TV History

TeleTales #15…Setting Up For The Greatest Car Chase Ever “The French Connection” principal car chase scene was widely considered to be the best ever put on film at the time, overtaking Bullitt (1968) for that honor. There was no official permit from the city for the chase which was done with the help of…

TeleTales #14…Tiny Men Or Giant Props? If you look at this long enough, you begin to wonder. The props are amazingly real looking aren’t they? They are from 1957’s “The Incredible Shrinking Man”. To simulate giant rain drops, prop men filled hundreds of condoms with water…many of which never made it to the set…

TeleTales #13…”Some Like It Hot”, 1959 Did you know that when Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon first put on the female make-up and costumes, they walked around the Goldwyn Studios lot to see if they could “pass” as women? It worked, but just to make sure, they then tried using mirrors in public ladies…

TeleTales #12…World’s First SNL Photo Bomb? Could be. By the way, in case you are not visiting this page daily, there’s a good chance you are missing about half of what I post here. Just click on the blue text in the upper left corner and poof…you’re here! Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee Source

“All In The Family”…Best Retrospective Ever, In Five Parts Last week, January 12, was the show’s anniversary and many of you asked for more. MSNBC’s “Time And Again” was in itself a great show that did an excellent job of documenting media history, so here is their April 2000 look at The Bunkers. Enjoy…

Dr. Lee De Forest…Pioneer Of Electronic Media; Wireless To Talkies Lee de Forest’s entire life was devoted to the invention of media technology primarily based on sound. He supplied the missing voice to radio and film. Here is his 1957 appearance on ‘This Is Your Life’ from what I think is either Studio 1…

TeleTales #10…Ghostbustin’ Here’s a WNBC TK76 shooting a local news segment on the movie in production and some of the traffic problems it was causing around town in 1984. Did you know that the original casting was intended to be John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy as the Ghostbusters and John Candy as…

TeleTales #9…Remember This? This is one of several posters MAD artist Jack Davis did for Ampex. These were usually given out at NAB conventions in the early 70s. I have been asked many times if there are hi res versions, but not that I can find. Anyone have better images? Enjoy and share! -Bobby…

TeleTales #8…Remember These? Back before everything became “disposable” (meaning there was no one to fix it if it broke), there were men that would come to your house to fix your TV set. These little cases were full of tools and tubes, and if you had a pro…he had a mirror too. Click Like…

TeleTales #7…For Queen And Country, But Not On A Dare I get queeze just looking at this, and we only see about half of what looks to be about a 40 foot platform without a rope or rail in site. This is CBC cameraman in Halifax, Nova Scotia covering the 1959 royal visit from…

This is one of only a handful of shows that was eventually carried on every network over its 24 years on TV…Dumont, NBC, CBS and ABC. Ted Mack was born in Greeley, CO and named Edward McGuiness. When he became a band leader and his name would not fit on a theater marque, the…

‘Ziegfeld Of Television’…Picture Parade, Leibman, Caesar And Coca In the first photo, the man on stage with the bow-tie is Max Leibman talking with the staff and cast of ‘Your Show Of Shows’. The narration for the other photos is on each, so please click on them. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee Source

January 1949…The “Zeigfeld Of Television” Legend Begins Before I get to the meat of this important story, let me first draw your attention to this video. It is cued to one of the most amazing bits I have ever seen! I think these are the Arnaut Brothers…they never say a word, but bring down…

TeleTales #6…NBC’s Gemini 5 Co-ordination Plan, August 1965 Here is a rare mapping of how all the dozens of elements of the multi-day broadcast would lay out. Notice ground zero is Studio 8H and just to the right, we see Studio 5H…the breaking news studio we talked about in the post just before this,…

TeleTales #5…Ultra Rare Photo of NBC Studio 5HN, Breaking News Desk On the day President Kennedy was killed, this was where Chet Huntley, Frank McGee and others broke the news. Then named 5H, this was a permanent news setup studio that could be used if news broke before the evening newscast set could be…

The floor director may be Harry Katzman who worked this show for a long time. For much more, take a look at this link! https://eyesofageneration.com/1953-televising-todays-news/ Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee Source

TeleTales #3…In Case You’ve Never Seen A Naked TK41 Here’s a spread eagle shot of the color beast open for inspection. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee Source

TeleTales #2…If It’s Cardboard, It’s Got To Be New York I have often commented on the cardboard viewfinder hoods on the NBC TK41s in New York and the custom made VF hoods at NBC Burbank. CBS did the same thing though…in New York, they too used a lot of cardboard while at CBS Television…

TeleTales #1…Ever See One Of These Before? I think it was January of 1954 when RCA introduced this tri-view set. Notice the remote jack box for the ear pieces that gave you isolated audio on the screen you were most interested in. The speakers are in the bottom two panels and behind the top…

Congratulations To ‘The Bold And The Beautiful’…7000 Episodes On January 23, CBS will air a tribute to the show in it’s regular time slot. This special milestone episode will break format and feature a retrospective documentary that showcases the most iconic moments and the history of the show’s creation, commentary from the cast, fashion…