New, Ultra Rare! Color Shots Of Early NBC Mobile Color Tests…
New, Ultra Rare! Color Shots Of Early NBC Mobile Color Tests…
On January 1, 1954, two NBC Color Mobile Units telecast The Rose Parade from Pasadena, to the nation, in color. Very few saw it in color, but that was the first use of these trucks.
As you will see in the attached “NBC Chimes” magazine article, the NBC Color Caravan set out on a 10 week journey, with dozens of color remote stops along the way. The caravan started June 10 in St. Louis and ended in Maryland August 11.
On July 15 and 16, the 18 man crew was in Washington DC for a look at the nation’s shrines, but before the left, that is where they “rehearsed” a few things.
These photos are from April of 1954, and show the trucks and crew testing some new remote innovations, like this this cool dolly track, before they hit the road. You can tell by the trees, this was around cherry blossom time.
These rare images are from NBC Washington TD Bill Wells, who was there from 1947 till the mid 70s. Thanks to Tom Buckley for sharing these with us. -Bobby Ellerbee
In April of 1954, color is so new, the camera is mounted on a friction type pan head…the new double wide cradle heads were not available until the first shipments of TK40s went out in later that month, but this TK40 does have the vented viewfinder hood that the factory began to make for the TK41 which debuted later in ’54.You have to admit, this track idea is pretty cool. I’ve never seen one of these before or since. Anyone ever seen these in use for television remotes? The movie guys used them all the time, but this is quite unique.OK, now we see the single wide cradle heads, but not the double wide for the TK40. Houston Fearless made the first single wide prototypes in 1953 for the TK40 at The Colonial Theater. They were better than the friction heads for these 350 pound cameras, but the double wide was needed. HF had designed the cradle for the , b/w cameras, and thought they may work with the color version, but the weight and width demanded more.Wouldn’t you love to see the inside of this? I don’t think I’ve ever seen pix of the inside, have you?Classic
The Busch estate at St Louis is known locally simply as Grant’s Farm. This website has several photos of the Color Caravan at Grant’s Farm: http://www.grantsfarm.com/history/events.html You can see the dolly track in action again, as well as a huge microwave tower that probably relayed the signal back to downtown St. Louis and into the AT&T cable.
Two Points Of Interest… Before it was renamed ‘Kukla, Fran And Ollie’ in October of 1948 when it moved to WNBQ and NBC, the show was called ‘Junior Jamboree’ and debuted on Chicago’s WBKB in November of ’47. Although WBKB was able to buy the new RCA TK30 IO cameras, it could not afford new […]
Monkeying Around With The Cameras…April 9, 1961 Here’s great short clip of Zippy The Chimp on Ed Sullivan’s stage giving the cameramen a moving target and us, some great shots of the RCA TK11s. At least one has a Zoomar lens and at the end, a HF TD 1 pedestal gets a new use. Enjoy […]
Ikegami’s First Full Size Color Studio Cameras…The TK301 This Australian studio tour gives us a very rare look at the first Ikegami color studio camera. These are the TK301 A models which came a year or so after the 301s were first deployed by Japan’s NHK Network to cover the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, […]
TeleTales #91…Television’s First “Live Animated” Commercial? Take a close look at these three amazing photos from early 1947. Live from NBC Studio 3H, we see a Bulova Watch commercial board with a Rube Goldberg type scene with gears and gizmos that move when cranked from behind. Notice at the top, the scroll window for copy […]
Can we get a side-by-side with a GoPro?
And I thought aligining two tracks was tough.
The Busch estate at St Louis is known locally simply as Grant’s Farm. This website has several photos of the Color Caravan at Grant’s Farm: http://www.grantsfarm.com/history/events.html You can see the dolly track in action again, as well as a huge microwave tower that probably relayed the signal back to downtown St. Louis and into the AT&T cable.
Sixty-two freakin’ years ago. Wow.
Look at that big honkin’ dolly track!
Unreal look at the camera fantastic.