TV History

September 13, 1947…The RCA Kinescope Machine Debuts In association with Dumont, Kodak and RCA announced the developed a special film camera to shoot directly off a TV screen. This was the first “time shifting” technology to come to television. Nine years later, video tape would become the second. Officially titled, the “Eastman Kodak Television…

September 13, 1953…Marilyn Monroe’s First Television Appearance In the Comment section below, you’ll see the gift Jack Benny gave Marilyn for appearing on his show. She was reluctant and didn’t really want to do it because on live television, to many things could go wrong, but the “gift” helped, as did the studio executives…

September 13, 1990…”Law And Order” Debuts On NBC Below is a tour or the set from the beloved Jerry Orbach. “Law And Order” and “Gunsmoke” are tied for the honor of television’s longest running live action primetime series…both lasted 20 years, but “Gunsmoke” aired more episodes, so it still holds the record. FYI, “The…

September 12, 1955…3K, NBC’s First Color Studio Inside 30 Rock Debuts On this day (also a Monday), in 1955, Studio 3K debuted as NBC’s first “non-experimental“* in-house color facility. It was created by combining historic Studio 3H, television’s first home, and radio Studio 3F. The debut broadcast was of  “The Howdy Doody Show”, and 3K…

September 12, 1954…Brooklyn 1, NBC’s Second Color Studio Debuts The full story is below, but at this link is a tour of Brooklyn 1 by Steve Allan, just after NBC’s first color spectacular “Satin & Spurs”, aired live from this new color studio September 12, 1954. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee A Rare And…

September 11, 1967…”The Carol Burnett Show” Debuts on CBS After leaving the “Garry Moore Show” in 1962, Burnett signed a 10 year contract with CBS with 2 options. Option 1 required her to do two guest appearances and a special each year, which she did for the first five years. Option 2 gave her…

September 10, 1955…”Gunsmoke” Debuts With John Wayne Intro According to “The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows”, John Wayne was the first choice to play Marshal Matt Dillon, but he declined because he did not want to commit to a weekly TV series. He did, however, recommend his friend James…

September 9, 1963…”Huntley – Brinkley Report” Goes To Half Hour Format A week after CBS took Walter Cronkite’s evening news show to 30 minutes, NBC followed. On that first extended broadcast, a taped interview with President Kennedy was included. These are rare photos taken that morning in the Oval Office. Much more below. Enjoy…

September 9, 1926…RCA Creates NBC: A History Lesson In the beginning, there was David Sarnoff. By 1919, Sarnoff was the commercial manager of American Marconi in New York. That same year, British Marconi had made an offer to General Electric to buy the worldwide rights to their Alexanderson Alternator technology which was vital for…

September 8, 1966…”Star Trek” Debuts On NBC “The Man Trap” was the first episode of a television series that has become a trek unto itself…it aired 50 years ago today. The first season of ‘Star Trek’ comprised 29 episodes, including the two-part episode “The Menagerie”, which was based on the original pilot, “The Cage”…

September 8, 1951…First Episode Of “I Love Lucy” Was Filmed When ‘I Love Lucy’ debuted October 15, 1951, the first episode to air was “The Girls Want To Go To A Nightclub”, but the first episode to be filmed was “Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying To Murder Her” which was filmed on September 8,…

September 7, 1927…First Electronic Television Demonstrated While others were trying to perfect mechanical television, Philo T. Farnsworth was creating the Image Dissector tube which was the heart of his electronic television system. RCA’s Vladimir Zworykin developed the Iconoscope tube and later the Orthicon tube, but it was only when he incorporated ideas from Philo’s…

September 7, 1957…NBC Debuts The Animated Living Color Peacock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug9ndBnWi9A At the link is the original version. This animated film clip rolled at NBC for the first time at the start of “Your Hit Parade” which originated from The Ziegfeld Theater, and the voice belongs to legendary NBC announcer Ben Grauer. The animation was…

An Inside Look At The Final CBS Color Test…October 20, 1951 Thanks to Tom Buckley for this wonderful IBEW Newsletter article from January of ’52, that gives us intimate details of that last test broadcast of the CBS Field Sequential Color System. The article not only names everybody on the 12 man crew, but…

Rare Jerry Lewis Labor Day Marathon Video… I’ve started this 2 hour video with Jerry and Frank Sinatra rehearsing, via satellite, for a pretaped insert a day before the show. This is raw footage from a 1989 special planned by “A Current Affair”…remember that? Jerry is in top form and there are stars everywhere,…

September 5, 1949…NBC Studio 8H Make Its Television Debut On this day in 1949, NBC’s famous Studio 8H made it’s television debut, as did “The Voice Of Firestone” radio program in a special simulcast. Every Monday night since 1928, the show had been heard on radio, but in the ’49 season, it also came…

September 4, 1951…America’s First Coast To Coast TV Broadcast 65 years ago today, the first live transcontinental television signals were transmitted from San Francisco to New York, as President Harry S. Truman’s opening speech before the Japanese Peace Conference was broadcast across the nation. This was the debut of AT&T’s new route of long…

September 2, 1999…A Hard Day At NBC; “Studio 1H” Closes Inside 30 Rockefeller Plaza, Hurley’s Bar was lovingly called “Studio 1H”. As you can see in the photo below, Hurley’s (which opened in 1892) was just a half a block away from NBC’s studio entrance, making it the nearest watering hole for everyone from…

September 2, 1983…The Tom Brokaw Era Begins At NBC In 1983, September 2 was a Friday. That was the day it was announced on the “NBC Nightly News” that beginning Monday, Tom Brokaw would take over as the sole anchor. On April 5, 1982, Brokaw began co-anchoring NBC Nightly News from New York, with…