TV History

My New Year’s Resolution…Carpe Diem! Will You Join Me? Looking at these “after” photos of Times Square is a reminder of just how fast life can change. Thank you for being a part of the family here…one of the most generous and appreciative groups of people I have ever had the pleasure of being…

Times Square…Preparing For NBC’s Carson Daly Countdown Show It’s 33 degrees in Manhattan right now,and getting colder, but the action in Times Square is heating up as the afternoon wears on and show prep continues. Here are some great pictures just in from Dan and Rob Balton on the Carson Daly set. If any…

For The Young At Heart And Strong Of Bladder…Times Square The good news is, they have a front row seat for America’s biggest party. The bad news is, once you are there, you can’t leave and get back in. I’ll bet there are some mighty long restroom lines. Thanks to Geoffrey DeVoe, Eric Eisenstein,…

The First Rose Parade Color Cast…NBC, January 1, 1954 This was the first ever national west coast – to east coast colorcast using the newly approved National Television System Committee (NTSC) standards. Special permission for the colorcast was obtained from the FCC which, in its December 17, 1953 approval, allowed colorcasting to start 30…

KCOP Los Angeles…Behind The Scenes Rose Parade 1979 Using what look like Norelco PC72 cameras and some very odd camera art, we see how KCOP covered the parade. There’s also at least one familiar face which belongs to David Crosthwait of DC Video. Enjoy and remember to visit the EOAG page to see all…

KTLA…Covering The Rose Parade Since 1947 Covering the Rose Parade has been a great KTLA tradition that continues today. Bill Welsh and Dick Lane announced the first telecast in 1947. In 1953, before videotape made such things easy, KTLA found a way to air the parade twice. They televised the parade once at the…

Pasadena…Preparing For The Rose Parade The good news is, today’s weather will be a lot dryer than yesterdays…tomorrow’s too. These were taken yesterday and in the first picture, we see ABC reporting in the rain from the grandstands. From the press area, we see covered cameras and behind the stands, the trucks for ABC,…

New York…Preparing For NBC’s Carson Daly Countdown Show Thanks to Rob Balton, here are a couple of shots from yesterday’s rehearsal of Carson Daly’s New Year’s show from Times Square. I think that’s Rob’s jib there on the left. The truck is All Mobile Video’s “Resolution” with TD John Pretnar at the controls. The…

December 31, 1965…Johnny Carson & Ben Graurer Welcome 1966 As mentioned in the Guy Lombardo article just before this, NBC usually welcomed the new year with a live ‘Tonight’ show which started with Steve Allen and continued through the Paar years and into Johnny Carson’s tenure. I think Ben Grauer was the Times Square…

The Final Guy Lombardo New Year With Ben Grauer Reporting Live By the next new year, both Guy and Ben would have passed away, but this was the night of December 31, 1976. Below is some history on the Lombardo broadcast years and some things about Ben Grauer that you may never have known.…

The Rose Parade…A Uniquely American Tradition And Color Spectacular First, if you are working Times Square, Bowl Games or other holiday shows, please remember to send us some pictures via a Facebook message to me or send them to edition4@comcast.net. I just heard from our friend Roger Crawford, senior video for ESPN/ABC. He and…

Picture Parade #5…The Three Headed Monster From ‘I Love Lucy’ UPDATE: Daniel Cahn, son of Lucy editor Dann Cahn, has added new information and photos in the comments section! Be sure to see this. One of the first obstacles to overcome on ‘I Love Lucy’ was how to edit the show. Pictured here is…

Picture Parade #4…Let’s Play This ‘Match Game’ Style OK? The square behind Lucy’s right shoulder is a _________________. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee Source

Picture Parade #3…The First Electronic Color Cameras, 1949 In the large picture, we see RCA’s lead color engineer Richard C. Webb with one of the cameras with the housing off. I think the center channel is green with red on the right and blue on the left. Notice the dichroic mirrors are in front…

Picture Parade #2…Classic Jackie Gleason This is early afternoon, Saturday February 5, 1955. Camera blocking is still going on and CBS veteran Pat McBride is just behind Jackie. This is Studio 50, or what we now call The Ed Sullivan Theater, although Gleason was the first big show from here. This is the variety…

Picture Parade #1…WCBW TV, New York, 1946 This is a rare picture of the RCA A500 Iconoscope cameras at CBS Grand Central Terminal, but this is not a network show and it may surprise you to know that there was no CBS Television Network till 1948. This looks like a game show, but what…

Just For Fun…Charlie Chaplin Blooper And Outtake Reel Did you know that one of Chaplin’s first jobs for Max Sennett was as a Keystone Cop? I’ll have that story in today’s next post. Did you know that along with D W Griffith, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, that Chaplin was one of the founders…

Behind The Scenes Of The Morning Shows…ABC, CBS And NBC Thanks to The New York Times, here is a rare and interesting 24 shot slide show of the early morning preparations for the casts of the three big network morning shows. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/29/business/media/behind-the-scenes-of-today-this-morning-and-good-morning-america.html# The Early Shift: Behind the Scenes of…

December 30, 1963…’Let’s Make A Deal’ Debuts On NBC Here is the pilot, complete with a TK41 in the foreground of the intro shot at NBC Burbank May 25, 1963. The original edition of the show was a daytime series that ran on NBC, but moved to ABC in 1968 where it ran until…

‘CBS Sunday Morning’ Cameraman Allen Brown Retires… Yesterday was Allen’s last day as a CBS cameraman, but soon, he will return to ‘Sunday Morning’ which he has worked on from almost it’s first day on the air. Celebrating 40 years at The Tiffany network, Allen has seen more than a little television history in…