TV History

‘SNL’ Surprise…The Real Baba Wawa On Weekend Update! Congratulations to Barbara Walters on a brilliant 50 + year career in television, and god bless her for her sense of humor that has served her well since Gilda Radner began “doing” her in 1976.

‘Tic Tac Dough’…NBC Studio 6B Below is host Jay Jackson with contestants on the primetime version of the show that ran from September ’57 till September ’58. The daytime version came from the Ziegfeld Theater. At the link is a clip from the show with Jackson as host, just before the Quiz Show scandals…

The “F” Word’s Television Debut! George Carlin would love this. In March of 1947, nine months before Howdy Doody debuted in December, Bob Emory went on the air with the first hit kid show, live from New York. The show was called ‘The Small Fry Club’. It was an instant hit and New Yorkers…

Deep Inside The Ed Sullivan Theater, Part 2 The 13-story, brown brick and terra cotta office building with a ground-floor theater was built by Arthur Hammerstein between 1925 and 1927, and was named Hammerstein’s Theater after his father, Oscar Hammerstein I. The theater auditorium had a number of beautiful stain glass windows that were…

Deep Inside The Ed Sullivan Theater, Part 1 On the left, Jackie Gleason’s favorite door! This door is located in the basement and on the other side of it is a now capped set of stairs, but in Gleason’s time, the stairs let to The Cordial Bar. The Cordial was located inside the 13…

You won’t believe the paint job on these 1947 French cameras! The build is pretty interesting too! Notice that the viewfinder is built into the pedestal column. Thanks to Brock Whaley in Ireland for sending this. Source

The Other Half Of ABC TV3 Last week, I posted a photo of me at the ABC News anchor desk, the place Diane Sawyer sits. It is an L shaped desk with the long part of the L on her left in the opening few shots. I was sitting at the long L part…

What Do These RCA TK41 Color Cameras Have In Common? Above is a bank of TK41s at NBC’s Ziegfeld Theater in 1961. Below is a bank of TK41s at NBC Studio 8H in 1969. What they have in common is matching serial numbers…they are the same cameras! A week ago today, I had lunch…

‘Today’…Then And Now The photo above was taken January 14, 1952. This was the debut of ‘Today’ and on camera is our friend Frank Merklein, who’s now 96. Also on camera that day (not shown) was Harry Katzman who’s now 95. Harry later moved to video and stayed on the show for 15 years.…

Camera Bashing…David Letterman’s Favorite Warm Up Trick I hope Larry Thorpe and our friends at Canon are seeing this. You couldn’t ask for a better ad campaign premise on Canon durability. This is Camera 2 on the set of the Letterman show. The bashing started long ago when Dave Dorsett was on this camera…

Will Buster and Riley Go To ‘Late Night’ With Stephen Colbert? Left and center are the dogs of ‘The Colbert Report’, Riley and Buster. I met them the other day while I was visiting the show at NEP Studio 52. Believe me…I was impressed. I had already picked up on a warm atmosphere at…

NBC Studio 8G…’Late Night With Seth Meyers’ Yesterday, I showed you the “smoke machine” and described the theatrical effect of bringing the light beams into play. You can see that on the right. On the left is the 8G camera crew with some real pros! Two of these names will be quite familiar to…

The CBS Evening News With Scott Pelley On April 19, 1962, Walter Cronkite took over as CBS news anchor. Like the Douglas Edwards program that had preceded his, the show was fifteen minutes long and the title was ‘Walter Cronkite With The News’. On September 2, 1963, CBS was the first to go to…

Final Wrap From New York… I leave for the airport at 10:30 this morning and hope to be home by 5, but part of me will still be here. Every time I watch NYC shows from now on, I’ll be right back in these studios seeing the faces of the many extraordinary people that…

Today at ‘TODAY’ Just got back from the ‘Today’ show. “Bullets Over Broadway” was today’s featured performance in the Broadway series and here are a few shots. More later. Got to pack. I’m sorry I was not able to get the names of the camera crew, but if someone can send it to me,…

Inside NBC…Like Few Have Ever Seen It! Yesterday, from 10:30 till 3:30, I had the tour of a lifetime! My NBC tour guides were two men that have forgotten more NBC history than most ever knew. Dennis Degan and Joel Spector lead the way as Gady Reinhold, Ron Simon and I looked and listened.…

The NBC Tour & Best Seat At CBS…The Desk Of William S. Paley Yesterday I finally saw ALL of NBC…top to bottom. It was an incredible six hour stroll through history that ended at The Paley Center For Media which is where the photos below were taken. This is the desk of CBS founder…

LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT’S SATURDAY NIGHT! Last night, I was an eyewitness to live television entertainment’s only living legacy…’Saturday Night Live’. I sat on the front row of the floor seats. Looking at the stage, I was on the left side in the corner seat…only three seats on the front row and to…

From The Letterman Stage, To The Set Of Saturday Night Live! Yesterday was so incredible, I can hardly believe it myself! This is a picture of me kissing the stage floor at The Ed Sullivan Theater (we’ll come back to this). Ten minutes later, my phone rings and I got invited to NBC Studio…

Just When You Thought It Couldn’t Get Any Better…IT DOES! Today, is the halfway point in my trip that has just been incredible. Yes, I’ve seen a lot of cool stuff, but the best part is the people I’ve met! Today, the pace changes a bit and I have a little more time between…