On Phil's vision.

He saw television being transmitted over the ocean.... Countries being able to see other countries, what they are like and their problems, so they could settle their differences over a conference table rather than over a battlefield. He saw it as an educational tool and also for entertainment.

On the first images televised in the lab.

We had quite a few film strips. The first Disney picture, "Steamboat Willie." Mary Pickford in "Taming of the Shrew."...She and Douglas [Fairbanks] and Joseph Schenck from United Artists came up because they wanted to see how afraid they should be about their industry as television was taking hold. Actually, they didn't have to worry much because the boys had worked late that night and there was something wrong....Finally, Mary and Douglas had to leave....They called the fellows and said 'Look, just show us what you got 'cause we have to take the train.' He did show them a very poor picture. They [Pickford, Fairbanks and Schenck] hadn't been out of the lab for more than an hour, [when] they had the best picture they had yet.

Their 1934 demonstration.

The Franklin Institute [in Philadelphia] had just opened their museum....They thought maybe television was the way to get people in there...We didn't realize how hard it was to keep live pictures on television yet. We didn't rely on films. We had everything from trained dogs and bears, ventriloquists and puppet shows. On the last day, Seymour Turner, he and his father had invested in Farnsworth stock, wanted to get a program together. He had a nightclub come and do their floor show. Howard McClenahan, head of the Institute, came to see this. He said, "I never thought the state of the Franklin Institute would come to this."

Phil's 1934 deposition disputing RCA's claim that Vladimir Zworykin invented television.

[The patent office] asked Phil if he had told anyone about his television ideas because RCA said no boy of 15 could come up with that complicated concept. They found Phil's old chemistry teacher [Justin Tolman] and their patent attorney, Don Lippincott, asked him if he knew Philo Farnsworth and he said: "I certainly do. He was the smartest student I ever had." They said: "Do you remember his ideas about television?" He said: "Yes I do." The next morning Tolman produced a page of Phil's notebook where Phil made a drawing of the camera tube and had given it to Tolman. I guess he showed that to every class he ever had.

On their experimental station W3XPF in Philadelphia, 1936.

There weren't many receivers. There were odd things that we found out. We had a call from a man who said he was getting our signal from his crown on his tooth. And another one, a lady, got it on her range.

Phil appears on "I've Got a Secret."

That was a very great experience, because Buster Keaton, as well as a fellow who had something like 22 snakes on his person appeared. Phil's secret was that he had invented television at age 15. Of course they addressed him as Dr. Farnsworth, so they thought he was a medical doctor. They didn't guess it, they stumped the panel. They gave him something like $80 and a carton of Chesterfield cigarettes.

Phil's opinion of commercial television.

He could see its potential, but felt it was not being used. He said the public will get what it demands.

Compiled by Beth Eras.