On March 16th, 1980, "closed-captioning" reached the public in a landmark multi-network broadcast. Before the introduction of closed captioning, accessibility was limited to "open captions", which was text that was permanently visible to all viewers, famously used for Julia Child's "The French Chef" in 1972. The idea of closed captions was famously lobbied for years by advocates like Dr. Malcom "Mac" Norwood, who earned the name the "Father of Closed Captioning". The 1980 debut featured a trio of major programs including "The ABC Sunday Night Movie (showing "Kramer vs. Kramer"), "The Wonderful World of Disney" on NBC (showing "Son of Flubber"), and "Masterpiece Theatre" on PBS. Viewers initially had to purchase expensive equipment from Sears to see the text, a barrier that remained until the 1990 Television Decoder Circuitry Act mandated that all large TV sets include built-in decoding chips.
