What visual format was used for the show's first season in 1968?

The first season of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was produced in black-and-white. The season aired in 1968, when the series was being broadcast by National Educational Television, or NET, before the later transition to PBS-era production and color presentation.

The black-and-white format gives the debut season a distinctive place in the program's history. It contained 130 episodes, an unusually large number for one season, and introduced viewers to the television house, the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, the trolley, and many of the characters who became central to the series.

Color production followed in later seasons. The first season's 130th episode, broadcast on August 16, 1968, was the last episode of the series to air in black-and-white. Seasons 2 through 8 produced new color episodes, helping create the large library that PBS could repeat for many years.

The question refers to the visual format of the 1968 first season, not to the appearance of the show's opening logo or later reruns. Some broadcasts and archival references can create confusion, but the season itself is consistently identified as black-and-white.