‘The Colgate Comedy Hour’…Live From The El Capitan Theater

‘The Colgate Comedy Hour’…Live From The El Capitan Theater

NBC’s studios at Sunset and Vine in Hollywood were built in 1938 for radio and didn’t have much space for big television productions. Taking a cue their brothers in New York, they began to do remotes from local theaters. One of these theaters was the El Capitan which many of us know better as The Hollywood Palace.

With the advent of the cross country AT&T television connection in early 1952, NBC and CBS started doing some shows from Los Angeles because this gave them a new pool of stars to work with. Many movie stars didn’t want to do television…fist because it was live and television and second, because they would have to go to New York.

I don’t know if NBC ever installed a control room at The El Capitan but they did this show from there, and others, for five years so I suspect they did. Anyone know?

As you’ll hear Jerry Lewis say in the next post, ‘The Colgate Comedy Hour’ rotated hosts as not to burn them out. The show rotated coasts as well with some coming from The International Theater (home of ‘Your Show Of Shows’) in New York and some from The El Capitan. A few were done from Chicago with Jan Murray as the host.

Ironically, the theater was also named The Jerry Lewis Theater for about six months just before his disastrous ninety minute Saturday night talk show on ABC in 1963. That lasted just thirteen weeks and in a panic to fill the time, and the theater they just bought, ABC developed ‘The Hollywood Place’.

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