TV History

The Early History Of NBC Television News This 60th Anniversary video from 2008 starts with some of the only surviving footage of television’s first network news show, ‘The NBC Television Newsreel’ with the voice of Paul Alley. On that show, there was no on-camera anchor, only Alley narrating silent film clips provided by Fox…

You Mean They Weren’t Driving A Real Car To California? From Season 4, Episode 12, here’s the cast of ‘I Love Lucy’ setting out for California on January 10, 1955…sort of. The car is a new Pontiac convertible. In case you did not know, “California, Here I Come” was written for the 1921 Broadway…

Classic! The Marconi Mark IV Here is another of the beautiful portraits Parker Smith took of my camera collection. This is one of my favorites. In the US, there are only 6 of the Marconi Mark IVs known to have survived…this is one of them. Please click to enlarge for a clearer image. Unfortunately,…

Lawrence Welk Trades Places With The Cameraman…1978 The show was an ABC heavyweight from ’55 till ’71 when it was canceled, but started on a syndicated basis the next year. The 77-79 seasons were shot at CBS Television City. Here’s Lawrence behind a Norelco PC60 with it’s “dual exhausts”. There was a video of…

Lawrence Welk…Television’s First “Stereo” Sound Show Twenty years before television was able to broadcast high quality stereo sound, ABC had broadcast ‘The Lawrence Welk Show’ in “stereo”…sort of. The year was 1958. Now, due to the fact that stereophonic television had not yet been invented you would think this was impossible, but if you…

Another Beauty Shot…Norelco PC60 Here is another of Parker Smith’s portraits of a few of my cameras. This PC60 began life at CBS Studio 52 in New York, just around the corner from Studio 50, The Ed Sullivan Theater. It later went to CBS Washington and was used on the White House mobile unit.…

Preparing For One Of Television’s Most Memorable Scenes… We all know what happens next, but here is a rare classic shot of Lucy having her “flaming nose” applied by Hal King. Behind Lucille Ball is Jess Oppenheimer and on the right is Director of Photography Carl Freund. Enjoy and share! Source

You Mean Julia Was Not Alone In That Kitchen? Obviously not! Got a caption for this? Enjoy and share! Source

I Told You Mitch Miller Was A Joker…Can You Spot The Joke Here? As you watch, you’re in for a surprise as there is “a joker in the deck”, but not a word was ever said about it on the show. Thanks to Kevin Vahey for this bit of fun. (The joker, Johnny Carson,…

Making Movies In 1899…Lubin Studios, Philadelphia Before there was Hollywood, there was Betzwood. Before there were film moguls and studio lots in California, Siegmund Lubin was doing it in Pennsylvania. Lubin was originally an optical and photography expert in Philadelphia but he became intrigued with Thomas Edison’s motion picture camera and saw the potential…

A Rare Bit Of Film History…Making Movies With Sound ‘Show Girl in Hollywood’ was released in April of 1930 and is one of the first sound films made. Fortunately it includes in it’s story line a bit about how these films were made. As you will see in this rare clip, condenser mics are…

RCA Catalog Cover? Nope! Better… A few months ago, well known Atlanta photographer Parker Smith came to my house and shot my camera collection all day long. This is one of those shots…a beautiful portrait of my RCA TK60, but this is not just one shot! It’s a composite of about a dozen shots.…

‘Seinfeld’ At 25…Yada, Yada, Yada… Twenty five years ago yesterday, July 5, 1989, the show premiered as ‘The Seinfeld Chronicles’ as a one time test on NBC. After it aired, a pickup by NBC did not seem likely and the show was offered to Fox, which declined to pick it up. Rick Ludwin, head…

The First ‘I Love Lucy’…The Photo And The Video Although “Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying To Murder Her” was the fourth episode to air, it was actually the first one shot. The film date was September 8, 1951 and the air date, November 5. This photo was probably taken on September 7, a day…

Nice Shot NBC Brooklyn Studios Jodie Peeler sent me this recently and as I studied the photo of my favorite cameras in action, I began to try to fix the location. The donut box on the crane mounted TK41 told me this was New York…they were the only NBC crews to do this. CBS…

Laugh Along With Mitch? Why Not! I don’t know who the joke was meant for in this picture, but I’ve heard that Mitch Miller had a wicked sense of humor and that there were some classic off camera practical jokes played on this set. ‘Sing Along With Mitch’ began in 1961 on NBC, the…

‘The Dick Van Dyke Show’…Rare Shots & Interesting Facts Until last week, the bedroom scene photo was the only one I had ever seen of this show in production. In that one, you can see director Jerry Paris just behind Dick in his famous red sweater. The show was shot at Desilu Studios and…

Here’s One For All The “Sparkys” Do you have a favorite sign from your broadcast facility to share? If so, please do! I think this one was on the front of a quad VTR. Source

July 4, 1976…America’s 200th Birthday On ABC Here is the start of a three hour broadcast hosted by Harry Reasoner that took viewers from one end of the country to the other, just to see how we were celebrating he Bicentennial. Although Harry opens with a “good moring”, I think this was an afternoon…

Interesting Tape Artifact…July 4, 1976, Boston Pops National Debut Somehow, there is no video record of the first ever nationwide broadcast of the now famous Boston Pops 4th Of July concert on CBS, BUT…there is this piece of work tape. This eighteen minute clip will start with CBS reporter Charles Collingwood preparing to talk…