The most frequently seen face in the history of television is not that of a renowned actor, a famous news anchor, or a long-standing celebrity. Surprisingly, it’s someone many might not recognize.
Carole Hersee accumulated over 70,000 hours of screen time between 1967 and 1998, cementing her status as a TV icon without ever having to move.
This is because she became the face of the ‘test card’ on UK television screens, an iconic image displayed whenever there was a break in the broadcast.
During a time with only three TV channels and no 24-hour broadcasting, Carole’s face became one that every Briton knew. Her image was broadcast both overnight and during regular intervals in daytime programming.
Carole was not a glamorous model or a public figure; she was simply an eight-year-old girl assisting her father George, a BBC engineer. He was tasked with revamping their test card system, which aided people in the UK in setting up a new and revolutionary product—the color TV.
In this familiar image to Brits of a certain age, young Carole is seated at a chalkboard wearing a red dress with two tic-tac-toe slots filled in. Next to her sits a slightly eerie doll named Bubbles the Clown.
Interestingly, Bubbles was initially blue, but engineers decided a green color was more suitable for calibration purposes.
Though it may seem like an unusual choice for calibrating new color TV sets, the image was thoughtfully selected to include all primary colors necessary for proper screen display.
This image was part of several calibration tools on screen, including the ‘X’ of her tic-tac-toe game, which helped ensure the image’s correct positioning, with the cross indicating the screen’s center.
Surrounding Carole, the most televised face you might not recognize, were gray blocks and other colors to assist technicians in adjusting the TV’s contrast. Modern electronics have since rendered this process obsolete with pre-set image controls accessible via remote—a device that became popular about a decade after Carole’s image first appeared.
Reflecting more than 50 years after the photo was taken, now at the age of 66, Carole shared the story behind her selection.
On the TV program QI, she commented on her father’s decision: “He was helping to design test cards and it was just decided that a child would be better than an adult because there’d be no fashion, no makeup, to worry about.
“It just happened to be that dad had sent in some pictures of my sister and I, and the committee decided, ‘well we might as well stick with his children’.”
Carole’s role as the face of interrupted broadcasts mostly concluded in the late 1990s when 24-hour television became standard in the UK. Her test card was no longer used after 2012, when the country transitioned to digital broadcasting.
Despite the decades since her father George took the photo, Carole still keeps Bubbles the Clown, her co-star and rival for the most-televised face in human history.