TV History

Remembering JFK Source

In Better Days… Here’s a rare color shot of Jackie Kennedy taken during her famous tour of the White House in 1962. There were 8 TK11/31s there for the 7 hour taping session and the CBS producer played back some video tape at the end of the day for her and President Kennedy, who…

That Unforgettable Moment In a weekend filled with unforgettable moments and images, this is one of the most iconic of all. Choking back the emotion that all of us felt, the sight of Walter Cronkite making the news official and showing ever so briefly his human side, this consummate professional soldiered on. Although all…

Why It Was Called “Walkie Lookie” Yes, this portable wireless Vidicon camera had a lot of potential for broadcasters, but guess who else was interested in it! That’s right…the Army. RCA had a long history with military radio, radar, television and more but having “eyes” at a forward position was what interested the Army…

August 1960, Boston’s Fenway Park This TK41 is shooing from center field in a test of their ability to colorcast Red Sox baseball. This is just after WHDH moved into it’s new all color facility and there is an RCA color truck here as well as a support unit just in case. This game…

The Grandfather Of ENG Cameras, 1950 Last week, we looked at RCA’s wireless version of this portable Vidicon camera that was used in the coverage of the 1952 political conventions. Here is a good article with pictures on the cabled version of the grandfather of ENG cameras. http://www.myvintagetv.com/rca_videcon_camera.htm Source

Point & Shoot…The First Portable Movie Camera, 1882 The design of the first “Chronograph” as it was called then, was made by French scientist Étienne-Jules Marey and debuted at 1882 by the name of Fusil Photographique or photographic ‘rifle’. The rifle used a magazine consisting a plate film separated into 25 light tight compartments…

The Surprise…Wireless Studio Cameras At Television City http://www.aerialvideo.com/technology/hd-wireless Until I verified this myself yesterday, I was skeptical of a post a few weeks back by Father Bob Sewvello, but it is true! I had replied to Bob that the cameras in Studio 33 had white triax cables which was also true…till a few months…

New “Do” And A Great Crew…More On The NBC 8H Electra Crane Yesterday you met John Pinto, but without Louis Delli Paoli, Philip Pernice and Bobby Mancari, SNL could not get those great crane shots because they are the crew that drives and mans the boom arm. As you can see in this photo,…

RCA TK30 Remote System From the 1949 RCA catalog, here’s what it took to do a two camera remote. Some don’t know that the TK30, as well as the TK10 and TK11/31 had a two part head. The bottom of the head is the camera itself and on top, the viewfinder. The TK30 field…

One Of A Kind Photo This is the full complement of equipment associated with the RCA “Walkie Lookie” Vidicon camera. This photo from the 1956 NAB Convention, shows the wireless version with the backpack transmitter on the table. This camera and a few others like this were used by NBC for the ’52 political…

The French Connection Thanks to Jorge Delendatti, our friend in France, here is another early Thomson camera at work. Designed and made in France, one of Thomson’s distinguishing features through the 1950s and 60s were the lifting handles they added to their cameras. Here, you can see them under the chassis with a thoughtful…

Remember Watching Rootie Kazootie? I Do! Did you know this was the first of two early children’s TV shows that introduced an interactive technique called “the magic screen”? The “magic screen” (a thick piece of green vinyl that you sent away for) would cling to the TV screen via static electricity. Kids could follow…

The Original Beany & Cecil On the left is the voice of Beany, Daws Butler…on the right is the voice of Cecil, Stan Freberg. This photo was taken April 4, 1950 on the set at KTLA. More on the next post. Source

KTLA’S First Hit Show…’Time For Beany’ Beany and Cecil was created by animator Bob Clampett after he left Warner Bros., where he had been directing theatrical cartoon shorts. Clampett originally created the series as a puppet show called ‘Time for Beany’, which ran from February 28, 1949 to 1954 and originated at KTLA. ‘Time…

Orange Bowl Parade: December 31,1966 Thanks to David Zorning for this very interesting photo. In preparation for the CBS broadcast, two RCA TK1s are being set up. There were probably six cameras on the parade route and they had to belong to CBS as the first color cameras WTVJ had were Norelco and may…

KTLA…’Solid Gold’ On September 13, 1980, ‘Solid Gold’ debuted and ran for eight years. The syndicated music show was taped at KTLA from 1980 till 1984 when it moved from the Golden West Studios to Paramount Studios. This photo from Judy Watson shows her husband Dick behind the Norelco PC70 and Dick Woods using…

KTLA Innovation: Television’s First Videotaped Western ‘The Wrangler’ was a six episode summer replacement series for NBC’s ‘Tennessee Ernie Ford Show’ and was produced by KTLA on videotape. This is KTLA veteran cameraman Dick Watson on the Wrangler set with a new Marconi Mark IV and the photo is from his wife, Judy. Much…

KTLA Innovations July 4, 1958 KTLA became the first station anywhere to broadcast live from a helicopter. The chopper was called the “Telecopter” and not only did it shoot live pictures, it also was used to bounce live shots from the “Telemobile” to Mount Wilson. The Special Coverage Unit was a self contained Ford…