It was a show that was supposed to define Ford's future, not set a milestone in CBS-TV's history.
Like thousands of programs staged, over the years, by CBS-TV at its sprawling,west coast studios, this musical/variety special was star-studded, had a big budget , boasted lavish production values, and started with an announcer proclaiming the now-historic line:
"LIVE, FROM TELEVISION CITY IN HOLLYWOOD!"
As it turned out, CBS-TV's telecast of The Edsel Show, sponsored by The Ford Motor Company,on October 13th, 1957 made not automotive, but television, history. This program was the very first to be recorded at the CBS Hollywood facility on videotape for replay across America's four, continental time zones:Eastern,Central, Mountain and Pacific.
While a traditional Kinescope ( film of a live show shot from a television screen) was prepared as a back-up by CBS engineers,the program was actually rebroadcast from a reel of 2 inch videotape, played back on an original, Ampex videotape machine in the technical area at CBS Television City.
The special was commissioned by Ford to capitalize on the promotional buzz generated around the September 4, 1957 ( E-DAY! )introduction of it's new,full-sized, car line, the Edsel. Ford spared no expense in mounting the so-called spectacular.
Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby,Louis Armstrong and Rosemary Clooney lead an all-star, musical ensamble.
The program was produced in black and white, aired LIVE to the east coast and mid-west affiliates and then was repeated on tape to other time zones.The tape editing you'll see,below, in this clip from the opening titles is quite sopisticated for the time. Enjoy!!!!
The Edsel was ,almost, universally rejected by the car-buying public, while The Edsel Show , which was , fortunately, preserved in the vault at CBS Television City, quietly holds an honored place in the history of television .
To find out more about the CBS-TV special, early videotape and the Edsel, itself, please visit Kris Trexler's excellent website at this URL:
If you are a fan of television or you are among those confused and dazed media professionals, who used to work in a television newsroom, or those who are now re-applying for a position that you already have in a TV station, you may wonder exactly when the world changed and why you didn't get an e-mail alert about it on your blackberry.
While it may sting like a recently opened wound, this is not a new battle.The broadband beatdown of television started quietly, amid the gentle snicker of cynical broadcasters and print journalists. So, when did people tune out tv and log in to the internet ?
It started to happen more than a quarter of a century ago, in a far off galaxy called San Francisco.
This began back when cell phones were rare and weighed 5 pounds, pagers were the size of a tuna sandwich, and the new Sony Walkman offered the sound of tomorrow in your head. Cable was scarce and satellite TV was a figment of writer/scientist Arthur C. Clarke's vast and vivid imagination.America was watching Dallas, Walter Cronkite and Charlie's Angels on free, broadcast television.
Computers were what the DMV used to mess-up your driving record.
While viewership for traditional, broadcast media is,admitedly, in decline, the world wide web hasn't captured all of that available audience, yet.
Technologists talk about the development of a vaunted "convergence device" that makes a wall in your home a three dimensional, high definition, display panel for the web, first run films,television shows, search engines, virtual travel,electronically altered environments, and the bigest, most expensive family album in human history.
Yet , to date, nothing has migrated from the lab to the living room that fills the bill.
Check out this 1981, news report from KRON-TV in San Francisco ( a town that's sort of the focus group for futurists:), in which science editor Steve Newman explains why a handful of newspapers are making content available to the few people who actually own computers in their homes. Enjoy!!!!!!!
As for the use of a home computer for commerce online, below is a rare 1969 industrial film produced to show the many potential uses of an electronic processing system in your house. The device can be engaged to purchase clothes , buy food, plan menus and help you pay bills without ever leaving your room. Game show fans will note that the legendary host of The Joker is Wild, Wink Martindale, plays the father in this story that takes places just a day or so after tomorrow.Enjoy!!!!!
In 1961, entertainer,entrepreneur and philanthropist Danny Thomas, along with his accomplished, producing partner, Sheldon Leonard, seemed to have captured lightning in a cathode ray tube.
The shows their company owned, and licensed to the CBS Television Network,occupied the top slots in the weekly, national television ratings.
The Danny Thomas Show and The Andy Griffith Show, which was introduced on,and spun-off from, an episode of the Thomas show, were required, Monday night viewing for millions of American families.They were the kings of situation comedy.
Hoping to use the Thomas show, again, as an incubator for a another hit sitcom, Thomas and Leonard, crafted a pilot for nightclub comedian,and charter member of Frank Sinatra's so-called, Rat Pack, Joey Bishop.
Bishop was white hot in 1961, having just come off a series of record-breaking engagements with Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr.,Dean Martin and Peter Lawford at The Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. Bishop was a co-star, with his fellow Rat Packers,in Warner Bros. original, Ocean's 11 film
Bishop was also a frequent guest on tv variety and talk shows.He seemed poised for television stardom.
Born Joseph Gottlieb in the Bronx NY and raised in South Philadelphia, a veritable hothouse for pop performers, he enjoyed a long and rewarding career in nightclubs.Like Danny Thomas and Andy Griffith, he tired of the road and wanted the anchor of a television series that would give him time at home with his family.
The pilot showcases Bishop as Joey Mason, an inept, but lovable, junior executive in a Los Angeles PR agency. It was shot as a three camera show with a live audience , employing the same production team that worked on the Danny Thomas Show, each week.
That strategy saved a lot of the cost in producing a pilot film.
The cast included the acerbic Joe Flynn (in a pre-McHale's Navy role )as Joey's perpetually iritated boss,plus movie character actor Billy Gilbert,who played his father and ,validating the nepotism in which Thomas so strongly believed,Danny's daughter, Marlo Thomas , is seen in an early television appearance as Joey's sister.She of course went on to fame starring in her own ABC-Tv sitcom, That Girl.
