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CBS Television City’s First Series…’My Friend Irma’

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Eyes Of A Generation.com

CBS Television City’s First Series…’My Friend Irma’

Here’s the set of ‘My Friend Irma’ on the brand new Studio 31 stage, but before we get to the studio, take a look at the set. This may have been the first time this horizontal production process was used in television. With all the “rooms” laid out in a row, the cameras could move up and down the stage for different scenes. In New York, many soap and sit com sets were built like rooms in a house as stage space was limited. For most of it’s 20 year run, NBC’s ‘The Doctors’ set was in rooms and not on the long set like this.

This was the first series telecast from TVC and ran from January 8, 1952 until June 1954. This is Studio 31’s original configuration with a camera ramp that went all the way to the control room with space at the rear for cameras too. That I know of, CBS was the only network to use the long hanging banks of flood lights. In the foreground, we see the lighting board and in today’s next post, we’ll see it in action as Edward R. Murrow takes us on a tour of the new facilities. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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6 responses to “CBS Television City’s First Series…’My Friend Irma’”

  1. Ryan Zwolinski

    Studio 33, now known as The Bob Barker Studio.

  2. Joseph J. Pratt

    Fantastic picture! This may be the best studio in Hollywood!

  3. Dennis Degan

    Standard NY studio layout was for cameras to be placed in the center of the studio while the sets were constructed along the walls of the studio around the cameras. This allowed cameras to easily move from one set to another. It was fine for soap operas, but never was practical for sitcoms with live studio audiences. Except for NBC’s Studio 8H, NBC’s Brooklyn I & II and later CBS’ Studio 41 at the Broadcast Center, most sitcoms that were shot in NY were produced in theaters. Though they still weren’t set up in this ‘linear’ fashion, the audience seating in a TV theater offered an acceptable way to shoot a sitcom in NYC. I recall the setup for ‘Kate & Allie’ on the Ed Sullivan stage. The basement apartment set surrounded the stage with a kitchen at the left, living room in the center and stairs that were supposed to lead up to the bedrooms towards the right.
    Whenever other sets were needed, they would be temporarily placed in front of the more permanent apartment set, facing the audience. Sometimes, scenes had to be shot out of sequence in order to strike a temporary set. It was always tricky shooting K&A in that theater. The same was true of ‘Love Sydney’, produced in R/T’s 81st Street Theater.
    LA took advantage of having enough space to build gigantic soundstages that could accommodate these productions with studio audiences.

  4. John Holt

    I recognize the Century Lighting board. One of the first electronic dimming consoles using thyratron tubes.

  5. Don Newbury

    Fantastic!

  6. James Stanley Barr

    And it’s retained the same basic layout, minus the center ramp seen in this picture for more than six decades.

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