over matter!
Posted by Hunter  on  Wed Mar 30, 2005  at  04:43 PM

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No, those viewers were originally part of the hoax.
Posted by Mao  on  Sat Apr 02, 2005  at  08:35 AM

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I remember hearing this annoucement when i was very young and being puzzled for years as to why smellovisions had not come onto the market. I also seem to remember there being a competition to win one in association with kitkat.
Posted by Katherinemma  in  London  on  Mon Apr 04, 2005  at  05:17 PM

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Smellovision reminds me of the Odorama process used in the John Waters Film "Polyester". starring Tab Hunter and Glen Millstead as Divine. The theatergoer was provided with a strip of scratch-and-sniff patches, to be enjoyed at appropriate times in the flick, delineated by popup cues to "scratch and sniff". And THAT is Ordorama
Posted by Hairy Houdini  on  Mon Apr 04, 2005  at  06:52 PM

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A version of this hoax was run on WBBF radio station in Rochester, NY some time in the '60s. It was smells transmitted over the radio. To cover the joke, the initial broadcast was scheduled for an afternoon in late March, but the equipment "failed" to operate (accompanied by a load cracking sound) and was re-scheduled for a later weekday morning (April 1st). Many callers reported smelling coffee being broadcast from their radios...
Posted by Former Army Person  on  Thu Apr 21, 2005  at  08:10 AM

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There used to be a theater that did this. In one movie there was a barnyard scene and it smelled like they just threw horsepoop into the vents.
Posted by David  on  Wed Jun 01, 2005  at  09:03 AM

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Born in the winter of '47& raised in Los Angeles before it became a warzone, I can truthfully say there was a movie theatre downtown LA showing (and smelling!) some B-movie which advertised TRUTHFULLY Smellovision. Certain scenes contained citrus, flowers, and some unpleasant odorific critters which the theatre sprayed thru mist-nozzles from above. May have been silly and not grabbed by the Cecil B DeMille aristocracy at the time, but I swear it's a true story! I must've been 8 to 11 years old at the time, I went with Daddio!
Posted by Cheese Geezer  in  grew up in los angeles  on  Sat Apr 01, 2006  at  12:55 PM

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Smellovision actually existed, though not in broadcast form of course, but in a theater outfitted with scent-producing equipment. It didn't succeed.

Probably those febreeze scent stories and that scene in Harold and Maude owe something to it.

See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054271/.
Posted by Kerry Wendt  in  Atlanta, GA  on  Sat Apr 01, 2006  at  02:13 PM

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the "viewers" who called in were part of the hoax
Posted by Vautaut  on  Thu Jun 08, 2006  at  07:27 PM

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I remember hearing a news story several years ago saying that scientists had found a way to generate smells. I don't recall all of the details of how it was supposed to work but the story said that there were supposedly three attributes to smells and that each could be given a value between 1 and 128. (I remember this because it resembled the RGB color scheme except that Red, Green and Blue color values range from 1 to 256). Apparently, they could generate almost any smell by just sending the right value of each of the three attributes so that (1,35,100) might be newly-mown grass which (45,10,8) might be wet dog.

I waited eagerly for a few years to see this technology emerge and mature and thought perhaps the new generation of air fresheners with selectable scents were some version of this technology.

Anyway, this story was presented as fact and never refuted to my knowledge. Of course it may have been an April Fool's joke itself.
Posted by Buzz  on  Sun Jun 18, 2006  at  01:54 PM

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8-bit_color

a segment of which is posted below...

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Color depth

8-bit color
15/16 bit: Highcolour
24/32 bit: Truecolor
Web-safe color
Related

RGB color model
Palette

8-bit color graphics is a method of storing image information in a computer's memory or in an image file, such that each pixel is represented by one 8-bit byte. The maximum number of colors that can be displayed at any one time is 256.

There are two forms of 8-bit color graphics. The most common uses a separate palette of 256 colors, where each of the 256 entries in the palette map to given red, green, and blue values. In most color maps, each color is usually chosen from a palette of 16,777,216 colors (24 bits: 8 red, 8 green, 8 blue). But in the original VGA card's 320x200 mode, 256 on-screen colors could be chosen from a palette of 262144 colors (18 bits: 6 red, 6 green, 6 blue).
Posted by E. Kloess  in  Panama City Beach, FL  on  Tue Sep 05, 2006  at  08:11 PM

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Carl Stalling sez, "It'll never work!"
Posted by Mike  on  Fri Mar 30, 2007  at  10:00 AM

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This was also repeated by TV station WBQ 8 (Wide Bay Queensland) in Australia somewhere around 1970. They displayed the "Olfactory Modulator" which was going to transmit the smells. The station manager's son told me lots of people rang reporting smelling the cooking onions.
Posted by Rob Dunn  in  Brisbane, Queensland  on  Sat Mar 31, 2007  at  07:20 AM

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They did a charity 'smelly-vision' in England back in the 90's.
It was for Children In Need I believe and associated with Noel's House Party and The Sun newspaper.
The newspaper send out 'scratch and sniff' cards, which were numbered doors to open, much like an advent calender, and when a number came upon screen you opened that door. The manure smell was not great, believe me!
Posted by Genasai  on  Wed Dec 05, 2007  at  09:54 PM

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