TV History

First Cleveland Indians Telecast: 1948 Shown here, 2 Dumont cameras from WEWS prepare to bring viewers the first Indians game on television. Van Patrick was the play by play man in the booth. In October of 48, WEWS would broadcast the World Series games between Cleveland and Boston to the midwest. Source

October 4, 1965…Pope Paul Visits NYC One of many TK41s at Yankee Stadium where a huge public mass was held. There is a paper sign on this camera with the papal crest and I assume this designates this as a pool camera. The mass was carried on all three networks who also had a…

ULTRA RARE! Gabby Hayes…No Beard, In Drag With John Wayne! Till now, I’ve never seen Gabby without whiskers, much less dressed as a woman! This serial clip is from 1934 and also stars a new comer…John Wayne. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFBI4DyBTn4 Gabby goes under cover to expose two villains Harris and Cole, Assayers (Lloyd Whitlock & Yakima…

Election Night, 1976 Here’s Frank Reynolds at ABC New York during a break. Notice the Norelco cameras are still in use, but by the next presidential election in 1980, Ikigami HK312s would be in use at ABC. Source

‘The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour’ After the long run (1951-1957) of half hour episodes of ‘I Love Lucy’, the production team wanted to go one hour shows that aired monthly instead of weekly. As part of the setup, Ricky and Lucy moved to Connecticut in the final season of ‘Lucy’ and Fred and Ethel followed…

‘Red Skelton Show’ Rehearsal With Fred Mertz & Ricky Ricardo In the foreground, kids from ‘The Art Linkletter Show’ take in a rare moment on their tour of Television City. On stage, Red rehearses with guests William Frawley and Desi Arnaz. Source

Do You Beat Your Wife? Earlier this week I posted the stories of Johnny Carson’s move from CBS to ABC as the host of ‘Who Do You Trust’. If you remember, the show started on CBS as ‘Do You Trust Your Wife’ and ran on ABC by that name for a few months with…

Anyone Ever See A Lens Like This? This is a first for me. I suspect this is not a zoom lens, but a telephoto lens with magnifying mirrors inside set up in a periscope type arrangement. Thanks to Jim Weinberg for the photo. Source

‘The Man From UNCLE’ This was one of my favorite shows and probably one of yours too! Here is a 1980s look back at the series which aired on NBC from 1964 till 1968. The first season was shot in black and white, but in ’65 NBC went all color. The show was originally…

‘I Love Lucy’, In Hollywood…The Details In a November 8, 1954 episode, the stage is set for the Ricardo and Mertze trip to Hollywood. This was the fourth season of the show, and the trip, the stay and the return home took 29 episodes to play out and ran six episodes into the start…

Regis…The San Diego Days This is ‘The Regis Philbin Show’, his first hosting job at KOGO (now KGTV) that was on the air from ’61 till ’64. For budgetary reasons, he had no writing staff, leading him to begin each show with what has become his hallmark, the “host chat” segment which was influenced…

Were Annette and Bobby Engineers Too? No, but they did know to open the door to cool off this TK30. This was probably taken on June 27, 1960, when Bobby Darin guest starred on an episode of ‘Coke Time’. Host Pat Boone welcomed Bobby, and guests Annette Funicello, Frankie Avalon, Paul Anka, Edward Byrnes,…

Mouseketeer Meets Mack The Knife! Thanks to our friend John Bolin, here’s a unique photo taken at KECA (now KABC) showing Annette Funicello and Bobby Darin doing what so many of us did as kids…playing ‘television’. The camera is a red and white RCA TK30. Source

‘Mad Men’, Last Night…RCA TK42 Thanks to Steve Finkelmeyer here is a shot of the TK42 from last night’s ‘Mad Men’. Steve’s sharp eye has spotted the little black box under the front which is the lipstick camera and probably makes this TK42 one from our friend Jim Elyea’s, History For Hire in LA.…

Johnny Carson: The Early Years…CBS, Part 1 This is MORE RARE than you know! In this clip from Johnny Carson’s first CBS show ‘Carson’s Cellar’, two actors are pretending to from the audience, but…the man is Jack Bailey who would later become famous as the longtime host of ‘Queen For A Day’. The lady…

Johnny Carson: The Early Years…CBS, Part 2 In the rare clip below, we see what is thought to be Barbara Eden’s first television appearance with Johnny Carson and his guest Rudy Vallee on ‘The Johnny Carson Show’ from CBS Television City. The show ran from June of 1955 till March of ’56 and was…

Early Zoom Lenses Day… The lens on the far camera in this 1958 photo is, I think, a modified Angenieux 10×1. The cameras are Dumont 124Bs. Source

Early Zoom Lens: Part 2 I think this is the Angenieux 10×1 zoom. The lens sled is a bit different than the Watson and it is a bigger lens. CBS used these a lot and as far as I know, these are manual and not electronic. This photo is from a wall inside the…