CBS-TV passed on the "backdoor" pilot. But,NBC-TV bought the idea of Joey starring a sitcom, but with a different premise from producers Thomas and Leonard.
In the revamped Joey Bishop Show, Joey played an NBC-TV, talk show host, named Joey Barnes. The new cast featured Abby Dalton as his wife, plus comedians Guy Marks and Corbert Monica serving as sidekicks over the run of the series.
The comedy centered on a mix of Joey's experiences in the workplace and in his home life, against the canvas of show business.
The Joey Bishop Show ran from 1961-1964 on NBC-TV and then, in 1964, moved for a final season to CBS-TV, where it was cancelled after being gunned down by NBC-TV's hit, western drama,Bonanza .
Because the show was shot in Living Color for the NBC run, but moved to monochrome for the singular, CBS-TV season, it's value in syndication was diminished.
The series has rarely been seen in the intervening years.
Bishop went on to host an actual, late night talk show on ABC-TV in the late 1960's, later guest hosting for Johnny Carson on NBC-TV's Tonight Show, and performed a wide range of film and television appearances. He died in October of 2007.
Here is the first segment of the pilot for the Joey Bishop Show. Enjoy!!!!!!
If you were a television obsessed,baby-boomer (like me)there was a special holiday for which you could hardly wait, every fall,in the 1960's.
No,not Halloween.
Nope.It Wasn't Columbus Day.
Besides, a mere 24 hours couldn't contain this autominal celebration.
It was NBC Week! The fall festival of new shows and fresh episodes of returning, favorite series.
Below is a rare copy of the 1965-66, NBC Week, Fall preview, hosted by stand-up comedian Don Adams. This 30 minute presentation reel, targeted to promote the peacock's new schedule to home viewers, affiliate managers, prospective advertisers and network staffers, showcases Adams as the inept, secret agent, Maxwell Smart, for the very first time on network television.
While he had already appeared as the idiot-savant, intelligence agent in the pilot for the fast paced, spy spoof, entitled Get Smart, the series wouldn't premiere on NBC-TV until several weeks after this special was broadcast.
This Fall preview show is a patchwork of promos for several debuting series,held together with a storyline wrapped around Adams/Smart,that was paper thin. You'll also note that than many of the series introduced in this half-hour which went on to long and successful runs, like I SPY , The Dean Martin Show and I Dream of Jeannie.
This program is a real flashback to a time when networks locked a schedule in place for 13 weeks ,invested in institutional, promotion campaigns and lived with the consequences. Enjoy!!!!!
Before the fast and facile Gene Rayburn ever revealed to a Match Game contestant that "Dora was SO dumb," or had to referee between bawdy panelists Brett Somers Klugman and Charles Nelson Reilly, on CBS-TV in the 1970's, the durable game show,it's venerable announcer, Johnny Olson, and it's genial host, Rayburn, had a whole other, successful run on NBC daytime between 1962 and 1969.
The engaging, almost addictive,show, created by Frank Wayne and produced by game show titans,Mark Goodson Bill Todman, was a powerful anchor to the late afternoon schedule on the peacock network for seven years, The first series is almost primitive in production values compared to the 1970's, sequined, Disco-synth version of the show, but , the original format is sleek in its unadorned elegance. The concept of the game ,itself, is timeless.
Rayburn( far left) had been best known , up to that point, as the announcer/sidekick on Steve Allen's original and innovative,Tonight Show on NBC-TV. He was also one of the many talented performers to host Monitor on NBC Radio, a wide-ranging, magazine format series, that was designed by NBC's resident genius Pat Weaver, and is believed to have extended the life span of network radio by over a decade. Rayburn also had great success performing in dinner theater and on Broadway.
Johnny Olson divided his time ,attention, and Eastern Airlines,frequent-flyer miles, during these years, between taping the Match Game at NBC in NYC and announcing Jackie Gleason's, Miami -based, Saturday night, comedy /variety series,airing on CBS-TV.
The Match Game was videotaped at 30 Rock in New York City, and while the clip below is an excerpt of a black and white kinescope, the program was produced in Living Color.
Here , from Adam Nadeff's You Tube site, is a sentimental sojourn to daytime fun and games, mid-sixties style. Enjoy!!!!!
At the NBC studios in 30 Rock, a tall, athletic, and, as the audience would soon discover, hilarious graduate of Temple University awaited his cue.
Host Jack Paar, one of the most gifted conversationalists and most emotional performers in broadcast history, introduced the young comedian, with a gentle welcome and an emphatic endorsement.
As the band played ,the confident entertainer, fresh from playing hip, but small nightclubs like Mr. Kelly's in Chicago and the Gas Light in his home town of Philadelphia, strided across the studio's slick, grey floor.He hit his mark, under hot lights and in front of a hulking, RCA color camera.A few hundred people filled the bleachers.
In just a few moments of vivid, human, honest comedy, Bill Cosby found his place in our culture and in our hearts.
His record albums,filled with band after band of personal and anecdotal comedy, would break sales records and win awards.
The opportunity to become the first African-American male to star in a network, dramatic series, the groundbreaking I Spy, was still a few months away.
Honing his observational routines, Bill Cosby would move quickly from small clubs in the village to showrooms on the Vegas Strip.
But on that Friday night, in that moment and in similar, subsequent appearances on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, The Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace, he would forge the skills to become, in my view, America's most successful, respected and beloved humorist since Mark Twain.
In the intervening years, The Cosby Show brought us laughter and insight, while saving the sitcom genre and the NBC Television Network.
Bill Cosby has influenced a generation of comedians, including Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock and Ray Romano.
To this day, he remains the nation's pre-eminent monologist
Here is a rare clip of an early appearance on Jack Paar's primetime, talk/variety series. Enjoy!!!!!!
"Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars!"
