TV History

Just For Fun…Remember MGM’s Great Tarzan Movies? Here’s a rare shot of Johnny Weissmuller with his MGM crew on location in Florida at Silver Springs. That’s where they went when they needed great underwater footage. Otherwise, most of the six Tarzan films for MGM were shot around the Lake Sherwood area near Los Angeles.…

The Paper Roll Teleprompters…A Funny Story I would love to hear your funny teleprompter stories, and I know there are a lot, but here’s the best one I’ve heard and it happened in Atlanta at WSB TV. Back in the 50s and early 60s, a lot of local spot were still done live and…

A Great True Story From NBC Veteran Frank Gaeta…NBC 1951 – 1988 Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Mr. Gaeta about his 37 years at NBC. In this photo from NBC Brooklyn Studio II, Frank (plaid shirt) is operating the TK41 at the bottom of the picture. This is on…

From Flip Cards To The Credit Roll… As we end today’s discussion on early graphics techniques, here are some shots that cover a lot of territory…from 1948 into 1993. The big picture is from NBC’s 1948 ‘Television Scene Magazine’ and shows the flip card board. The second photo is from the 50s of a…

Manual Graphics…1952 Election Coverage At ABC This is a far cry from where we are now, but this is the way it was done back when television was just taking baby steps. The ABC stagehand in the large photo is one of several men behind the big totals board. Each plastic ring has 0…

Analogue Graphics Display…The 1964 Version With several stories on computer graphics and the like lately, I thought taking a look at how thing were done before all that came along would be fun and I’ll share a few with you this morning. This is a WHDH Boston Celtics player info box complete with changeable…

New Richard Wirth Article…The SMPTE Time Code This is a perfect detailed follow up to the Smith Block and video editing stories I posted here a few weeks back. Here’s the story of how the time code came to be and, having been around for almost half a century, how it has withstood the…

Continuing Election Coverage At CNN…A Look Inside Event Control Thanks to our friend Andy Rose, here is a look inside CNN Atlanta and one part of the network’s technical tasking for the still ongoing CNN election coverage. This photo does not show a traditional control room. It is the “event control” in Atlanta used…

Election Night, 1952…The NBC, CBS And ABC Newsrooms In Action On this election day, here’s fun look back at the newsrooms of the big three in the 1952 election. With so many people to accommodate, both on and off camera, it is possible that all three used adjoining or adjacent studios for coverage. More…

November 3, 1956…The ‘Oz’ Tradition Begins On CBS The first time ‘The Wizard Of Oz’ was shown on television was a Saturday night in November of 1956. Many have said that the debut broadcast was not in color, but this add from the Vineland Times Journal, in Vineland NJ settles that argument. It was…

This Should Be Interesting! Leno As “Tonight’ Guest This Friday Jay Leno Is Returning to ‘Tonight’ on Friday Jay Leno is returning to Tonight. The former host of the NBC late-night show will be back in its studio on Friday night for the first time since passing the baton to Jimmy Fallon. (Though he…

The End…Universal Stage 28 Demolished, September 22, 2014 The Joni Mitchell lyric, “they tore down paradise to put up a parking lot” comes to mind now. As I understand it, the space where Stage 28 was will now be used as part of the Universal Theme Park expansion. Although this was built in 1925,…

Remembering Universal Stage 28…A Must See History Link On September 19, a three day demolition job started and brought down one of the oldest movie sound stages in the world…by September 22, Stage 28 was gone. This is the best information I have seen on Stage 28 and at the bottom of this linked…

Follow Up…Last Look At Universal Stage 28, The “Phantom Studio” Only a month ago, the sound stage where ‘Phantom Of The Opera’ was shot, was torn down. That was Universal Studio’s Stage 28. In this post, I am including two videos that give us a last look at the original 1925 set before it…

November 4, 1957…Dick Clark Debuts “Great Balls Of Fire” Just for fun, here’s a little piece of music and television history rolled into one. The song was recorded in Memphis at Sun Studios on October 8, 1957 and was the follow up to Jerry Lee’s first hit, “Whole Lotta Shakin”. This debut performance is…

Best Photos Ever Of The Original NBC Color Mobile Units… Thanks to Nicolas Auger, here is a great color photo of the first color mobile units ever. This picture was taken in Greenfield Village, Michigan near The Henry Ford Museum October 25, 1955 and NBC was there to shoot some of the museum’s activities…

A Rare And Detailed Look At NBC’s Brooklyn Studios…Part 2 of 2 Today, we will take a look inside what was once the world’s biggest color television studios…that’s biggest in size and reputation. Starting with the floor plan and sizes, Studio I was 163′ by 70′ with 24′ from the floor to the light…

To Sports Fans, This Set Should Look Familiar…CBS Studio 43 On Saturdays and Sundays during football season, this is ground zero for the CBS Television Network’s sports coverage. I make that distinction because next door, in Studio 44 is the CBS Sports Network cable channel’s headquarters set. This set in use year round for…