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Must See! ‘Let’s Make A Deal’ Pilot…Many Points Of Interest

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Eyes Of A Generation.com


Must See! ‘Let’s Make A Deal’ Pilot…Many Points Of Interest

This was shot May 25, 1963 in Studio 1 at NBC Burbank and the first minute is quite interesting! It opens with a long shot of Monty Hall introducing the show’s concept as a pitch to advertisers with an RCA TK41 in the foreground. As the camera zooms in, we notice the TK41 still has three cables, as do all the cameras in the studio…this is a big surprise!

By now, all the New York TK41s were using the single cable. I think the single cable came into use on the TK41B around 1958, but RCA made a conversion kit and NBC NY applied it to all their TK40s and TK41A models. I wonder why Burbank kept the triple cables? They were much heavier than the single cables and took extra utility men to handle them.

Next is the audience seating apron that Hall is sitting in. In the ’50s, the only access to the audience area was on the far left and right via the main staircases, but with no way to get to them center stage, access doors were added to the center aisles. Studio 3 had a similar apron that we have seen on ‘Laugh In’ pictures and that’s because ‘Let’s Make A Deal’ moved to Studio 3 during the first season and stayed there till December 27,1968 when the show moved to ABC.

You can only see about half way up into the 400+ seats in this video and as we saw in pictures from Studio 1 a few days ago, this was a very steep incline.

Finally at the very end is a pristine NBC Productions video logo with the TK41 turret flip. Speaking of lenses, notice how tiny the Zoomar studio size lens looks on the TK41.

The announcer and Mony’s side kick is Wendell Niles. The show was directed by Joe Behar who’d just won an Emmy the year before for ‘The Ernie Kovacs Show’. Behar would go on to many more years of directing ‘Days of our Lives’, ‘General Hospital’, and ‘The Young and the Restless’. If you spot something I missed, please let us know. Enjoy and share!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvNXm_5kLmo

This 37 minute pilot, produced on May 25, 1963 with Monty Hall as host and Wendell Niles as announcer/sidekick, led to the premiere of Let’s Make a Deal on N…

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11 responses to “Must See! ‘Let’s Make A Deal’ Pilot…Many Points Of Interest”

  1. Mark Tipton

    We use to see Monty occasionally where we live in Rancho Mirage…he has a home near by. There’s also a street named for him here

  2. Bob Batsche

    I think the 3 cable information on NBC-NYC is slightly wrong. I remember working in Studio 8H in June 1967 with 3 cable TK 41s, actually 4 cables as a spare cable was attached. Why do I remember it clearly? That’s due to amount of people assigned to cables. Several people per camera were assigned to allow smooth “on air” dollies. Once the single cables were installed, maybe a month or so latter, the cable person requirement dropped. In August, I was doing camera on the Match Game & Snap Judgement in 8H and there was one cable per camera.

  3. Mark Tipton

    We occasionally see Monty out here in Rancho Mirage, where he has a place. There’s also a street named for him here in the Valley.

  4. Leon Zetekoff

    Monty was such a natural for that show. I remember watching it as a kid when I lived in Brooklyn in the 60s

  5. Leon Zetekoff

    It’s weird seeing the traders without cistumes

  6. Gary Walters

    That Zoomar lens does look small on a TK-41.

  7. Lou Spinnazola

    Monty Hall was perfect for this, and vice versa.

  8. Lisa B Wagner

    i’m glad Let’s Make A Deal decided to have audience members in costume

  9. James Stanley Barr

    A rare and pristine program still left on video tape from the old days. You don’t find very many of those left.

  10. Eyes Of A Generation.com

    Here’s the LMAD audience apron in Studio 3 during a ‘Laugh In’ taping.

  11. Eyes Of A Generation.com

    Here’s Studio 1 in the 50s

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