Every week , for almost 13 years, disc jockey and vocal artist, actor and activist, Casey Kasem offered that sage advice to viewers of America's Top 10, a syndicated, video countdown of the week's hottest records.The series,a spinoff of Kasem's incredibly successful, syndicated,radio show, American Top 40, debuted in 1980 and ran until 1993.
The 30 minute program was produced in Hollywood and aired in most markets on weekends, in early evening and late fringe dayparts.
Born in Detroit in 1932, Kamal Amin Kasem developed an early interest in radio and the emerging rock music it played.He changed his name and started his career as an itinerant disc jockey , working in markets across the country. His kaleidoscopic knowledge of ,and appreciation for, pop music, along with his formidable, radio accumen paid off in 1970, when he launched the American Top 40 Radio show in weekly,syndication.
The show was an instant success on stations across the nation and was subsequently distributed around the globe. The program featured franchise segments, like the long distance dedication, where callers would ask Kasem to play a tune of personal importance to themselves or a loved one, and then explain the moral of the story to the audience.
Kasem left the radio show in 2004, and American Idol's Ryan Seacrest is the current host. Re-edited versions of Kasem's episodes from the 1970's are now offered in syndication.
On a parallel career path, Kasem was also in demand as an actor, appearing in television shows ranging from The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Hour on ABC-TV (where he did a dead-on impersonation of Peter Falk's Lt. Columbo) to NBC-TV's Saved by The Bell.
While he was also the voice of NBC-TV promotional spots for much of the 1970's, the versatile Kasem may best remembered for a role where the audience never saw his face. He was the voice of Shaggy in the animated Scooby Doo series.
Kasem has been a proud supporter of Arab American causes, appears each year on the Jerry Lewis MDA telethon and was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1992.
Known as a complete professional and demanding perfectionist, Kasem still does voiceover work and appears in infomercials. Enjoy !!!!!!
With the 2009 Oscars nominations just announced, the Hollywood, media machine moving at light speed and the multi-talented, Hugh Jackman preparing to host the upcoming,81st annual, Academy Awards, here is a flickering flashback to a more innocent and, perhaps, more interesting time in Oscar's long and checkered television history.
Perennial Academy Awards host , and global comedy icon, Bob Hope emcees the 1955 Oscars, which aired Live,from coast to coast on NBC-TV ,via coaxial cable. The gala event originated from the RKO Pantages Theater in Hollywood and the NBC Century Theater in New York City.
In the clip below, Hope, whose meticulous timing was exceeced only by his high velocity delivery ,welcomes brash, young comic Jerry Lewis , who in turn, introduces his then performing partner, a suave, self-assured Dean Martin, to sing one of the Oscar nominated songs.
Martin performed Three Coins in the Fountain , which was written by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn as the title track for the dramatic , oscar-nominated film of the same name.
While the film lost the Best Picture Oscar to On The Waterfront, the song won Best Song honors.
A note about the telecast, itself. As television began to mature, creative teams worked to enrich production values, through innovations in staging and special effects.Notice the rear screen projection depicting scenes of the Trevi fountain in Rome, as Dean performs the number. Enjoy!!!!
1948 to 1952 was the Jurassic era in network television, for audiences, video professionals, and even for established headliners, like boisterous comedian Jerry Lester (above), who pioneered late night programming on NBC-TV.
In the spring of 1950, video visionary and head of NBC's young, television network, Sylvester” Pat" Weaver, decided that he could light up the night for millions of American television viewers, by mounting a live comedy/variety program when the other networks were dark, at 11PM Eastern time.
Weaver believed that original, LIVE programming would easily surpass the ancient films that local stations were airing at that hour, to win the daypart while bringing new audience and new advertisers to NBC-TV.
The inspired showman wanted to bring home the vibrant, spontaneous quality of New York, nightclub entertainment to NBC viewers, in a one-hour comedy/variety show called Broadway Open House. Weaver scheduled it to air from 11pm to Midnight, each weeknight.
Weaver knew that the star of the show had to ad-lib at a fasy and furious pace, in order to capitalize on unscripted events on the LIVE broadcast. The NBC executive engaged joke-master Morey Amsterdam, who was hosting a variety show on the DuMont Network to host the series on Monday and Friday night. Amsterdam would go on to television immortality as a cast member of the beloved Dick Van Dyke Show.
To host the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday episodes, Weaver hired a versatile singer, dancer, comic named Jerry Lester , whom he had seen in a guest appearance on an NBC talk program. When that show ended, Weaver called the switchboard at 30 Rock, was connected to Lester and immediately hired the energetic entertainer.
Broadway Open House, sponsored by Blatz Brewery and Anchor-Hocking Glassware, debuted in May of 1950.
The studio setting was a flimsy, ersatz representation of a Manhattan penthouse apartment. The program, while primitive in production values,was robust in its comedy and music. A large company of singers,dancers and comedians, plus announcer/sidekick Wayne Howell and an orchestra ,led by conductor Milton DeLugg , comprised the cast.
Later in the series' run, a voluptuous performer, known to viewers only as Dagmar, was added to the cast and she became a cultural sensation. Many observers of early television say it was her considerable charm and formidable bust size, that thrust her into the forefront of public awareness.
Amsterdam left after a few months, and Lester started hosting five nights per week, becoming America's first king of late night television. He was, by his own admission, relentless in pursuit of a laugh and the affection of his audience.
In a New York Times article, Lester was quoted as saying that,"If they like you, you don't have to worry whether every gag goes over big or if every sketch is the best thing they've ever seen," he said. "And if it isn't, I don't beat the audience over the head. I never tell them they're wrong. I just apologize."
A rare comic,for his times, Lester had a college degree from Northwestern University. He had performed in nightclubs and in films, on Broadway and on radio, prior to hosting the NBC-TV late night,series. He stayed with the program for two years and left the show to return to musical theater and movies. Lester enjoyed great professional success in the years that followed.
