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Ultra Rare…David Brinkley’s Washington Studio Set

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Eyes Of A Generation.com

Ultra Rare…David Brinkley’s Washington Studio Location

This is the only photo I have ever seen of either Huntley’s or Brinkley’s desk sets in the studio.

As the “other half” of ‘The Huntley Brinkley Report’, David Brinkley was stationed in Washington at NBC’s WRC TV studios. This is his set with one Vizmo screen in view, and I think there was another one behind him. November 15, 1965, the show went color and was the first news show to do so.

The Huntley-Brinkley Report debuted October 29, 1956, with Huntley in New York and Brinkley in Washington. Producer Reuven Frank, who had advocated pairing Huntley and Brinkley for the convention coverage, thought using two anchors on a regular news program “was one of the dumber ideas I had ever heard.” Nonetheless, on the day of the new program’s first broadcast, Frank authored the program’s closing line, “Good night, Chet. Good night, David. And good night, for NBC News.”

This exchange became one of television’s most famous catch phrases even though both Huntley and Brinkley initially disliked it. Huntley handled the bulk of the news most nights, with Brinkley specializing in Washington-area news from the White House, U.S. Congress and the Pentagon. Enjoy and share! – Bobby Ellerbee

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14 responses to “Ultra Rare…David Brinkley’s Washington Studio Set”

  1. Steve Dichter

    Remember, as a college student, working the 1964 elections at NBC Burbank w/Chet Huntley & Frank McGee. When we wrapped and Chet was leaving, I said in my best Brinkley impression “Good Night Chet.” I’m sure he had heard this may times, but my reward was a friendly wink & smile.

  2. Jim Suthard

    Theoretically — I think only TDs could do photos in the study (NABET restrictions) so maybe Leon Chromak’s (long time TD on Huntley Brinkley) family might have some of later years.

  3. Jim Suthard

    Actually, there was no Chromakey on HB… they only used Vizmo (Rear Projection screens) behind them. The very big “slides” were artful and shot in color. Vismos were also used for name supers and a dedicated camera would center them up at the director’s command (in DC Frank Slingland in the later years). If memory serves me right, on the first format of the new Nightly News, they tried a chromakey in the vizmo — trying to coordinate (I remember it was Carl Bailey on the DC end) a push into the screen and a push on the camera in DC at the same time to “connect” the two locations. ABC had a weird way of doing things: they had chromakey behind the anchor (Howard K Smith in DC), but still used vizmo to generate the material that went in the chromakey hole behind the anchor so it could be positioned on the fly… and vizmos had a neat way of doing “animations” using multiple slides.

  4. Molly Nichols Doskocil

    I like the map of the United States in the far upper left corner

  5. Chris Clementson

    Chet is on camera and David is proofreading his copy. I’m thinking they had just started.

  6. Ray East

    I love seeing the Vizmo screen in the set. This set was so simple and by today’s standards primitive.

  7. Tim Stepich

    It’s a shame there are few color recordings available from The Huntley Brinkley Report – at least on YouTube. But knowing the cost of quad tape and the networks’ notorious re-use of it, I’m sure there is not much more.

  8. David Shipman

    Back then, most TV stations used a specially wired clock thru Western Union, which would correct itself from a signal hourly from Western Union. Anyone with these clocks would then have the same minute time, nationally.

  9. Sammy Butler

    With Chet Huntley in the background. And you right, David Jackino, the theme for the Huntley/Brinkley Report was the second movement from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.

  10. David Jackino

    Cue Beethoven’s 9th symphony.

  11. Dennis Degan

    Sets weren’t important in those days. They were merely functional places in a studio for an anchor to present the news; nothing more.

  12. Dave Jones

    This was WRC’s Studio B, one of three as originally built in 1952. In early 1975 (I think) local news moved into it. I was the first to shoot the new set in a Sunday night local story previewing the new digs. We rolled one of the TK-44s over from A, where local was at the time, and recorded a reveal of the new set behind the big elephant door.

  13. Gary Walters

    Wasn’t the goodbye signoff partly coordinated with someone from AT&T, who had to know when to route the Telco feed on an instant audible cue? Or was that a TV Urban Legend?

  14. Bruce Ferrell

    judging by the clock in the foreground, must have just finished the A block

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