I have a big 1989 CRT TV which I'm both in love with and genuinely fear. It recently took me extreme precautions just to eventually dare to open it up (after being unplugged for a long time) and just dedust it with compressed air and not even touch any part of its insides.
It strikes me that TVs must have been far more crude and dangerous if you back several more decades, or even in the 1970s. But let's say the 1950s, for example.
Did people in general have any idea about the dangers of opening up a CRT TV and poking around with your fingers inside? I can imagine that words such as these were uttered quite frequently:
That dang boob-tube is out of order again! But I'm not paying for another repairman... This time, I'm fixing it myself!
And even if a TV repairman could be called on the telephone and he just came over to your house, how did he stay safe? There is no time to wait for 24+ hours of it being unplugged, etc.
Did every TV that got sold have some sort of scary warning in the back saying that you must never open it up yourself under any circumstances? Were they told about this when purchasing the TV?
I frankly remember not-even-old people in the 1990s who would have all kinds of ornamental objects and even vases with water or other liquids on top of their TVs, almost as if they wanted to have an accident. If they had such little regard for general safety, or just didn't know better, what would happen if they attempted to poke around inside their set?
I have no idea how I would find this out myself, so I'm asking.