TV History

Behind The Scenes At “The Camel News Caravan”, 1953 This month, we’ve done several stories on the history of the early TV news shows, and I thought this would be a nice compliment to all that we’ve seen. This is a short but sweet article on how John Cameron Swayze’s show was done by…

“The Agony Of Defeat”…The Story Behind TV Sports Most Famous Line Brent Musburger takes us to Oberstdorf, Germany and the 1970 ski jumping competition where this all got started. There, Vinko Bogataj, the former Yugoslavian skier, became a part of sports history and here’s the whole story of the man that put “the agony”…

NBC cameraman Bob Batche took these photos in Studio 8H in December of 1968. Notice in three of these shots, taken during rehearsal (yes, there was a rehearsal with fake questions) the man behind the host’s lectern is not Gene Rayburn. It is our friend Dick DeBartelo, the man who wrote the questions and…

February 21, 1940…TV’s First Regularly Scheduled News Debuts In a new area, where no one has ever been before, there are many “firsts”, and that applies to television too, but in TV’s case that has to be broken into two parts; the experimental-pre war period and the commercial-post war period. This event, television’s first…

February 20, 1962…Glenn Orbits Earth, CBS Debuts Mini Camera On this day in 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth. His flight in Friendship 7 was NASA’s third manned space flight, but their first to take a man into earth orbit, as the first two had been suborbital. Ten months…

The History Of The Ampex Owned…Video Tape Center, Part 1 of 3 America’s First Commercial Television Production Facility In 2014, our friend Tom Coughlin traveled to Minnesota to comb the 3M archives as part of his ongoing research into the history of America’s first, and most innovative commercial tele production facility. Tom is a…

The History Of The Ampex Owned…Video Tape Center, Part 2 of 3 America’s First Commercial Television Production Facility A few years ago, our friend Tom Coughlin traveled to Minnesota to comb the 3M archives as part of his ongoing research into the history of America’s first, and most innovative commercial tele production facility. Tom…

The History Of The Ampex Owned…Video Tape Center, Part 3 of 3 America’s First Commercial Television Production Facility A few years ago, our friend Tom Coughlin traveled to Minnesota to comb the 3M archives as part of his ongoing research into the history of America’s first, and most innovative commercial tele production facility. Tom…

February 16, 1949…A Red Letter Day In NBC News History The most widely celebrated dates in NBC news history are February 16, 1948 and February 16, 1949. In ’48 “The Camel Newsreel Theater” debuted as a 10 minute weeknight newsreel. The film was provided by Fox Movietone News and was narrated off camera by…

February 15, 1958…Dick Clark Goes Primetime From New York 59 years ago today, “Dick Clark’s Saturday Night Beechnut Show” debuted on ABC, live from The Little Theater at 234 West 44th Street. These two videos will give us a good look inside and outside the 300 seat venue, but first a bit of history.…

Below, is Superman’s “flying pan” which was used by George Reeves in “The Adventures Of Superman”, that many of us grew up watching. After a few falls from wire suspension, one which was fairly serious, the pan was developed for Reeves to lay in and the tilting and rolling action was controlled by a…

The Untold Story Of The “John And Marsha” Commercials In the mid ’50s, this commercial campaign (video) was the equivalent of the 1984 “Where’s The Beef” campaign from Wendy’s. All of us old enough to have seen it still remember this Snowdrift Shortening commercial from our childhood, others may remember it from seeing it…

February 9, 1953…ABC Is Born Again With A Mega Merger That was the day United Paramount, led by Leonard Goldenson, came to the rescue and saved the company from bankruptcy. On October 12, 1943, Edward John Noble, the owner of Life Savers candy, and the radio station WMCA in New York, bought NBC’s Blue…

February 8, 1964…The Beatles & Ed Sullivan Prepare To Make History On this date in 1964, The Beatles had their first rehearsal for “The Ed Sullivan Show” at CBS Studio 50 in New York. All prior highs in television ratings and record sales was about to explode. Many still haven’t realized that The Beatles…

Producer Joseph Cates…The Man Who Introduced Ralph To Norton A few years back, I was fortunate meet actor Kevin Kline, and of all things, we talked mostly about television history…and you will not believe his connection to a True Pioneer! In case you had forgotten, Kevin is married to actress Phoebe Cates, whose father…

An Hour With Rocky & Bullwinkle…The Whys, Hows & Whos Of The Show The Wayback Machine is set for 1963 and everybody is here! On top of tons of cartoon footage, we meet the voices, writers and masterminds – Bill Scott and Jay Ward – of the most beloved TV cartoon characters of our…

Meet The Voice Of The “Law & Order” Franchise…Steve Zirnkilton How many times have you heard “In the criminal justice system”, and wondered just who that great voice belongs to? Well the answer is Steve Zirnkilton. There are a lot of stories about how he happened to get the job, but here is his…

Meet “Blackbird”…Via CGI, It Is Any Car You Want It To Be (2 Videos) Had this technology been available in the ’60s, George Barris would never have had to build the Batmobile, the Munster’s car or the Beverly Hillbillies truck, because this car can become any car! Here’s a short video that shows how…

The Chaplin Studios…A Mega Magical Place In Time It is hard to know where to start, because we have a rare opportunity to see this historic landmark as is is now, and as it was when it was first built at 1416 N. La Brea Avenue in Hollywood. I’ve written a short history here…