Sadly. he passed away in 1995 , at age 85, after a 20 year battle with Alzheimer's disease.
When Lester left Broadway Open House in 1952, NBC's Weaver reluctantly returned the timeslot to local stations. It would be two years before he reclaimed it for the network with Steve Allen's original version of The Tonight Show.
Broadway Open House with Jerry Lester and Dagmar paved the way for almost sixty years of late night, programming dominance for NBC-TV.
The clip below is an aircheck from Ira Gallen's TV Days,You Tube site. It goes to black from 01:23 until 02:02, as it did LIVE on the network, so local stations could insert a :30 commercial. Enjoy!!!!!
Beyonce emotionally seranades Barack and Michelle Obama with Etta James' sultry, torch-song,"At Last," while they share their first dance as President and First Lady.
Television viewers across America and around the globe witnessed the passionate interlude during ABC-TV's,LIVE,HD broadcast of the Neighborhood Ball in Washington DC.
It is the kind of vibrant,visceral moment which television captures and conveys best.
No commentary needed.
The song, the singer and the image of the affectionate, adoring couple at center stage says it all. Enjoy !!!!!
As America welcomes a new First Family to reside in the White House, you can rewind to a rare, video tour of the Presidential mansion, with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy acting as a most authoritative, and telegenic, guide.
Produced by CBS Television, the 60 minute, primetime program took American viewers on a sweeping, black & white journey through the People's House, exploring grand ballrooms, ceremonial spaces and intimate living quarters , only stopping along the way to provide historical perspective.
The network selected the urbane CBS News correspondent, Charles Collingwood to host with the elegant First Lady. In a rare moment of corporate cooperation, the program was telecast by CBS, NBC and ABC. The clip is from the CBS You Tube site. Enjoy!!!!!
On a brisk and bright day In January of 1961, American television and radio transported viewers and listeners to the steps of the U.S. Capitol ,to witness the inauguration of John F. Kennedy.
As we prepare for a new chapter of the American adventure to be written when Barack Obama takes the oath of office, it is fitting and fun to recall a moment when a young President challenged this nation to achieve lofty new goals. Enjoy!!!!!
As America celebrates the myriad contributions of the Reverend, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it is good to look back on his emphatic and optimistic oratory. He delivered his renowned ," I Have A Dream," speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the civil rights, march on Washington DC , in August of 1963.
Television took me there without ever leaving my home.
I saw it on the 21 inch , black and white, Zenith, console television in the living room of my family's house in Northeast Philadelphia. I was nine years old and the images we watched and sounds we heard on our hometown NBC-TV affiliate (then identified by the call letters WRCV-TV ) have stayed with me for almost 44 years.
The clip below not only serves to remind us of the gravity of that moment in American history, but also how television and radio allowed millions of people to bear witness to that solemn, yet inspiring event, across the nation and around the globe.
Television and radio played a vital role in the struggle for racial equality in this country, simply by conveying the truth as it unfolded in front of cameras and microphones.
As a journalist, performer and personality ,Walter Winchell was more electrically charged than the radio signals that carried him into millions of homes each week.
Born on April 7, 1897 in a New York City where gas-lights still illuminated city streets ,handsome cabs carried the wealthy up and down Fifth Avenue, while tabloids filled newsstands, Winchell grew to become one of the most renowned and reviled, competitive and controversial, media figures of the 20th century.
With equal parts greasepaint and printer's ink flowing in his veins, Winchell left school after sixth grade and joined vaudeville's equivalent of a 1990's boy band, the Newsboys Sextet. Between performances, he prowled the city by night in search of inside, showbiz gossip.
By 1930, Winchell was a young newsman covering Manhattan's cafe society and Broadway's stagedoor characters for his breezy, street-smart column in the tabloid, New York Daily Mirror. An appearance on a CBS radio show opened the door for a spot hosting his own network series, The Jergen's Journal on NBC radio's Blue Network.
His rise on radio was meteoric. Winchell's Sunday night, NBC Radio show was an institution in American broadcasting for years to come. The eclectic combination of serious news coverage , inventive vernacular, showbiz gossip and gut-level ,political analysis reached almost 90% of the radio audience .It made Walter Winchell one of the most influential voices in the country.
When fugitive mobster Louis "Lepke" Buchalter , who headed a company of killers for hire refered to as Murder, Incorporated, wanted to surrender to the F.B.I., he asked Winchell to provide safe transfer to authorities. Winchell knew how to break news of this magnitude, how to benefit from it's publicity, and sustain its impact. He never let go of the story.Three decades after the incident, Winchell released a long-playing , vinyl disc on the DOT label in which he detailed the inside story of Lepke's downfall.
In the post -World War Two era , Winchell was accused of using his power to promote a personal, right-wing, political agenda. Some observers say the power-hungry , manipulative newsman protrayed by Burt Lancaster in his 1957 film, The Sweet Smell of Success, was predicated on Winchell.
The perapetetic newsman stunned America at the height of McCarthy-ism , when he claimed, in a newspaper column ,that the nation's most beloved, television performer, Lucille Ball, was a card-carrying Communist. The country was shocked, CBS-TV was enraged and Lucy was devastated. Ball's husband and business partner, Desi Arnaz ,took a smart and sardonic stance, when he replied by saying that the only thing red about Lucy is her haircolor, and even that's not real.
In the end, Winchell's accusation was proven false and had to be retracted. Stangely, just months later ,the production company Arnaz and Ball owned, Desilu, began to produce a syndicated, dramatic, TV series based on the exploits of the New York newsman and starring the columnist in an eponymous, leading role . The program , entitled The Walter Winchell Files, was cancelled after two seasons.
Below is a clip from a 1956 news and analysis series he hosted on the ABC-TV network. In just a few seconds of staccato delivery and high velocity headlines, you get a sense of the energy that propelled Winchell forward as a force in American media. Enjoy!!!!
