TV History

An Ultra Rare, Eyes Of A Generation Exclusive! Please SHARE! Disneyland Opening Day…Behind The Scenes Of The ABC Coverage First, this is an upload and not a link, so please share this as it is the only way to let others see this rare look at ABC’s preparation and coverage of the July 18,…

Rare! ‘Hullabaloo’ Color Footage…November 29, 1965 This was done in NBC Burbank’s Studio 1 with ‘Bonanza’ star Michael Landon as host and, sometimes, Go Go dancer. ‘Hullabaloo’ began as a half hour in black and white on January 12, 1965 and the first season ended August 31, 1965. The second season brought an hour…

You Won’t Believe THIS! Magic…Steve Martin Style! Hilarious!!! In May of 1992, Johnny Carson, whose own career started in magic, presented “The Great Flydini” on ‘The Tonight Show’. For your entertainment, here’s one of the most unique acts in magic history! Here is some background from our friend Mark Evanier: When Johnny Carson announced…

By Request…The ABC Pebble Beach Display These photos were taken in 1967 at Pebble Beach, California. For the first time, the 26th Annual Bing Crosby Classic was broadcast live and in color over ABC, Saturday, Jan 21 (6:00-7:30 PM., EST and Sunday, Jan 22, (5:00-7:00 PM,.EST). Arnold Palmer and 168 other top pros were…

‘Today’ Show…Recycling At It’s Best! Dave Garroway was not the only one that needed a little optical help. News man Frank Blair needed some help too, but his reading glasses were useless when it came to reading the prompter. In search of a solution, the engineering department went digging for a fix. They found…

Bill Cullen’s & Goodson -Todman’s First Television Show… ‘Winner Take All’ began on CBS Radio on June 3, 1946. Original emcee Ward Wilson stepped down after just three months at the helm, and announcer Bill Cullen stepped in as a temporary host on September 9. Cullen’s work on the show stunned executives, who made…

The “Other” Me…Me As The Sheriff On ‘Squidbillies’ Most of you may not know this, but I am a cartoon voice actor too. It occurred to me that I had not mentioned this here in quite a while, so, since I’m going into Atlanta this morning to record another ‘Squidbillies’ episode, now seems to…

This Is Fun! Raw Footage ’30 Rock’ Live Rehearsal 10/14/10 Shot from the 8H balcony seats, here is raw footage of the afternoon rehearsal of the live show. This is a follow up to today’s earlier produced piece. This is natural room sound so you’ll have to turn your volume up. Enjoy and Share!…

Censored! The CBS And ABC “Programs & Practices” Kill Buttons On the left is the CBS censor box with a “Video Delete” button. On the right is the ABC version with an audio and video delay option. They are used differently on live and taped shows. I’m sure CBS would have loved to have…

The Wayback Machine…Fall Television Lineup 1959 Just like Mr. Peabody and Sherman, we’re stepping back in time to look at the Thursday night line ups on ABC, CBS and NBC. This should bring back a few memories! Remember getting up to change the channel? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8frXe7eM4g4 What you would’ve watched on a typical Thursday night…

First Ever Emmy Winning Show…’Pantomime Quiz’ ‘Pantomime Quiz’, was a game show produced and hosted by Mike Stokey. Running from 1947 till 1959, it has the distinction of being one of the few television series—along with ‘The Arthur Murray Party’, ‘Down You Go’, ‘The Ernie Kovacs Show’, ‘The Original Amateur Hour’, and ‘Tom Corbett,…

The First Emmy Winners….January 25, 1949 The first ever Emmy Awards came just three short years after the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences was founded by Syd Cassyd on November 14, 1946. TV sets in private homes were still something of a novelty and only 4,000 homes in Los Angeles had televisions. The…

Afternoon Delight! Now That You Have Time…Take A Look! Here’s the whole Letterman 5th Anniversary Show from NBC Studio 8H in 1987. You won’t believe who’s in the band tonight, and Joe Cocker and Wilson Pickett do a mean version of “Midnight Hour”. There are favorite clips, stupid pet tricks, thrill cams and more!…

One “Result” Of The 1987 NABET Strike At NBC…The Robots In the photo below, we see one of the first uses of robotic pedestals at NBC on the WNBC News set. This came shortly after the strike. In 1986, GE bought RCA for 6.4 billion dollars. That was quite a deal considering RCA had…

50 Years From CBS Television City…Part 7, The Game Shows The Game segment has two parts and this is the link to the second part. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p9Tr9bfbIo In the first segment, Art Linkletter is our host and takes us through a long string of historic game shows. Ever see Walter Cronkite or Mike Wallace host…

50 Years From CBS Television City…Part 6, The Dramas Beau Bridges host this segment on some of the great dramatic presentations from here, and the list is quite long, but here’s an interesting side note on the first clip you’ll see from ‘Playhouse 90’. ‘The Old Man’ was staged live in Studio 31. A…

50 Years From CBS Television City…Part 5, The Sitcoms The Sitcom segment has two parts and this is the link to the second part. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htyaNaWa5vA John Ritter hosts this segment from Studio 31, home of ‘All In The Family’ and spends most of the first segment on this historic show. In the second segment,…

50 Years From CBS Television City…Part 4, The Specials Carol Burnett walks us through time with a who’s who list of stars that have done specials at CBS and starts with the first one…’Stars In The Eye’, from 1952 hosted by Jack Benny. We’ll also see clips from ‘The Edsel Show’ with Bing Crosby…