TV History

Don Pardo On NBC’s Studio 8H…Remembering It’s Grandeur At the link is a very unique perspective on how Studio 8H has changed since the days of radio by none other than NBC best eye witness, Don Pardo. Below, I have included a diagram of how the 8th floor was laid out in the original…

Meet The Men Who Gave Us Videotape! In the photo, you see the Ampex Videotape Team…the men who created the VR-1000 and revolutionized broadcasting. Pictured with this six man team is the unit Ampex took to Chicago for the legendary demonstration at the 1956 NAB Convention, to the amazement of all who attended. In…

Unaired NBC Pardo Tribute Tape From 2004… This is very good and features bits I have never seen before. There’s even a clip of Pardo dropping in on Letterman announcer Bill Windel, and much more. This appears to be from an NBC party in celebration of Don’s 60 years with the company which would…

Brian Williams, ‘Nightly News’ Tribute To Don Pardo… http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/brian-williams-remembers-nbc-colleague-voice-snl-don-pardo-n184371 Here a shot taken in NBC’s 8H last night as Brian Williams closed the ‘Nightly News’ broadcast with a tribute that was, as you would expect, one of the best ever. In the video linked above, he reminded us that every American has heard Don’s…

What Makes These Two Video Clips So Unusual? Read On! Part of the answer is Gene Roddenberry, who was born 93 years ago today. The other part of the answer is ‘The Lieutenant’ which was the first show Roddenberry wrote and produced. That’s where he first met “Spock and Uhura”…Leonard Nimoy and Nichole Nichols.…

August 19, 1906…The Father Of Electronic Television Was Born 108 years ago today, Philo Taylor Farnsworth was born in Beaver, Utah and by age 14, he had worked out the principles for the Image Dissector tube which occurred to him while plowing back and forth on the family farm. The video at this link…

Please Join Me In…Remembering Don Pardo Instead of me posting a lot of clips and history, I would like to invite you to contribute your stories, photos and videos here in the comments section. Let’s make this a celebration of a life well lived! I’ll start with a brief note on one this photo,…

The End Of An Era… Don Pardo, the Voice of ‘Saturday Night Live,’ Dies at 96 An announcer whose career began with radio and grew with popular game shows like “The Price Is Right,” he was best known for decades of introducing stars on the sketch comedy. Source

ULTRA RARE! ‘The Match Game’…Unaired Pilot Episode This was taped in NBC’s 8H on December 5, 1962 with Peggy Cass and Peter Lind Hayes as guest panellist. Gene Rayburn is the host and Johnny Olson the announcer, but as you will see, the game has changed a lot and so have the questions. In…

A Real Artifact…’I Love Lucy’ Daytime Debut Date Revealed In Promo Script This is the CBS announce booth copy from Monday, December 29, 1958. Finally, we have the date that CBS added Lucy reruns to their morning roster…January 5, 1959. Until now, all we had was a year, but not a date. ‘The Lucy…

CBS Broadcast Center…Studio 41, 1975 Remember ‘Beacon Hill’? I didn’t think so…it was a huge waste of time and money for CBS. This was basically “borrowed” version of ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ about a wealthy 1920s Boston family and their Irish servants. The show lasted less than a season, but did leave behind some interesting photos…

Ultra Rare! The Photo And The COLOR Video…’Hallmark Hall Of Fame’ On October 18, 1964, Hallmark’s production of the popular Broadway musical “The Fantasticks” came to television. At the link above, the video is cued to start at the head of this scene in the photo that shows John Davidson speaking to his father,…

Wonder Where This Is Now? Try The Smithsonian… Here’s clip of the original Starship Enterprise model behind glass at it’s permanent home in Washington.The original filming model from the ‘Star Trek’ television series has resided at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C. since it was donated it in 1974. NBC…

Sinatra Welcomes Elvis Back From The Army… At the link above is a very memorable duet…Frank is singing “Love Me Tender” and Elvis is singing “Witchcraft” and they merge beautifully! On March 26, at 6.15pm, taping for the ‘Frank Sinatra Timex Special…Welcome Home Elvis’ took place at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami. It was…

Ikegami’s First Full Size Color Studio Cameras…The TK301 This Australian studio tour gives us a very rare look at the first Ikegami color studio camera. These are the TK301 A models which came a year or so after the 301s were first deployed by Japan’s NHK Network to cover the 1972 Winter Olympics in…

NBC’s David Brinkley Breaks The News On Television… In the late afternoon of August 16, 1977, scattered radio reports began to surface on the death of Elvis Presley. It was after 4PM Eastern time when news reports began to confirm the rumors. Many didn’t know till they got home and watched the evening news.…

Elvis Fourth National Show…Ed Sullivan Although at first, Ed Sullivan said he would never want Elvis on his show, but Sullivan changed his mind when ‘The Steve Allen Show’ with Elvis as a guest had about twice as many viewers as Sullivan’s show that night (they were competing for the same audience since they…

Elvis Presley’s Second Television Show…’The Milton Berle Show’ In the clip above, you can see the debut of “Blue Suede Shoes” that Elvis performed from the deck of the aircraft carrier, the USS Hancock in San Diego on April 3, 1956. Below is a picture of one of four RCA TK41s there to shoot…

Elvis Presley’s Television Debut…’The Dorsey Brothers Stage Show’ Most think that Elvis made his television debut on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show; but actually, this was his first nationwide appearance…over seven months before his first Sullivan show. Coincidentally, both the Dorsey and Sullivan shows came from CBS Studio 50. Between January 28 and March 24,…