TV History

1955: Up, Down and Sideways… in ’55, the Vinten Heron crane was developed for the BBC, which bought models for its London and regional studios. The biggest innovation in the crane was it’s ability to crab, thus allowing it to move freely in any directions, giving it the flexibility of a pedestal with increased…

1947: Year Of The Candle This historic magazine ad zeros in on the need for 90% less studio light (and heat) with the brand new RCA TK10, equipped with the recently perfected Image Orthicon tube. This, and the sister TK30 field version, were the first cameras that could actually make a good pictures using…

Camera Operator 101, Rule 1: PAY ATTENTION! Source

THE BIG REVEAL! Why Norelco instead of Phillips? Many have wondered and asked this question, so here is the answer. From some point in the early 1940s, Philco was legally able to prevent Philips from using the name “Philips” on any products marketed in the USA, because the two names were judged to sound…

WOW! Love This! Just in from long time NBC Burbank engineer Bob Meza. This is a beautiful photo of the Rose Parade and TK41, and unlike any I have seen before. Most of the shots show the parade approaching, but this shows the passing and the huge crowds further down the route. Remember…please send…

Do You Remember This? I do… In the screen shot above from ‘Art Linkletter’s House Party’ on CBS, you can see a small, white square in the upper right corner. If you were watching the show, and paying attention, you may have noticed that soon after it appeared, a commercial would miraculously appear too.…

Dale Walsh 1 I love these two shots Dale sent of him at work with the TK41s. This one is in Fort Worth at the Colonial Country Club shooting golf in 1968. Go ahead Dale…stand on the box if you need to. Dale is such a veteran cameraman that when he retired from ABC…

Dale Walsh 2 Another great shot of Dale on location in Lincoln, Nebraska getting ready for some Corn Husker football in 1969! By the way, I’m almost positive that these two photos were taken by another ABC cameraman…why? Although it would have been nice to see the front of the TK41C camera in both,…

Let’s Set The Record Straight: NBC and Norelco I thought it was sacrilegious to mention NBC and Norelco in the same breath, but that was before I met Fred Himelfarb. Fred was NBC’s senior camera engineer and was in charge of the NBC Labs at 30 Rock. Fred came from RCA to NBC with…

UPDATE: This 2012 story has a happy ending…the new crane was not able to make the same sharp turns as this crane, so THIS one (tail number 308) was refurbished and returned to service in 8H 6 months later. After some 30+ years, this famous Chapman Electra crane is leaving NBC’s Studio 8H. John…

Yes, This is the GREAT June Foray! June who you say? June Foray, who passed away in 2017 at age 99, was the voice of hundreds of cartoon characters, but best known for her work as the voice of Rocky, Natasha Fatale and Nell Fenwick on ‘The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show‘. She’s also Granny…

The Roots of the Grand Ole Opry… This photo from early 1949 shows WBAP in Fort Worth’s ‘Saturday Night Barn Dance’ show on the air with an RCA TK10 working to capture it…horses and all. The television version of ‘Barn Dance’ is actually a spin off of the WBAP radio show at started in…

Perspective Is Everything… In this photo, the size of the teleprompter just jumps off the page for some reason. Although we’ve all seen them before, it suddenly seems huge, but to everyone’s credit, this cumbersome configuration worked for the talent as well as the camera crews. This is long time ABC cameraman Charlie Henry…

What Do You Think? This photo from South Africa shows dual Sony cameras televising World Cup Soccer and the caption said “in stereoscopic hdc”. Unless this is a 3D broadcast, I just don’t get it. I’ve never seen regular broadcast cameras slaved together for 3D, but maybe that’s what is happening here. What do…

RCA TK 60 and the Angenieux Zoom Lens Nice shot of TK60s at work at Texas Tech’s KTXT in Lubock TX back in the 60s. These were good looking cameras in every way…their physical appearance and the top quality pictures they made. This was the end of the line for monochrome cameras. The lens…

Very Rare! One Of A Kind… This is the only photo I have ever seen of an Orthicon camera in use at CBS. This photo taken on the US Capitol steps is probably from 1947 and the signal from this camera would probably be feeding to WMAL TV, the first CBS affiliate in Washington.…

An Interesting Story about TK41s and American Bandstand I’ve often wondered if TK41s were ever used to shoot American Bandstand and I have found out that the answer is yes, but only for a couple of weeks, and it wasn’t in LA…it was at WFIL in Philadelphia. ABC was really the last of the…

Most Excellent! Thanks to Thomas Buckley for this great photo. This is Roger Mudd filling in for Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News around 1966 or so. The Norelco PC60, camera 1 in the background is probably one Dave Dorsett used in his many years as ‘Walter’s cameraman’. Source

Peter Jennings: Berlin Wall While the great Peter Jennings is on my mind, here is a photo of him preparing to go live in the fall of 89 at the fall of the Berlin Wall. Other ABC people in the photo are Jack Smith to the left of Jennings and Steve Tello on the…

30 ROCK: JACKPOT! 4 Must See Videos…. This first video is one of three I’m sharing here…it is a look behind the scenes of the 2010 ‘live’ show done from the REAL Studio 8H at NBC. It’s great! As you’ll see, the show is usually shot at Silvercup Studios in the Brooklyn area. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6M1iWT16lo&ab_channel=nbcudirect…