This guy gives a visual demonstration on his osciloscope of what happens as the transistor goes from cutoff through active region and then into saturation. This should make it very clear to see the actual voltages on the oscilloscope.

here is the link to his utube video.

Nice. That is very clear now that the Vce is dropping when Ic increases as Ib increases or the transistor is in the saturation when Vce is below the Vce (sat)

 

Here is the circuit in my recent lab

 

This is a video about the above BJT characteristic Lab and the results in this video

also showed the V output got distorted when the Vc goes above cutoff region.

 

Moderators note: removed double images