Like so many of the tabloids for which he wrote and network radio , itself, Winchell was eclipsed by the advent of television news. Late in his life , in the 1960's, he gained new fame as narrator of ABC-TV's, hit drama, The Untouchables, which showcased the violent stories of roaring twenties gangbuster, Elliot Ness. The show was, as you'll see in the clip below, ironically set ,not in Winchell's beloved New York, but in Chicago. Enjoy!!!!!
Winchell died of prostate cancer on February 20, 1972. His friend, CNN's Larry King, says Wincehll ended life as a recluse , living in a suite at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He had no media outlet for which to report, and almost never left his quarters. He emerged only to hand out mimeographed copies of a gossip column he wrote every day until he died.
If you want to learn more about Walter Winchell and his legacy in journalism, check out Neil Gabler's excellent biography.
Guess this is where we cue NBC's " The More You Know" logo:)
The high-voltage debate over the role of sponsor supported, product placement in broadcast entertainment and news programming rages in television newsrooms and corporate boardrooms across America, today.
But product placement was also , apparently, quite pervasive in the genesis of network, television programming. In the early 1950's, sponsors bought timeslots from the networks and selected the programs that aired in those positions.The sponsor's product was almost always evident in the body of the program.
On NBC-TV's Dragnet, the first primetime,crime procedural, when detective Joe Friday lit up a smoke after collaring the suspect, it was clearly pulled from a very visable pack of Chesterfields, the sponsoring brand of cigarettes.
But the promotional practice wasn't confied to drama and comedy content. Newscasts, apparently, were not immune.
Here is a You Tube flashback to NBC-TV's Plymouth News Caravan, which, in the early to mid 1950's, was the network's flagship news program. Anchored by the dapper, kinetic John Cameron Swayzye, it was the nation's most watched evening newscast, with CBS-TV's Douglas Edwards and the News, sponsored by GM's Oldsmobile Division, the next, closest competitor. The ABC Evening News with John Charles Daly, who went on to host CBS-TV's, erudite, panel program What's My Line for many years, was in third place.
Sponsorship of the Swayze newscast on NBC-TV alternated between Chrysler's Plymouth Motorcar Division and Camel cigarettes. Yes, Camel Cigarettes. It wouldn't be until almost seven years after U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry issued his scathing report on the dangers of smoking, in 1964, that television and radio commercials for cigarettes were banned by the F.C.C., in 1971.
On those nights that Camel picked-up the tab, the program was re-branded as The Camel News Caravan with John Cameron Swayzye. On those newscasts, an ash tray with a smoldering Camel was placed prominently on the anchor desk and, it has been reported by the late, David Brinkley, who served as the program's Washington correspondent, that at the sponsor's insistence, the only person who could be depicted with a cigar was Great Britain's Winston Churchill.
In the clip below, from a night in 1955 that Plymouth sponsored the network newsreel, you'll note a lengthy, filmed piece about a vaunted, design award bestowed upon the Detroit team responsible for conceiving and crafting, of all things, the 1955 Plymouth!
There is no real, editorial separation between the news content and the commercial film insert. For an average viewer, I suspect, it was hard to discern where the hard news stopped the hard sell started. Enjoy!!!!!
There are a few milestones to acknowledge about the newscast and its energetic anchorman, which distinguished The Plymouth/Camel News Caravan with John Cameron Swayze on NBC-TV.
It pretty well lived up to its mission of presenting viewers with Today's News, Today, in a time of primitive television technology, when foreign, news film was shot and then shipped from various global locations, often taking days to arrive at NBC in New York.
On February 17, 1956, The Camel News Caravan with John Cameron Swayze became the very first newscast ever broadcast in color, moving it's set to NBC-TV's legendary,Studio 8-H, now home of Saturday Night Live, for the occasion. Swayze, who was referred to as an "eager beaver" in a 1951, Time Magazine article, brought a suave surety to the anchor desk and could all but memorize the script in pre-teleprompter times. He always wore a boutonnière in the lapel of his well-tailored suits, more in the manner of neighborly, Midwestern,bank manager, than an urbane, network news anchor.
Swayze acknowledged publicly that he wore copious,studio make-up and donned a toupee, to thicken his thinning mane, at the direction of his wife, Tuffie. On the occasion of this first, network newscast, she told him he "looked dead" and forevermore acted as his make-up consultant without portfolio.
He anchored the program, which aired at 7:45 Eastern Time, each weeknight, from 1948 until 1956, when was he replaced by the nascent news team of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley.
Swayze made a deft, career transition to become the commercial spokesperson for Timex Watches, and was at the forefront of the company's incredibly popular,visual and enduring advertising campaign. The clips , below, are just of few of his best commercials.Enjoy!!!!!
In 1957, most TV sitcoms were set in urban enviroments and were about the comedy inherent in daily,domestic life. Most TV viewers were watching those sitcoms on NBC and CBS. Other than modest,ratings success with the comely Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and Danny Thomas's heartwarming, Make Room For Daddy, ABC-TV wasn't exactly known as America's home of comic hits.
A writing and producing team , comprised of two brothers, Irving and Norman Puncus, wrote a pilot film for a series that found it's comedy in the contrast of a poor, rural family moving to live in a modern,suburban environment.
The Real McCoys chronicled the journey of a West Virginia,farming family as they take up residence at a ranch in California's San Fernando Valley, left to them by a beloved, deceased relative.
The promising script was rejected by NBC and CBS.But, after months of prospecting at the major networks, the Pincus brothers finally struck TV gold at ABC. Danny Thomas , who was a major star at the smallest of the national networks, liked the concept and agreed to finance the pilot.His producing partner, Sheldon Leonard, who later guided The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C. and I Spy to the top of the Nielsen Ratings, directed the pilot, which was distinguished by its gentle,folksy humor, played out at a primetime pace.
