TV History

Naked To The World…Studio 33, CBS Television City After all these years of seeing Red Skelton, Jack Benny, Carol Burnett, The Smothers Brothers, ‘The Match Game’, The Price Is Right’ and probably a thousand more shows on this stage, it’s nice to see it in it’s natural state. It always looks so intimate on…

The Story Behind The CBS & RCA/NBC Color Feud These screen shots are from a color special that aired June 21, 1951 when CBS embarked on a four and an half month test of their Field Sequential System. The last commercial CBS Color System broadcast was the North Carolina-Maryland football game on October 20,…

Is It Hot In Here Or Is It Just Me? Here’s an RCA TK11 with all it’s doors open to cool off. This shot is from CBS Television City from around 1956 and taken on Stage 43 where ‘Climax’ was done. It was an anthology show with different live dramas each week and was…

‘I’ve Got A Secret’ November 1959… At the 6 minute mark, Garry Moore call in cameraman Cass Gaylord to get close ups of the first Optical Character Reader which was invented by David Shepard. There are several shots of the RCA TK30 in the clip and the demonstration is interesting too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2HM1DvQUdk Inventor David…

Rare Color Shot: ‘The Honeymooners’, 1953 Although the CBS shows starring Jackie Gleason, and friends, ended in 1970, Joyce Randolph never played “Trixie” after the 1957 season which ended in June and included more of their sketches than almost any other year. In October 1958, Gleason debuted a half-hour version of The Jackie Gleason…

Jackie Gleason’s First Television Appearance Most of us that remember ‘The Life Of Riley’ think of William Bendix as the star, but actually, Jackie Gleason played “Riley” from October 4, 1949 to March 28, 1950. This video is the first episode of the show which ended first runs in March of ’50. Bendix had…

Original Opening: ‘Honeymooners’ Classic 39 Episodes Much like the original ‘I Love Lucy’ “stick figure” opening that included Phillip Morris sponsorship on the first run episodes, this was the first run opening for ‘The Honeymooners’ filmed episodes and includes a Buick sponsorship. After the first run, the “Classic 39” episodes got a new into…

The RCA Ultra Portable Camera System Much like our friend Don “Peaches” Langford, who was one of ABC’s pioneers in portable camera work, this is NBC’s Don Mulvaney. You’ll see Mr Mulvaney below in photos from 1956 on, with RCA’s first mobile cameras and with that experience, he became the first to operate the…

1956, RCA/NBC Portable Camera Research & Development #1 This is the brand new RCA wireless Vidicon camera at the 1956 Republican Convention in San Francisco. This new unit is the first all transistor model and the only tubes used are the viewfinder CRT and RCA’s new Vidicon tube which is the size of a…

1956, RCA/NBC Portable Camera Research & Development #2 From the 1956 Republican Convention at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, here is an updated version of the 1952 RCA Vidicon portable wireless camera. Together, the back pack and camera weigh 48 pounds with 42 pounds of those on the cameraman’s back. Like it’s predecessor,…

1956, RCA/NBC Portable Camera Research & Development #3 Now THIS is RARE! These photos are also from the 1956 Republican Convention in San Francisco and show an NBC cameraman using a Philco hand held Vidicon camera. Why would RCA/NBC use a competitor’s camera? Because the half inch Vidicon tube in it is made by…

Through The Eye Of A TK42 On the left is a shot of the RCA TK42 viewfinder framing a weather board at WOC. Between 1965 and 69, RCA sold 375 of these cameras and 93 TK43 models that had the external lens. Today, only 19 are known to have survived in the hands of…

America’s First Television Pioneer…Charles Jenkins Below is a photo of Charles Francis Jenkins directing “Shadowgraph” mechanical television November 6, 1929 at W3XK located in Washington DC and later, Wheaton Maryland. According to research from friend of mine, Dr. Horace Newcomb, (who until last year was head of the Peabody Awards committee at The University…

‘People Will Talk’, A Fred Westbrook Photo Hosted by Dennis James and originating from NBC Burbank, this Heater-Quigley game show only lasted a year. The host posed moral-type questions like “Should a wife be a stay-at-home mother?” “Is it alright to kiss in public?” There were two contestants and a panel of 15 celebrities.…

‘The Honeymooners’ History, Part 1 In July of 1950, Jackie Gleason took over as host of Dumont’s hour long ‘Cavalcade Of Stars’ comedy/variety show. After playing with an idea based on the radio show ‘The Bickersons’, Gleason and his writers created Ralph and Alice Cramden and the Honeymooners debuted October 5, 1951 in a…

Exclusive: ESPN’s “Fly Cam” At BCS Championship Game If any one wondered how the fantastic flying shots that took us from outside the Rose Bowl to inside in one move were done, here’s your answer. Thanks to our friend Chuck Pharis, who was doing video at the game, these are photos of the Fly…

A True Rarity…The Photo & The Scene It’s not often that we can match a production still with the actual scene, but here it is linked above. Thanks to Kent Ayres, we now know both are from ‘I Love Lucy’ Episode 121 called “Hollywood Anniversary”. This is Ricky’s club set dressed as The Macombo…

When Elvis Debuted On Sullivan…Neither One Were In Studio 50 The Elvis photo below was taken September 9, 1956 at CBS Television City. This was his debut on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ but Ed was in the hospital recovering from a car crash which had occurred about a week before. Oscar winning actor Charles…

‘Bread Time Stories’, WRGB Schenectady NY Although WRGB was NBC Television’s first affiliate, they always used GE broadcast equipment. Why? Because the were owned by GE and if you remember, RCA was born out of GE. In the photo is a shot of a GE PC25 color camera…GE’s second color model which followed the…