TV History

A Huge Show Few Remember Gave Us The First Use Of Live Chromakey NBC’s “Matinee Theater”…October 31, 1955 – June 27, 1958 This morning, I sat down to write a story on the first ever use of a live chromakey effect on network television. That happened on this show, “Matinee Theater” in June of…

March 1971…The End Of An Era: Ed Sullivan Canceled By CBS Ed Sullivan began with CBS in 1948, when he was hired to host their first variety show endeavor called “Toast of the Town,” which debuted on June 20, 1948. Sullivan assembled a show for the launch that included the budding comedy act of…

March 14, 1970…Music-Television Debuts 11 Years Before MTV On Saturday, March 14, 1970, music shows on television changed forever when “The Now Explosion” debuted on Atlanta’s WATL. Until then, all there had been were teen dance shows like “American Bandstand”, artist appearances on variety shows and ABC’s “Shindig” and NBC’s “Hullabaloo”, which were both…

Universal Studios…4 Stages Torn Down And 10 More To Go Recently Stages 22, 23, 24 and 24 were demolished and will not be rebuilt, but the article seems to indicate that the next 10 on the chopping block will be rebuilt on the lot, further from the theme park area. As a tribute, here…

What Do “Bonanza”, The Beatles And Bozo Have In Common? Aside from the letter “B”, the amazing Alan Livingston…that’s what! If you don’t know who he is, you are not alone, but he – alone – touched the lives of literally all of America’s children, teens and adults in some very important and, above…

Rare NBC Brooklyn Studios Footage With TK41s It’s not often that we get to see the Brooklyn Studios, or the RCA TK41s in action, and this is one the only one I know of that exists. Some of the people we know are here include Don Mulvaney on the crane (red sweater) and Frank…

March 10, 1933…2 Earth Shaking Events In 1 Day At W6XAO Los Angeles No one at Don Lee’s Los Angeles TV station W6XAO had any idea that they would make television history twice in one day, but 84 years ago today…they did! Although there were less than 100 TV sets in all of Los…

March 9, 1954…Murrow’s Historic McCarthy Broadcast + An Editorial First the story of the March 9, 1954 “See It Now” broadcast, followed by a rare but timely Eyes Of A Generation Editorial. On March 9, 1954, Edward R. Murrow made history and broke new ground in television journalism on “See It Now” as he…

Television’s First Recorded Lip Sync Melt Down…An Epic Fail Aside from showing you The Dave Clark 5’s epic Sullivan audio fail, I’ll also share some inside information I got yesterday from Sullivan’s long time audio man, Art Shine, who was hired immediately after this. Now THIS is EMBARRASSING! Just two weeks after The Beatles…

March 7, 1955…Behind The Scenes Of NBC’s “Peter Pan” Debut A full course on “flying”, audio tricks and NBC Brooklyn Studio 1 NBC’s “Producer’s Showcase” was a series of 90 minute color “spectaculars” that aired every fourth week, beginning October 18, 1954 under the supervision of producer/director Fred Coe. “Peter Pan” was the seventh…

The Full Story Of CBS Color Studio 72, New York https://eyesofageneration.com/cbs-color-studio-72/ At this link is the 27 page CBS publication presented at the 1955 NAB Convention. This was the first and only color facility CBS had on the east coast until The Ed Sullivan Theater (Studio 50) came on line with Norelco color on…

How Howard Hughes Unwittingly Brought Hollywood’s Movies To TV On March 5, 1956, “King Kong” debuted on WOR TV, New York. This was the first time the 1933 RKO classic was shown on television anywhere. The debut set records for viewing with an estimated 80% of television families in the area watching it on…

March 4, 1948…Red Letter Day For RCA & NBC Sales Departments It was on this day in 1948, in NBC Studio 3H, that television’s first gauge of audience measurement began. The result was a huge game changer, as Bob Smith himself will tell you later in this story. March 4, 1948, on their 12th…

Martin & Lewis Radio Years…As You Have NEVER HEARD THEM! A little further down, we’ll get into the history and hear their NBC debut show, but let’s start with something a bit more “unique”. This rare, blue and naughty, outtake never made it to air, but it should have…it’s classic Dean and Jerry, but…

March 2, 1951…Desilu Empire Begins With The “I Love Lucy” Pilot On March 2, 1951, the pilot episode for “I Love Lucy” was shot at the CBS Columbia Square Studios on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. It was shot with three RCA TK30 Image Orthicon cameras and recorded via kinescope. When Desi Arnaz and Lucille…

March 1, 1988…It Was “Camera Night” On The Letterman Show Just for fun, here is NBC Studio 6A packed with 13 cameras, mostly RCA TK47s, plus a few had helds. When announcer Bill Wendell called it “Camera Night” in the intro, he wasn’t kidding! This was about the half way point in Dave’s NBC…

Television’s Forgotten Pioneer…The Amazing Captain Bill Eddy Frankly, my head exploded this morning when I sat down to write what I thought would be an interesting piece on the revolutionary television camera that Eddy patented on this day, February 28, 1942, BUT…as it turns out, that is one of his least accomplishments! While preparing…

For Vintage TV Props…”History For Hire” Is Ground Zero Our friend Richard Wirth has a new article I wanted to share with you, on the world famous History For Hire Prop House in Los Angeles. Aside from a dizzying selection of “other” period specific props, HFH is the the king of supplying vintage television…

MAJOR NEW YORK STUDIOS HISTORY UPDATE…. WOR – ABC – NBC – VIDEO TAPE CENTER/ 67th Street Studios In this RCA Broadcast News magazine from the fall of 1950, starting on page 46, this 27 page article gives us a complete and total tour of the new WOR Television Center on 67th Street, AND,…