TV History

Meet “Miss Patience”…Television’s First Stand In (+ Rare Video) This is inside television’s first studio…3H at NBC in New York in May 1936. If you look closely, you can see that “Miss Patience” is actually a mannequin, which is why she was so “patient”. Miss Patience came to be, when Betty Goodwin, television’s first…

Sunday Matinee #2…Veteran Stage Manager Doug Quick, BTDT BTDT = Been There, Done That, and where television is concerned, that pretty much sums it up for 45 year veteran Stage Manager Doug Quick, who’s been running “The Price Is Right” for 35 years. There are lots of great war stories in nearly 7 hours…

Sunday Matinee #1…GREAT WEST COAST TV HISTORY VIDEO In this KTLA 40th Anniversary presentation, there are so many firsts, they are nearly impossible to list, but Bob Hope, Steve Alan, Dinah Shore, Betty White, and many others do a remarkable job of narrating this 2 hour show. Filled with rare film and kinescopes, this…

August 19, 1906…The Father Of Electronic Television Was Born 110 years ago today, Philo Taylor Farnsworth was born in Beaver, Utah. By age 14, he had worked out the principles for the Image Dissector tube which occurred to him while plowing back and forth on the family farm. The video at this link was…

August 19, 1949…First CBS Color Test Footage Shot The day before this, CBS did their first experimental color broadcast in Washington, D.C. for the FCC using the system they were building for Smith, Kline & French which was to be used in operating rooms for medical teaching. The next week, on August 25, RCA…

Come Play Along With A Special Episode Of “To Tell The Truth” Can you guess which one is the real Ken Whalen? I’ve read his book and I couldn’t guess, so play along, and there is a surprise for Gary Moore at the end. Ken was a director and associate director in the Golden…

August 18, 1948…Vine Street Studios Debut Did you know this was originally the home of The Don Lee – Mutual Network? Or, that this is the first place Johnny Carson ever went on network television? This was also the home of “The Dating Game”, “The Joey Bishop Show”, and more. The building, at 1313…

If It Sounds Funny…You Can Thank Treg Brown! For all of us that grew up with the great cartoons of the 40s, 50s and 60s, here’s a nice story on the man behind the silly sounds, that were such a big part of the fun. The two videos in the attached artilce are full…

Mark You Calendar! “The Larry Sanders Show” Returns September 23! It doesn’t appear that the show will have a time slot on the broadcast schedule, but it will at finally be available “on demand”. Hey Now! -Bobby Ellerbee http://www.ew.com/article/2016/07/30/larry-sanders-show-hbo-return-premiere-date ‘The Larry Sanders Show’ reruns returning to HBO this fall The entire six-season run of…

A Rare Look Inside CBS Studio 33…The Cronkite Newsroom Although Dan Rather was now the anchor, Studio 33 is where Walter Cronkite first reported from, when they moved to the Broadcast Center in 1964. Prior to the move, the newsroom and set was on the 23rd floor of the Graybar Building which was next…

“Rocket Rangers”…The First Show With A Purposely Wiped History In 1953 and ’54, CBS had a Saturday morning show called “Rocket Rangers” that starred Cliff Robertson as Commander Rod Brown, in 58 episodes of the show. It was done live in New York, and given that Pye cameras were used, I would say this…

“Nightly Show” Canceled…Last Show Airs Thursday Larry Wilmore’s ‘Nightly Show’ Cancelled at Comedy Central “The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore” will call it a day after Thursday’s episode. Comedy Central has canceled the half-hour series that replaced “The Colbert Report” on Jan. 19, 2015, making… Source

August 15, 1948…CBS Debuts First, Live Nightly News Broadcast On this day in 1948, Douglas Edwards became the first, live daily anchor of a network news show. In the 3 minute video below, Dan Rather tells the story nicely, so take a look. Just to be clear, there was news on CBS and NBC…

August 15, 1992…”The Larry Sanders Show” Debuts On HBO It’s hard to believe that it was 24 years ago this week, but it was. Out of the box, they knew they had a hit with Garry Shandling’s new show. It took us behind the scenes of late night television in a way no one…

Since around 2006, this is the third or fourth time this has happened. Somehow, the Little League World Series playoffs have become he most dangerous place on earth for a home plate camera. You would think by now, someone would have added a Plexiglas shield to shoot through. If you’ve never seen a picture…

Time Machine! 25th Anniversay Issue, RCA Broadcast News This October 1956 issue gives us stories, all the way back to the first issue in October of 1931, with tons of “new” stories too, on color television, new TV studios for several stations, and much more. For many of our viewers, this will be a…

NBC Olympics: TV Ratings Not Great, But Steaming Video HUGE Heading into Friday night, NBC’s television coverage of the Rio Olympics has been averaging 28.7 million viewers and a 15.9 household rating. Those numbers are still down from London four years ago, but NBC Sports continues to see record returns from streaming. Live-streamed minutes…

August 13, 1997…”South Park” Debuts On Comedy Central Below is the first (of three) pilot episodes for the show, and this one is called “Jesus Vs. Frosty”. The animation technique was inspired by the “Monty Python” use of cut outs, and this was created in 1992 by Tray Parker and Matt Stone, which was…

August 12, 1968…The Last TV Performance Of “Over The Rainbow” 48 years ago today, Judy Garland appeared on “The Mike Douglas Show”. No one knew this would be the last time she would sing her beloved classic on television, but this is the last rendition the viewing public got to see. At the start…

August 12, 1881…Cecil B. DeMille Was Born, And With Him: “Epics” DeMille was one of the greatest film directors and producers of all time. His name was synonymous with the word “epic” and he brought some of the biggest films ever made to the screen. In the photo, we see him talking with Charlton…