Three time, Academy Award winner, Walter Brennan signed on to play Amos McCoy, the family patriarch. He was paired with the versatile and vaunted Richard Crenna, fresh from playing lovelorn,teenage under-achiever, Walter Denton, on the hit television and radio versions of Our Miss Brooks. Leonard and the Pincus Brothers recruited a facile supporting cast and were supported by the experienced,Desilu production team.
The clip,below, is from that pilot film, which aired as the first episode of the ABC-TV series, when it debuted on October 3, 1957. One element of the writing is amazing to me: As you'll see, viewers are given the entire backstory of the McCoy's motiviation to Go West in less than half a minute of exposition, during the first scene of the show.This typifies the kind of clarity in story development that smartly supported the bucolic, family comedy.Enjoy!!!!!
The Real McCoys ran six years on ABC-TV and achieved a major milestone when it became the first situation comedy in ABC's,short history to enter the Nielsen Top Ten. Upon it's cancellation in 1962, CBS-TV picked up the show, retitled it as The McCoys and aired it on Sunday nights at 9PM in the East, opposite the NBC-TV, powerhouse western, Bonanza. It was cancelled at the end of that television season. Fans of the show enjoyed years of reruns on the networks and in syndication.
Richardo Montalban , the suave, courtly, leading man, who stared in Aaron Spelling's,late 1970's, ABC-TV series, Fantasy Island, has died at age 88 in Southern California. He was born in Mexico, and brought to Hollywood by MGM studios, in 1946, to star opposite movie "mermaid" Esther Williams in lavish, musical films, like Neptune's Daughter. Montalban had a long and respected film career.He was also a mainstay of network television for decades, guest starring on drama, comedy, talk and variety shows.Here is a clip of Fantasy Island from the MINISODE network site on You Tube. Enjoy!!!!!
For many, late 1970's television viewers , Ricardo Montalban will also be remembered as the driving presence behind the advertising campaign for the Chrysler Cordoba.Enjoy!!!!
On British television's Kafka-esque, cult classic, The Prisoner, Patrick McGoohan's resourceful, defiant detainee, Number Six ,fought the law and the law won.
When Sir Lew Grade's ITV exported the series, viewers around the globe were transfixed by the weekly struggle to subjugate the pride and the power of a independent mind. In the end, Number Six triumphed over the evil that sought to enslave him.
From California, comes word that Patrick McGoohan, the Emmy-winning actor who brought The Prisoner to life for global audiences, has died.
McGoohan passed away Tuesday in Los Angeles after a short illness, his son-in-law, film producer Cleve Landsberg, said.
McGoohan won two Emmys for his work on the Peter Falk detective drama "Columbo," and more recently appeared as King Edward Longshanks in the 1995 Mel Gibson film "Braveheart."
But he was most famous as the character known only as Number Six in "The Prisoner," a sci-fi tinged 1960s British series in which a former spy is held captive in a small enclave known only as The Village, where a mysterious authority named Number One constantly prevents his escape.
McGoohan came up with the concept and wrote and directed several episodes of the show, which has kept a devoted following in the United States and Europe for four decades.
He had first come to international attention as the star of two British television series that were played around the globe: The syndicated Danger Man and it's sequel, the CBS-TV hit, Secret Agent.
Patrick McGoohan was 80 .
Here is a rare clip from a 1977 talk show in which McGoohan looks back at the Prisoner;
I can't imagine anyplace where the creation of comedy is taken more seriously than at Chicago's Second City, the epicenter of smart improvisational satire and the fabled crucible in which generations of performers from Mike Nichols to Tina Fey forged their astonishing theatrical skills.
In the late 1970's Bernard Sahlins, the driving force behind Second City, wanted to bring the comic sensabilities of the respected improv troupe to television. His creative team felt the best way to conquer television was to satirize the medium, itself.
Armed with private investment dollars and a commitment from a Canadian television company for 13 episodes, Sahlins hired Second City players Joe Flaherty, Harold Ramis, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara , John Candy and later, Rick Moranis to perform, write and produce the weekly saga of an impoverished , amoral local TV station, SCTV.
Eminating from ramshackle studios in the fictional hamlet of Mellonville,and managed by con-man extraordinare Guy Caballero, SCTV showcased the craven misfits who ran the place, the low-rent programs it carried, and the vapid folly of contemporary, network television, circa the late 1970's. The comedy was brilliant, the satire was tinged with acid ,the audience fell in love with the lunatic roster of characters, and with the protean performers who gave them voice, face and form, each week. Canadian viewers loved SCTV.
The NBC owned and operated stations saw the show as the perfect, late fringe companion to its wildly sucessful Saturday Night Live. They bought SCTV for American television. The show, whch ran at 1am in the East, attained cult status with younger audiences, the respect of professionals and,to this day, is still one of the funniest shows ever comitted to videotape.
Here is an early clip featuring Rick Moranis.Enjoy!!!!!
One of the most respected and successful alumni of Second City's training center is Tina Fey, executive producer and star of NBC-TV's, award winning 30 ROCK. Below, she reflects on SCTV, the series, and on the tools and talents she was able to cultivate as a young improvisor on the Second City stage in Chicago, in this clip from a CBC-TV documentary celebrating the ground breaking, theater troupe. Enjoy!!!!!!
How many great comedians harbor a secret dream of dramatic acting? From Milton Berle to Bill Murray and from Robin Williams to Adam Sandler we've watched as jesters aspire to play kings, and some have done it with great success.
In the 1950's , when network television produced a seemingly boundless array of live, dramatic programs, there was ample opportunity for an accomplished comedy star to take on a tragic role. It was beneficial for all involved. The comedian got a star turn in a serious production and the show got to capitalize on the formidable presence of a comic legend.
