Oh interesting, I'd noticed that at some point between my childhood and now, burned out bulbs stopped taking out the entire rest of the light string. I wonder if the bypass wire is a new(ish) development, or if we just had cheap Christmas lights when I was younger.
You had cheap Christmas lights. We had both. We had the actual bubble lights. Those were more expensive at the time. A bulb could burn out in one of the bubblers and the remaining bubblers would work.
