(+1) 234 567 21

Surprise Follow Up…CBS Studio 72/Reeves Teletape

•

Eyes Of A Generation.com


Surprise Follow Up…CBS Studio 72/Reeves Teletape

In response to yesterday’s post about CBS Color Studio 72, which later became Reeves Teletape, WNBC’s Geoffrey DeVoe sent this interesting video. Here’s Tony Randall on WNBC’s ‘Live At Five’ with Jack Cafferty talking about the television production space shortage in New York in the early 80s.

Randall’s show, ‘Love Sidney’ which aired on NBC from ’81 till ’83 had been pushed all over NY in it’s first season of taping and had just moved to Reeves Teletape, but had to go to LA for seven weeks because another project was already on their books…’Sesame Street’. I think that prior to the move to Reeves, ‘Sesame’ had been done at WNET in New York, but I’m not sure. Anyone know?

Cafferty mentions the first couple of shows were done “across the hall in studio 6A”. Actually, the first show was taped in NBC studio 8H, and then moved for the second taping to the Teletape studio. They could only do the first show in 8H because of that studio’s commitment to ‘Saturday Night Live’.

When it returned to New York, ‘Love, Sidney’ taped in both NBC studio 8H as well as at the CBS Broadcast Center. I don’t know if they ever went back to Reeves or not, but given the long run of Reeves involvement with ‘Sesame’, I suspect those seven weeks there turned into many years. Enjoy and share!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUloz_LFz-4

This is from WNBC’s Live At Five newscast. Tony Randall and Nancy Littlefield of the NYC Film/TV Commission join anchor Jack Cafferty. At issue was the fact …

Source

6 responses to “Surprise Follow Up…CBS Studio 72/Reeves Teletape”

  1. Dennis Degan

    Oops, I missed this post from you, Bobby! Sesame Street never was produced at WNET. As I recall from discussions with ‘old-timers’ at R/T, Sesame Street’s pilot show was shot at WNEW-TV in their 67th Street facility on the East Side (of all places) in 1969. After Reeves got the contract, the show’s regular production began at 81st Street in 1970:
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/dennisdegan/3238554309/
    SS moved to the 55th Street studio in 1984. That studio was once WNET’s studio and master control facility, but not when SS was shot there (just as the 81st Street Studio was torn down in the 80’s, the 55th Street Studio was razed in the 1990’s. The site is now occupied by the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater building).
    As for ‘Love, Sydney’, I worked on every show done at Reeves/Teletape’s 81st Street Studio doing Video Control. The saga is pretty much as you’ve described. ‘Sydney’ shot two runs of shows over two broadcast seasons (I’m not sure of the number of shows in each run) in the 81st Street Studio. After that second run of shows, the studio was booked on something else for the rest of ‘Sydney’s network run and did not return to the 81st Street Studio:
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/dennisdegan/557872871/
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/dennisdegan/557871569/
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/dennisdegan/557651912/
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/dennisdegan/557869639/
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/dennisdegan/557653132/
    Sesame Street continued to be shot at 55th Street until 1986 when the show moved to the Kaufman-Astoria Studios. Their first year there, the production was done on the ‘big’ stage (K-A had the largest film studio in the East at the time). In 1988, a new stage was completed in the K-A complex with Sesame Street in mind. SS is still produced there to this day.
    Though there was a period of production growth in NY in the 80’s which resulted in a shortage of studio space at the time, that’s not the case now. Since then, Silvercup Studios expanded, the Brooklyn Navy Yard was turned into a group of large stages, and the old Bethpage, Long Island Grumman facility (where the Lunar Lander was built) has been transformed into a major film/TV complex with some of the largest stages in the world. One of those stages was used for the production last year of ‘The Sound of Music’, which aired on NBC.

  2. Bob Sewvello

    Johnny Carson was asked why he didn’t bring the Tonight Show back to New York occasionally after 1972. He said that there were no facilities. I think if Johnny had wanted to do the show from New York NBC would have arranged something. Johnny never traveled the show anyway. Studio One in Burbank seemed fine with him.

  3. Bob Sewvello

    What studio did they have to evacuate for seven weeks?

  4. Donica O’Bradovich

    When Scorsese was shooting “King of Comedy” at the studio, I used to pass by the “Jerry Langford Show” which was on the marquee. I never knew what it was until years later..it was the fictional talk show in the movie and Langford was Jerry Lewis! SO wish I had taken a photo of it..

  5. Val Ginter

    Oops! Forgot about Love Sidney. I was never in there. I had had such a fill of television production, that I took a small vacation for a few years, until SONY began marketing the Portapak 3400. Today, the old theatre lobby is a Staples.

  6. Geoffrey DeVoe

    🙂

Leave a Reply