Below are two rare clips that, in my opinion, make the point.
From CBS-TV's respected series, Westinghouse Studio One, the voluble Jackie Gleason stars as Jerry Giles, a self-destructive, self- centered, nightclub comic who is determined to achieve stardom at any cost, in the LIVE, 1954 production of The Laughmaker, which features his Honeymooners co-star Art Carney in a world weary, supporting role. Enjoy!!!!!!
On the other end of the spectrum, there is Jerry Lewis starring in the LIVE, 1959, Lincoln-Mercury Star Time, revival of The Jazz Singer on NBC-TV . It's the sentimental morality play, about a young, Jewish performer coming to grips with the disappointment he dealt his father , a Cantor, by choosing a musical career over service to God and family. It was the role originated by Al Jolson in the 1927 Warner Bros. production that ushered in the age of talking films. Here, the premise is updated to feature comic-icon, Lewis as a modern day, nightclub entertainer and adds musical performance to the dramatic mix. Enjoy!!!!!!.
In the halcyon, happy days of late-1950's America, the economy was slightly sluggish. So, GM decided it was time to put middle class consumers behind the wheel of an automobile designed and priced for upper class drivers, the Cadillac.
But, how could car buyers who lived paycheck to paycheck afford to make the aspirational advance to a Fleetwood or Coupe De Ville ? By purchasing a "quality value, late model,used Cadillac."
The clip below, showing a 1957 GM,television commercial, was one of the first instances in which Detroit auto makers and Madison Avenue ad agencies used television to play on a consumer's upscale dreams as an upsell, marketing tactic. Enjoy!!!!
However, if , in 1957, your stock portfolio is stable, containing several shares of AT&T, Pan Am,GM,DuPont and that new company which makes those electronic brains they use for launching missles at Cape Canaveral, I.B.M. ... you've just purchased one of those RCA Hi-Fi systems ... you've just come home from Brooks Bros. with one of those new "sack suits" ... and your membership application at the Merion Club is approved ... you are one of the select few who really should buy a new Cadillac. Here is a live commercial heralding the arrival of the 1957 Cadillac and featuring a Fall fashion show. Enjoy !!!!!
As Delaware's Senior, U.S. Senator Joe Biden ( D ), is about to take office with President-Elect Barack Obama ( D ) , as Vice-President of the United States, here is a grainy, look back at the first day he came to represent the First State on capitol hill as Senator-Elect and the emotionally charged day he was sworn in to the office.
The light-hearted story, pegged on the circumstances created by Biden's youth, is from the ABC Evening News with Harry Reasoner on November 21, 1972, and is reported by Bob Clark.
The next, sobering clip is from NBC Nightly News with John Chancellor on January 5th, 1973.
In the weeks following his election and before taking the oath of office , Joe Biden's wife and daughter died in a tragic automobile accident. His two sons were hospitalized in Wilmington Delaware . He stayed with his children and could not be sworn in with the rest of the incoming class of legislators on capitol hill.
Here, he takes the oath and addresses reporters at the hospital in Delaware, with his recovering sons at his side.
In the 1960's and the 1970's, the opening credits to a television program were a hallmark and a trademark for the show that followed. The produced titles were a detailed,textured,introductory gambit designed to recruit and retain audience, while offering an instant primer on the premise , locale and protagonists of the series.
Today, the opening titles of a series are viewed by many programmers as an obstacle to audience flow, so they may be bold, but brief.
In the late 1990's NBC-TV even toyed with eliminating the traditonal, opening titles and the closing credits.Post-show credits, in recent years have become, as we all know, more like subliminal text messages flying by on your screen.
Here are just a few memorable opening sequences:
IRONSIDE starring Raymond Burr - NBC-TV Circa 1967 - Titles by Universal and Music by Quincy Jones.
HAWAII FIVE-O starring Jack Lord- Pilot Film :"COCOON "- CBS-TV CIRCA 1968 - Titles by Reza S.Badiyi and music by Morton Stevens
MANNIX starring Mike Connors - CBS-TV Circa 1967 - Titles by Desilu and Music by Lalo Schifrin
THE AVENGERS starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg - ABC-TV Circa 1967 -Titles by Associated British Corporation and Music by Laurie Johnson
Desi Arnaz (1917-1986)was the creative and fiscal genius behind I LOVE LUCY and so many of the programs produced by Desilu Productions, the company he formed with his wife, Lucille Ball, and of which he was president, for so many years. His innovations in the production of film targeted specifically for television became practice and protocol in an industry he helped create.
In 1967, long after having divorced Lucy and having divested himself of financial interest in Desilu ( which had been purchased by Paramount's then parent company, Gulf & Western Industries), Arnaz sold a fast and funny sitcom to NBC-TV, entitled The Mothers in Law.
Airing Sunday nights at 8:30pm eastern time, the format was welcome and familiar to those who loved Lucy. The show chronicled the comic misadventures of two women trying to fulfill their own dreams for their newlywed children, and to do it behind the backs of their straight-arrow husbands.
This time the female protagonists were the droll Eve Arden and the demonstrative Kaye Ballard. They were not Lucy and Ethel, but they were pretty close. Over the years in prime time on the peacock network, their husbands were played by charcater actors Herbert Rudley and Roger C. Carmel, who was later replaced by the versatile Richard Deacon. Jerry Fogel and Deborah Walley were the objects of their collective affection, their newly married children.
The series, which ran only two seasons, was jammed by NBC-TV programmers between Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color and Bonanza. It faced-off against CBS-TV's hit, variety program, The Ed Sullivan Show and The F.B.I. on ABC-TV. There was little chance to create audience flow for a stand-alone sitcom.
For Arnaz, the Mothers In Law represented a homecoming of sorts, since it was produced in front of a live audience on the Desilu Lot, with many key members of his original,Desilu staff working on the show, including the prolific writing team of Madelyn Pugh Davis and Bob Carroll,JR.
