TV History

This Will Put A Lump In Your Throat…Ray Charles & Friends For many years, this has been my favorite rendition of this beautiful, patriotic melody. Ray Charles does for this song, what Whitney Houston did for the national anthem…bring it to life. Ray is joined by Quincy Jones, Stevie wonder, Michael McDonald, Michael Bolton,…

To help set the tone for this 4th of July holiday, here is our national anthem sung like never before, and the backstory of how it came to be. Please watch it with the volume high and don’t be surprised if you tear up to, what most consider, the most moving rendition ever. At…

‘All In The Family’ Weekly Run Down… Here’s a great television artifact from of of it’s biggest shows. As you can see, the show taped on Tuesday nights, which I think stayed constant at both Television City and Metromedia. Enjoy and share! Source

By Request…The Ampex NAB Poster By MAD Artist Jack Davis Every once in a while, people ask me to post this and since we’ve been on the edge of Ampex land the last few days, here is the biggest and best image I can find of this. I think this was given out at…

The Oldest Surviving Color Videotape…May 22, 1958 This is the dedication of NBC’s new studios for WRC Radio and TV, it’s owned and operated station in Washington DC. President Eisenhower is on hand for the occasion as are David and Robert Sarnoff and many distinguished guests. NBC’s David Brinkley narrates much of the opening…

The Ampex Senior Class…1956 – 1961 This 1961 ad from Ampex shows the first six videotape machine models they made…machines that changed the world. Here’s the lineup from left to right: 1956, the VRX 1000…1957, the VR 1000…1959, the VR 1000B…1960, the VR 1001A…1961, the VR 1000C and also from 1961, the VR 1002.…

‘Concentration’…NBC, August 25, 1958 – March 23, 1973 The original network daytime series, ‘Concentration’, appeared on NBC for 14 years, 7 months. With 3,796 telecasts, this was NBC’s longest running game show. Hugh Downs was the original host and served from ’58 till ’69. During this time, Hugh was also Jack Paar’s side kick…

July 2, 1964…President Johnson Signs Civil Rights Act Legislation This beautiful photo was taken in The East Room of The White House as President Johnson addressed the nation, just before signing The Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. For those of us who are old enough to remember these times, it’s interesting to…

The Secret To Voicing ‘Porky Pig’ In 30 Seconds…Amazing! Thanks to our friend Randy West, here is the current voice of ‘Porky Pig’, Bob Bergen unpacking the voice pattern that Mel Blanc perfected. Watching this is like learning to sing “The Name Game” by Shirley Ellis. Porky Porky bo borky, banana fanna fo Forky,…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY…COMMERCIAL TELEVISION! 73 Today! At 1PM, July 1, 1941, NBC’s WNBT in New York became America’s first commercially licensed television station to go on the air. At 2:30 PM, CBS owned WCBW became the second. On June 24, 1941,both the NBC and CBS stations were licensed and instructed to sign on simultaneously on…

A New Can Of Worms…’The Price Is Right’ NBC Studio Locations Frankly, I had always thought ‘The Price Is Right’ debuted in color from the Colonial Theater in 1956, but that is not quite right. It now appears the show (daytime) debuted from The Hudson Theater in black and white, however…the primetime version did…

June 30, 1952 is the day ‘The Guiding Light’ came to CBS television. It’s first TV home was in CBS Studio 56 at Liederkranz Hall on East 58th street, where two of the four studios there had Dumont cameras. After the consolidation of production into the CBS Broadcast Center and colorizing in the mid…

Johnny Carson Desk…Sold for $35,000 (Click Images To Enlarge) In October of 2005, this Carson desk sold at auction for $35,000. It was one of around five different desks used on the show and as mentioned on the photo was thought to have been on the set from 1974 till 1981. Here is the…

The Very First Hanna – Barbera Cartoon…’Ruff & Ready’ This is the very first episode of ‘Ruff & Ready’. It aired on NBC December 14, 1957 and was the first cartoon ever produced by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera’s new company. Ruff (the cat) was voiced by Don Messick, and Reddy was voiced by…

Behind The Scenes Of ‘Wonderama’…WNEW This 6 minute clip takes us into the control room with Sonny Fox as our host some time in the early 60s. From 1944 till 1958 this was WABD, Dumont’s flagship station in New York, but in ’58 it became WNEW. There is classic Dumont TV equipment everywhere. ‘Wonderama’…

The Very First “Made For Television” Cartoon…’Crusader Rabbit’ The concept of an animated series made for television came from animator Alex Anderson, who worked for Terrytoons Studios. Terrytoons turned down Anderson’s proposed series, preferring to remain in theatrical film animation, which opened the door for him to team up with Jay Ward. The main…

Fans Of Animation Will Love This Page! Rare Early Cartoons… The link will take you to a Library Of Congress page that features restored early animation. Here, you can see some of the first claymation stop motion, the first rotoscope films of Max Fleischer’s ‘Koko The Clown’ which combines live action and animation, and…