Just Imagine was one of two television shows (hosted by Diana Tollefson) which were mentioned by name in the obituary of Diana (Bowen) Tollefson Berman. The other show that was mentioned in the obituary was Draw With Me.
The author of this webpage did not specifically remember the series name, Just Imagine, but did recall that Diana Tollefson (born November 1, 1918-died September 28, 2009) had hosted two black and white educational instructional television shows, one of which was a craft show and one of which was a drawing show. Since the craft show was called Which Craft, that would mean that the remaining show was called Just Imagine. In the series, Just Imagine (a production of KUSD-TV), Tollefson demonstrated drawing techniques to art students in grade school. Just Imagine was essentially a black and white version of her later color series, Draw With Me. Both shows were virtually identical in format. In Just Imagine, Diana Tollefson stood in front of a large sheet of paper and drew pictures.
Of Tollefson's educational/instructional shows, this one was shown no later than the early 1970's. All black and white series like this one were eventually removed from circulation when more color educational/instructional shows became available. Since that time, the series has not been broadcast (either whole or in part) by South Dakota Public Television; although, some older viewers do still remember the program. Of all of the hosts of educational television shows from South Dakota, Diana Tollefson was the one who was probably the most readily recognized.
The black and white television images from Just Imagine were of good quality. Based on memories from having watched the black and white images half a century ago, the quality of the black and white television images was similar to that of the old Ernie Kovacs shows. The image definition was good; although, black and white television from that time did have shortcomings. The old black and white television cameras overcompensated for the brightness of bright objects in such a way that the bright objects appeared to be surrounded by dark halos.
It is not known at this time whether or not SDPTV (now known as SDPB TV) has retained its recordings of Just Imagine. The series was removed from rotation when color educational/instructional television programs began dominate the broadcast schedule. When SDPB TV has shown retrospectives of its old television programming since that time, it appears to have never shown clips from Tollefson's old series, Just Imagine. It is known that many broadcasters with limited budgets tended to get rid of recordings of their older shows when the shows were no longer being shown. Since Just Imagine was a black and white series, retention of recordings of this series was likely considered to have been a low priority. After the development of color television, old black and white television shows were often considered to have been of no interest.
In more recent years, SDPB TV has expressed an interest in recovering old recordings of its early black and white television shows. If anyone (perhaps a school with an old reel-to-reel video recording machine) were to possess an old recording of Just Imagine (or of any other early series which was produced by KUSD-TV/SDPTV), SDPB TV would probably be very interested in obtaining a copy of the recording for its archives for historical purposes.
This webpage should be regarded as a work in progress. New information may come to light in the event that documentation about the show is discovered. That new information would be incorporated into the article.
Just Imagine is the copyrighted property of South Dakota Public Broadcasting and KUSD-TV in Vermillion, South Dakota. Neither SDPB nor KUSD-TV are responsible for the contents of this article. No copyright infringements were intended in the writing of this article. This article was written as a tribute to the TV show.