{"id":81634,"date":"2026-05-31T13:29:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T17:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eyesofageneration.com\/?p=81634"},"modified":"2026-06-03T17:01:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T21:01:16","slug":"abc-studio-15-a-k-a-the-elysee-theatre-unique-facility-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/?p=81634","title":{"rendered":"ABC Studio 15, a\/k\/a The Elysee Theatre Unique Facility Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Every so often, a television show comes along that quietly resets the tone of an entire genre. For kids\u2019 programming in the late 1970s, that show was <\/span><strong style=\"margin: 0px;\">Kids Are People Too<\/strong><span style=\"color: #333333;\">. ABC launched it on September 10, 1978, and for the next four years \u2014 right up through September 5, 1982 \u2014 it became the network\u2019s Sunday\u2011morning handshake with a generation of kids who were suddenly being treated less like children and more like young adults with opinions, questions, and a growing appetite for pop culture. B<\/span>ehind the scenes, the show was also a proving ground. One of the young directors cutting his teeth there was <strong style=\"color: inherit;\">Don Roy King<\/strong>, working out of ABC\u2019s Studio 15. King would go on to become one of the most celebrated live\u2011television directors of his generation, eventually taking the helm at <strong style=\"color: inherit;\">Saturday Night Live<\/strong> \u2014 a job he held for <strong style=\"color: inherit;\">16 seasons, from 2006 to 2021<\/strong>. By the time he stepped away, he had earned <strong style=\"color: inherit;\">11 Emmy Awards<\/strong> and a reputation as one of the best live directors televisions has ever had. Not a bad trajectory for someone who started by wrangling cameras and kids on a Sunday\u2011morning youth show.<\/p>\n<p><strong>This is a look at the Elysee Theater like we have never seen before, because we get the FULL TOUR here including the control room! <\/strong>The theater was also the home of <em><strong>The Dick Cavett Show, $10,000 Pyramid, David Frost Specials<\/strong> <\/em>and way back there,<em><strong> Masquerade Party.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Don Roy King directing Kids are People Too from ABC TV studio 15\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UQhDQ28dzk4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This clip is from our dear friend <strong>Burt Dubrow<\/strong>, who you&#8217;ll see here as the Studio Producer, but is perhaps best known as the man who discovered <strong>Sally Jessy Raphael<\/strong>, and produced her show for 18 years BUT, Bert&#8217;s heart is in the 1950s because he is among the foremost authorities on <strong>Howdy Doody<\/strong> in the world. Burt is the man who brought <strong>Buffalo Bob Smith<\/strong> out of retirement and into the college arena tours that were packed at every stop.<\/p>\n<p>This show didn\u2019t talk down to its audience. That was the magic. Where earlier programs leaned on games, gags, and giveaways, <em>Kids Are People Too<\/em> leaned forward. It mixed celebrity interviews, live music, comedy, and a surprisingly thoughtful advice segment called \u201cDear Alex and Annie.\u201d The studio audience \u2014 older kids and early teens \u2014 wasn\u2019t just window dressing. They were part of the conversation, asking questions, reacting, and giving the show an energy that felt closer to a teen talk show than anything that had existed before.<\/p>\n<p>When Nickelodeon began shaping its early identity in the 1980s, you can see the fingerprints of <em>Kids Are People Too<\/em> all over the place. Shows like <em>Livewire<\/em> and <em>Nick Rocks<\/em> borrowed the same idea: treat kids like real people, give them real guests, real music, and real conversations.\u00a0 The series earned multiple Emmy nominations and even took home the <strong>1978 Emmy for Outstanding Children\u2019s Entertainment Series<\/strong>, but its real legacy is quieter and more personal. For the kids who watched it, the show felt like television finally understood them. And for the industry, it proved that \u201cchildren\u2019s programming\u201d didn\u2019t have to be childish \u2014 it could be smart, stylish, and surprisingly grown\u2011up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every so often, a television show comes along that quietly resets the tone of an entire genre. For kids\u2019 programming in the late 1970s, that show was Kids Are People Too. ABC launched it on September 10, 1978, and for the next four years \u2014 right up through September 5, 1982 \u2014 it became the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"_vp_custom_popup_image":0,"_vp_format_audio_url":"","_vp_album_images":[],"_vp_custom_thumbnail":0,"_vp_custom_thumbnail_focal_point":[],"_vp_custom_thumbnail_cover":0,"_vp_hover_thumbnail":0,"_vp_hover_thumbnail_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[677,683,686,703,680],"class_list":["post-81634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-behind-the-scenes","tag-cameras","tag-control-room","tag-director","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81634"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81704,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81634\/revisions\/81704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}