Let's get rid of `CELLPADDING` and `CELLSPACING` and go back to our simple little table.

    <TABLE BORDER=3>

    <TR>
    <TD>Ed</TD>
    <TD>Tom</TD>
    <TD>Rick</TD>
    </TR>

    <TR>
    <TD>Larry</TD>
    <TD>Curly</TD>
    <TD>Moe</TD>
    </TR>

    </TABLE>

Ed | Tom | Rick
Larry | Curly | Moe

A cool feature of the newer browsers is the ability to specify background colors for a table cell, row or the whole table. You use `BGCOLOR` just like you would in the `<BODY>` tag.

    <TABLE BORDER=3 BGCOLOR="#FFCC66">

    <TR>
    <TD>Ed</TD>
    <TD>Tom</TD>
    <TD>Rick</TD>
    </TR>

    <TR>
    <TD>Larry</TD>
    <TD>Curly</TD>
    <TD>Moe</TD>
    </TR>

    </TABLE>

Ed | Tom | Rick
Larry | Curly | Moe

    <TABLE BORDER=3>

    <TR BGCOLOR="#FF9999">
    <TD>Ed</TD>
    <TD>Tom</TD>
    <TD>Rick</TD>
    </TR>

    <TR BGCOLOR="#99CCCC">
    <TD>Larry</TD>
    <TD>Curly</TD>
    <TD>Moe</TD>
    </TR>

    </TABLE>

Ed | Tom | Rick
Larry | Curly | Moe

    <TABLE BORDER=3>

    <TR BGCOLOR="#FFCCFF">
    <TD>Ed</TD>
    <TD>Tom</TD>
    <TD>Rick</TD>
    </TR>

    <TR>
    <TD BGCOLOR="#FF0000">Larry</TD>
    <TD>Curly</TD>
    <TD BGCOLOR="#3366FF">Moe</TD>
    </TR>

    </TABLE>

Ed | Tom | Rick
Larry | Curly | Moe

Here's a handy chart I use to choose background colors. There are also 2 charts in HTML format, one with 216 colors and another with 1536 colors. You can also use Color Picker for playing around with colors.

One more thing about these table background colors... a `<TD>` bgcolor will override a `<TR>` bgcolor and a `<TR>` bgcolor will override a `<TABLE>` bgcolor. Not that this needs further explanation but I'm kind of having fun with this so here's an example:

    <TABLE BORDER=3 BGCOLOR="#FF6633">

    <TR BGCOLOR="#009900">
    <TD BGCOLOR="#9999FF">Ed</TD>
    <TD>Tom</TD>
    <TD>Rick</TD>
    </TR>

    <TR>
    <TD>Larry</TD>
    <TD>Curly</TD>
    <TD>Moe</TD>
    </TR>

    </TABLE>

Ed | Tom | Rick
Larry | Curly | Moe

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