Ziv noted that '' The Cisco Kid '' was likely one of the first – " if not the first " – television program produced on film . He encountered no opposition from Hollywood because people were happy for the employment that the TV productions provided . Ziv used color film for the television version of '' The Cisco Kid '' , which began in 1949 ( before color TV sets were sold ) . Ziv again encountered a lack of belief or understanding of what he was doing . " The people – the engineers , the laboratory – felt that the color film would never be usable – if color ever came , " he said . " It turned out they were all wrong . Color television did come , and as you know , the programs we shot in color in the very early days are still being used . " The company 's first two television programs were '' Yesterday 's Newsreel '' and '' Sports Album '' . Material for those programs came from Ziv 's purchase of General Film Library , which Erickson described as " so vast that it had storehouses on both coasts " . The shows were produced by packaging segments from the library for television . '' Yesterday 's Newsreel '' featured events like the Hindenburg disaster and the sinking of the Titanic . It was a 15-minute program , while '' Sports Album '' ran 5 minutes . '' The Cisco Kid '' , Ziv 's first dramatic series , began in 1949 and was produced until 1956 , resulting in 156 episodes . The program 's gross revenue for its first 10 years in syndication was $ 11 million
Hindenburg disaster
Hindenburg disaster
Ziv Company