TV History

The Zoom Lens And Television…The First Uses Many have asked what the first use of the zoom lens was in television and here is your answer. It was the long, 23 element Zoomar Field lens created by Dr. Frank Back. This 3 minute video gives us a short but sweet history. The first ever…

Long Forgotten Production Tricks… Back in the early days of television, most local stations didn’t have the money for expensive “extras” like pedestals and dollies. Instead, they mounted cameras on wheeled tripods that they could use in the studio or in their remote unit, if they had one. Among the early staples of local…

NBC Radio City West…Now And Then In 1938, construction began on NBC’s west coast showplace at Sunset and Vine Streets in Hollywood. A scant twenty six years later, it was torn down and replaced by a Home Savings bank. It’s now a Chase bank. Taking it’s cue from homebase at Radio City in New…

Up Close And Personal…Vinyl Records Like We’ve Never Seen Them It still amazes me that when you put a record on the turntable and place the tone arm on it, you get sound. These are electron microscope photos at 100X and 1000X magnification. I thought you might be as fascinated by these as I…

‘Peter Pan’…ULTRA RARE! Two 1955 & One ’56 Kinescope Scenes! Make sure you open this article to see it all and the links to all three clips! I didn’t know any parts survived till now, so this was a big surprise and a real treat! On March 7, 1955, NBC did the first live…

‘Peter Pan Live’…Camera Rehearsals Start Tomorrow… Our friends Rob Balton, Tore Liva and Charlie Huntley are among the 14 or so camera operators that started work yesterday at The Grumman Studios in Bethpage, New York, about 25 miles outside NYC. This is the same site used for last years NBC live presentation of ‘The…

November 10, 1938…First Ever Performance, “God Bless America” Irving Berlin had originally written the song in 1918 while serving in the U.S. Army at Camp Upton in Yaphank, New York, but decided that it did not fit in a USO type revue called ‘Yip Yip Yaphank’, so he set it aside. In 1938, with…

A Rarity…The Ampex/ABC Hand Held Cameras This was developed by Ampex for ABC Sports with ABC paying the developmental costs. There were two versions, but I think both looked just alike. One version had the BC100 color camera teamed with the VR 3000 videotape recorder in the backpack and the other backpack had a…

 This video should start just before a visitor walks into the studio via the sixth floor doors, which is our way of identifying the location. This 1947 ‘Bell Telephone Hour’ radio rehearsal gives us one of the earliest looks at 6B as that we have ever had. Here’s the backstory. Yes, I said new,…

November 10, 1969…’Sesame Street’ Debuts on PBS At the link is video of the first episode’s open…it’s the first time we meet Big Bird, Bert and Ernie and the human cast. Kermit, Rowlf and other Muppet characters were not new to the public. Since everyone in the world knows the show, well, almost everyone…

November 9, 1989…The Berlin Wall Opens: 25 Years Ago Today On the night of Nov. 9, 1989, thousands of East Berliners streamed through the once-closed border crossings after communist authorities caved in to mounting pressure and relaxed travel restrictions that had prevented their citizens from going to the west for decades. The East Germans…

November 9, 1965…The Great Blackout Hits The Northeast On this date, 49 years ago, it was lights out in a big way! Were you there? From Ontario, Canada to Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New York, and New Jersey, over 30 million people and 80,000 square miles were left without electricity for…

The 40 acre backlot is the misnomer that was given to what was actually about 29 acres of land in Culver City, California, first used as a movie studio backlot in 1926 by Cecil DeMille, who had leased the property from Achille Casserini in March of 1926. DeMille’s production company utilized the backlot for…

Sunday, November 7, 1954…’Face The Nation’ Debuts, CBS Wait till you see this video of the first ever presentation of ‘Face The Nation’! The first thing you see is a closeup of a camera’s lens turret with a surrounding that is rather confusing…until the shot widens out. Only then do we see that the…

Saturday, November 6, 1947…’Meet The Press’ Debuts, NBC As you’ll see in this and the next post, two of television’s longest running programs debuted this week in history, but they are separated by seven years and a day with ‘Face The Nation’ on CBS debuting on November 7, 1954. Before the show history, a…

Classic Photo…’The Fabulous 50s’…A Peabody Award Winning CBS Special On January 22, 1960, CBS completed taping of a special two hour look back the the decade that had just passed into history. It aired on January 31. In the photo, we see one of the show’s iconic hosts, Henry Fonda going over his lines…

One Side Up…Three More To Go At 30 Rock In September the old GE signs at 30 Rock finally came down. Thanks to our friend Alan Coffield, here’s a picture of one side of the building’s new top hat, complete with a peacock logo. Both the north and south sides get this treatment and…

A Rare Sighting…The GE PC 25 Color Camera There were not many of these cameras made and I think the total ever built was twenty four. This shot is from WFAA in Dallas with DJ Ron Chapman hosting a local dance show. KGBT in Harlingen, Texas had them too. Although GE broadcast equipment was…