TV History

December 20, 1954…Jackie Glea$on & Buick $ign Large$t Ever TV Deal In 1954, General Motors Buick brand signed Jackie Gleason to one of the largest contracts ever entered into with an entertainer at that time. Buick had just dropped their sponsorship of Milton Berle on NBC and were looking for a big play. Gleason’s…

Just For Fun…Best Version Of “Winter Wonderland” Ever Andy Williams was a huge talent by every measure, but his brothers taught him how to sing. Together, it’s like listening to a quad version of Andy…and about the best you’ll ever hear. By the way, before Andy went solo, The Williams Brothers were one of…

December 20,1938…Vladimir Zworykin Patented The Iconoscope Although there was controversy over a lot of patents and inventions in electronic television between Philo Farnsworth and Zworykin and RCA, there is no contention over the development of the Iconoscope. Zworykin had built one as early at October 1931. At the 1936 Berlin Olympic games, two of…

BEST SEND OFF EVER! Final Minutes Of Colbert Video! Must See! There are more famous faces here than you can count, and 5 times as many as we saw in the photo from earlier this morning! Enjoy and SHARE! -Bobby Ellerbee Source

Picture Parade #5…It’s A Wonderful “Snowy” Life This Frank Capra classic was shot from April 15 – July 27, 1946. The Bedford Falls Main Street sets were at the RKO Encino Ranch and for the Winter scenes, 3000 tons of shaved ice was for the snow pack on the ground. Films made prior to…

Picture Parade #4…Stella! On the New Orleans location shoot for ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, Vivian Leigh relaxes in the chair preparing to become her character, Blanche DuBois in 1951. Leigh had a bi polar disorder and is said to have had trouble distinguishing her real life from Blanche’s. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee Source

Picture Parade #2…Two Ultra Rare Sights In One Photo I think this photo is from 1945 when Norma Jeane Mortenson was becoming one of Blue Book Modeling Agency’s top models in Los Angeles. In 1946, she (yes, Marilyn Monroe) would bleach her hair blonde to look more like her favorites Gene Harlow and Lana…

Picture Parade #1…’Let’s Make A Deal’ ABC 1968 – 1976 Here’s a photo I just got from Chuck Pharis. This was in ABC Hollywood Studio 54 and that’s Jan Lowery on Camera 1, which is a Norelco PC60. This looks a lot like it did when it was on NBC from Burbank before the…

December 19, 1971…’The Waltons’ Debuts on CBS The series began as a television movie entitled ‘The Homecoming: A Christmas Story’ and was broadcast on December 19, 1971 and is included here without any commercials, either web or broadcast. There is a scene here with the family gathered around the radio listening to Edgar Bergen…

December 19, 1973…Johnny Carson Sparks Toilet Paper Shortage Really! Remember this? You can read the whole story at the link below, but here’s the short version. 1973 was a hard economic year in the US with a recession, the Arab oil embargo and shortages of a few items. Carson took a news paper report…

‘The Late Show With David Letterman’…Final Christmas Picture Taken last night, here’s the “class” picture of the staff and crew, complete with Darlene Love who appears tonight for the 28th year in a row. I understand she told Dave that she wouldn’t perform “Baby Please Come Home” on TV again. Hopefully, this leaves the…

‘The Colbert Report’…How’s This For A Parting Shot? There were A LOT MORE than we see here…see the new video I just posted! What a line up for the grand finale! To name just a few, I see John Stewart, Barry Manilow, Sam Waterson, Willie Nelson, Big Bird, Ben Affleck, Charlie Rose, REM lead…

One Of A Kind In Every Way…Shooting ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ Open Yesterday was the first time I had seen this rare shot and wanted to share it with you. It is the only one I have ever seen of the title sequence of the show being filmed. I can hear the theme playing…

Later Today…Some Letterman Christmas Traditions Come To An End If the usual “twofer Thursday” taping schedule holds true today, Dave’s Friday show will be taped this afternoon, a couple of hours after they tape the episode for tonight. On tomorrow night’s show, we’ll see Darlene Love, Jay Thomas and the Christmas tree target practice…

Later Today…Stephen Colbert’s Final Report On Comedy Central Over these last nine years, there has been a lot of water under the comedy bridge at 512 West 54th Street at NEP’s Studio 54. Stephen Colbert’s time there ends today with their last live to tape show. Speculation is he will take over for David…

December 18, 1953…First Color Commercial Airs On WPTZ, Philadelphia In yesterday’s post, we learned of the FCC’s December 17, 1953 decision adopting RCA’s Compatible Color System. On Friday, December 18, 1953 at about 11:15 am, the FCC issued to WPTZ, Channel 3, its official color experimental license which authorized the transmission of color video…

December 17, 1976…WTCG Atlanta Becomes First US Satellite TV Station At 1:00 Eastern Time the afternoon of December 17, 1976, WTCG’s signal was beamed via the Satcom 1 satellite to four cable systems in Grand Island, Nebraska; Newport News, Virginia; Troy, Alabama and Newton, Kansas. The first broadcast was the 1948 film ‘Deep Waters’,…

December 17, 1989…’The Simpsons’ Debuts On Fox..D’OH! Here are two great short videos that cover a lot of the history and creation of the show with not much overlap. The embedded video below features the creators and how ‘The Simpsons’ grew from bumper shorts on ‘The Tracy Ulman Show’ into it’s own dynasty. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ8aSQZ8vJg…