TV History

When CBS televised its first Masters in 1956, the network used seven cameras and covered action from the final four holes. This week at Augusta National, for the 61st consecutive year, considerably more personnel and technology will be in place. CBS will offer nine hours of live coverage this weekend, and it can show…

Take Me Out To The Ballgame…With 13 Cameras! On Opening Day, we’ve got some baseball stories for you, starting with this one. If you’ve ever wanted a really in depth look at how major league baseball is done, here you go! This three part, behind the scenes, tour in Cleveland shows us how this…

Rare Photos Of The Television Coverage…June 4, 1968 Final Rare Photos Of The Television Coverage…June 4, 1968 Thanks for all the descriptive comments on the first two sets of photos. Hopefully these will answer some questions raised there, and thanks to Martin Perry for finding these Los Angeles Fire Department photos. More detail on…

Rare Photos Of The Television Coverage…June 4, 1968 I have had several request to repost these photos, so here is the second of three sets of photos taken the afternoon that Senator Robert Kennedy was killed at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. There is more on the orignal post text, quite a bit…

Rare Photos Of The Television Coverage…June 4, 1968 I have had several request to repost these photos, so here is the first of three sets of photos taken the afternoon that Senator Robert Kennedy was killed at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. There is more on the orignal post text, quite a bit…

Being A Member Of The “SNL” Band, And My Experience With Them… http://www.avclub.com/article/whats-it-be-member-saturday-night-live-house-band-234547 At the link above, is a wonderful interview with SNL guitarist Jared Scharff, who’s been on the show for 9 year. In the article, there is also a 19 minute audio interview with the band’s leader, and master of the sax,…

“The Kraft Television Theater”…TV’s First Anthology Series This was the earliest and, at the time, the most famous of television’s live dramatic anthologies, and helped define the “golden age” of television. The hour-long series, sponsored by Kraft Foods, premiered on Wednesday, May 7th, 1947 on NBC. It would run continuously, with no summer breaks,…

An Interesting Development…WLS TV’s News Film Process, 1974 It is easy to forget that even into the early 1980s, some stations were still shooting film. RCA’s first ENG (Electronic News Gathering) camera, the TK76, only debuted in 1976, and by 1984, there were over 2000 of them in use worldwide. -Bobby EllerbeeWLS Channel 7…

Voted “Best Use Of A Snow Shovel Handle”…1974 Source

A Wonderful Primer On Early Color Television… Written around the story of the ladies that were “Miss Color TV”, NBC’s Marie McNamara, and CBS’s Patty Painter, this is a very well done article on the progressions and setbacks encountered by both networks, in their race to bring color to the small screen. Enjoy and…

“Peter Pan”…How To Fly And Get Good Audio At The Same Time 60 years ago today, NBC presented “Peter Pan”, for the first time on television, in living color, but getting great video wasn’t the only challenge. Here’s a story I did last year on Mary Martin’s hidden mic. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee…

March 6, 1981…Walter Cronkite’s Farewell: The Day Hard News Died 34 years ago today, Walter Cronkite left the anchor desk and television news changed forever. Under the expert hand of a real reporter, “The CBS Evening News” had set the standard and a high bar for newscasts. To their credit, NBC and ABC news…

TeleTales #107…The Way We Were; 1899 Before seeing at a distance, or tele-vision, was possible, there was a new thing called motion pictures, that was just as exciting a proposition. When film making began, the only way to get enough light was to shoot outdoors, even if the scene was taking place inside. This…

TeleTales #106…ABC’s First News Stars; John Daly And Quincy Howe Both men started out with CBS Radio and both worked with Edward R. Murrow in Europe during WWII, with a staff that included Charles Collingwood, William L. Shirer, Eric Sevareid, Joseph C. Harsch, H. V. Kaltenborn and Robert Trout. Daly actually covered the famous,…

TeleTales #105…Before They Were Famous: Narz And Powers From the late 1950’s, here’s a shot of a commercial rehearsal on “The Bob Crosby Show” at Television City. On the right is floor director Dave Powers. He would go on to direct “The Carol Burnett Show,” “Three’s Company,” “The Ropers,” and “Mama’s Family.” On the…

The Wrecking Crew Recording A Beach Boys Smash, 1966 This is a great video that not only let’s us hear the music tracks being recorded, with Brian Wilson producing, but we get to see the members of The Wrecking Crew with captioned call outs on who they were and what they played. I know…

The Ultimate Behind The Scenes Music Movie…Coming In 10 Days Much like The Funk Brothers, that were member of the session band at Motown, The Wrecking Crew was the pop version in LA. These are the best of the best, and backed the biggest names in the business. In the next post, I’ll play…