TV History

Picture Parade 4…I’ll Tell You A Secret If You Promise Not To Tell This is a shot from the Control Room of CBS Studio 72 in New York…the only color facility the network had in the east. On stage, we see four RCA TK41 color cameras, but can you spot the fifth one? Yes,…

Picture Parade 3…Everybody Loves A Winner Here’s a fun shot from 1957. I think this is at the Raleigh-Durham airport where Tar Heal fans are gathering to welcome the new NCAA basketball champs home to the University of North Carolina. These RCA TK 11/31s were real workhorses. Notice the far camera has an Angenieux…

Picture Parade 2…Who Wants One Of These For Christmas? This is a beautifully restored sound truck from Warner Brothers. In the 1930s and 40s, it was garaged at what would later become the NBC Brooklyn Studios. Back then, Warner owned the property which they had bought from Vitograph. NBC bought it in 1953. Enjoy!…

Why Fully Automated Television Is A BAD IDEA! Anywhere! The good news is, this blooper reel was put together by human hands. The bad news is, that’s about all they get to touch at BBC News, as the whole system is automated, and here are some of the embarrassing results of that decision. The…

50 Years Ago Today…A Christmas Classic Was Born! The evening of December 6, 1964, kids across the country tuned into NBC for the debut of ‘Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer’ in living color. It’s aired every year since. The Christmas television special was produced in stop motion animation by Rankin/Bass Productions, and was sponsored…

Remembering ‘The Munsters’…And MUCH MORE! A ’60s Time Capsule This is a fantastic and very broad look at the show, as well as everything going on at the time on all three networks. There is a ton of great rare footage here from all around Hollywood and a list of names that is hard…

December 6, 1923…First Presidential Speech On Radio The White House was brought fully into the modern age of communication when Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929) made the first presidential radio broadcast from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on this day in 1923. The next year, he made history again in by appearing in the first sound film of…

‘Peter Pan’…Behind The Scenes #5 There’s a little of everything in this batch, but we’ll start with a thanks to all the people both on stage and off that did such a great job last night. The first couple of photos here are screen shots of the credits for the stage managers and utility…

‘Peter Pan’…Behind The Scenes #4 Most of these pix are from our friend Charlie Huntley, who was on Camera 11 last night. As we’ll see, 11 is hidden behind the wall in Wendy’s bedroom which was a 360 degree set that opened up for the flying scenes. I think that was the only true…

‘Peter Pan’…Behind The Scenes #3 What a wonderful, one of a kind, shot to open with…Chris Walken’s Captain Hook coat and hat at his resting chair on the set. All that hoofing and singing takes a lot out of a guy, but it was worth it! Thanks to Rob Balton for these great shots.…

Williams Flies…Walken Soars! ‘Peter Pan’ Behind The Scenes #1 The sight, the sound, the splendor…it was live television magic! The first reviews are out and although many a snarky line from critics were waiting to be penned, they weren’t. Even the critics agree, everyone wanted this to work…and it DID! There are a lot…

‘Peter Pan’…Exclusive Behind The Scenes Video, Post #2 This is our friend Rob Balton (who just went to bed at 4AM ET) with his Techno Jib rehearsing a flying scene. Here you can see the relative positions of the sets in this studio with Wendy’s room in the distance, the miniature set in the…

A Preview From Never Never Land…’Peter Pan’, Live Tonight Below is a link to the great New York Times story on tonight’s live blockbuster from NBC. These photos are from that article and here are a few interesting tidbits on some of the production techniques and surprises to watch for. First, unlike ‘The Sound…

Rockin’ The 30 Rock Tree, Back In The Day… Thanks to John Schipp, here’s a shot from 1966. The trucks are N3 and there’s a TK41 in the center of the shot. The tree lighting used to be carried locally on channel 4 on tape delay. The crowds were so thick that It would…

Classic! ABC Golf Promo…Circa 1968 Keep your eyes peeled here…there is a lot of interesting equipment passing by. We’ll see everything from RCA TK41a and TK60s to Norelcos, GE PE350s and the rare Ampex portable. There’s also some interesting tape and delay equipment here and I hope some of you can call that out.…

ABC’s First Series…’Hollywood Screen Test’, April 1948 The “television magic” starts with the name of the show…it was actually done in New York. ABC didn’t have a television property in Los Angeles till September of 1949. Debuting on 15 April 1948, and hosted first by Bert Lytell and then Neil Hamilton (who we know…

December 3, 1968…NBC Airs ‘Elvis’, The Year’s Top Special Here is the whole show, and the Elvis we all like to remember…funny and playful. Notice the great color…this was one of the last big shows done with the RCA TK41s at Burbank. In the photo below, we see a rarity…Burbank’s modified TK41 viewfinder with…

Macy’s Parade History Followup…First Network TV Coverage, CBS Thanks to historian David Schwartz and friends, we’ve been able to verify that the first network television coverage of the Macy’s Parade was on CBS. From The New York Times, we have a small news item, and the television listings. Notice that WNBC and WPIX are…

‘Tis The Season! Rockefeller Plaza Tree Lighting Tomorrow… Although the official Christmas tree tradition at Rockefeller Center began in 1933 with the opening of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, here is the start of the unofficial tradition which began during construction. Workers decorated a 20 foot fir tree with “strings of cranberries, garlands of paper, and…

‘Peter Pan’…How To Fly And Get Audio At The Same Time This is Director Jerome Robbins flying with Mary Martin in March of 1955 at NBC Brooklyn. When Robbins directed the show on Broadway, he didn’t have to worry about audio, but when it came to the television production he did. How do you…