Despite acclaimed talent on stage and accomplished professionals behind the cameras,a high energy musical score, contemporary wardrobe, opulent sets and lavish,living color production values, the show was cancelled at the end of the 1968-1969 television season.
With only about 52 episodes available, the show never succeeded in long term syndication.It was the last network series that Arnaz developed and produced. He continued to perform and is seen as a guest star in the episode posted below.
Arnaz did star in a back-door pilot film, which aired as an episode of NBC-TV's Ironside starring Raymond Burr , in 1974. He played a wise, wily ,crime solving physician named Dr.Juan Domingo.Sadly, Universal's Dr. Domingo starring Desi Arnaz did not sell. Enjoy!!!!!
In the mid and late 1960’s , secret agents saved the world, preserved democracy, neutralized super-villains, employed hi-tech gadgets, made passionate love , drank, smoked, traveled the globe and did it all in 58 minutes, without wrinkling their bespoke clothing. It was really no secret, because they did it all in living color on network television. Blame Bond, James Bond for igniting the public fascination with the risk, romance and rewards of the “double O” lifestyle. TV could take the hint. Bond author, Sir Ian Flemming, was engaged to create the lead character, Napoleon Solo, for NBC-TV’s, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. with Robert Vaughn. For the first time in television history, producer Sheldon Leonard took viewers on location around the globe in each episode of NBC-TV’s I SPY, starring Bill Cosby and Robert Culp. In Great Britain, Sir Lew Grade exported his ITV series, Danger Man, with Patrick McGoohan, to CBS-TV. Simply changing the title of the show to SECRET AGENT, so that it matched the driving theme song performed by American rock star Johnny Rivers, helped make it a hit on two continents. Spies were now on the case and on the network schedules. Private eyes were consigned to afternoon syndication on the hometown UHF stations, while suave, secret agents were achieving their primacy in prime time. ABC-TV’S It Takes A Thief, produced by Universal Television and debuting in 1968, was the apotheosis of cool. It starred matinee idol Robert Wagner in his first television series. He played cat burglar-turned-U.S.intelligence agent Alexander Mundy. Sophisticated and worldly, Mundy abhorred violence,was a practing womanizer, viewed himslf as a professional thief, and was a master of disguise. He was a reluctant hero who always rose to the challenge, even if he tried to work the system to his advantage along the way. The series has a sexist quality that is a pretty clear reflection of some prevailing social attitudes in 1960's America.That said, Munday's character was often challenged by smart and authoritiative women when trying to save the day. Here is a rare promo for the series and the opening credits for season three, which are an intricate throwback to a time when the opening sequence for a television series made a powerful statement about the show that followed. Jazz great Dave Grusin wrote the score. Enjoy!!!!!
In the early 1960’s, detectives and private eyes of almost every kind walked their beats and patrolled the streets from Hollywood to Harlem on American Television. It was the age of the square-jawed, snap-brimmed, snub-nosed, crime fighter with a conscience. Some were on the networks, some were in syndication, but each had their own unique trademark (or gimmick, if you prefer :) We saw the rise of the sophisticated, smart shamus that radiated a sense of “cool.” On NBC-TV , when not saving film-noir damsels in danger, Kennedy-esque Peter Gunn was a regular at Mother’s Jazz joint. At ABC-TV, they built on the success of 77 Sunset Strip, about a pair of tinseltown, hipster private eyes to bring Burke’s Law to television. Produced by the legendary Aaron Spelling, the series was fun, fast- paced and set the standard for later Spelling series, like The Love Boat and Fantasy Island, by offering a long and eclectic mix of guest stars, each week. Amos Burke, the two-fisted,meticulously tailored, millionaire playboy who headed the Hollywood homicide unit, was played with breezy irony by Gene Barry. He would toss off one liners and offer worldly advice to the rookie detective ,played by Tim Conway and then commiserate with the veteran sergeant played by Regis Toomey, all from the back seat of his chauffeur driven Rolls Royce. By the end of the hour, he solved the case, vanquished the villain and returned to the arms of a beautiful woman. The brassy, mod-ish theme , written by Herschel Burke Gilbert featured a unique innovation in American television: a female announcer, who introduced each episode by saying, "IT'S BURKE'S LAW!!," in a near orgasmic tone.The plots were formulaic, but the guest stars ranging from Paul Lynde, as a murderous medic to a pre-Bewitched, Elizabeth Montgomery made it interesting. Enjoy!!!!!
As America now stands on the verge of the digital, television transition, enjoy this filmic flashback to 1952.It's a presentation made by RCA and its subsidiary, the NBC-TV network, which was designed to help the prospective audience prepare to enjoy the new television stations that were signing on in towns large and small , across America. You'll notice that the wide-ranging film, which feels like a fall preview for NBC, is hosted by the engaging and erudite Dave Garroway, the first host of the durable today show. Enjoy!!!!!!
SID CAESAR MAY HAVE BEEN TELEVISION'S FIRST, TRUE ,VIDEO VIRTUOSO.A BROADWAY AND VARIETY STAR WHO HONED HIS HIGH VOLTAGE PERFORMANCE SKILLS AS A YOUNG MAN IN THE RESORTS OF NEW YORK STATE'S CATSKILL MOUNTAINS,CAESAR STARRED IN ONE OF THE INFANT MEDIUM'S MOST DARING PRODUCTIONS, THE ADMIRAL BROADWAY REVIEW , A 90 MINUTE VARIETY SHOW WHICH WAS SIMULCAST IN 1949 ON THE NBC AND DUMONT TELEVISION NETWORKS. THE SHOW WAS SO SUCCESSFUL THAT THE SPONSOR, ADMIRAL CORPORATION, A TELEVISION AND RADIO MANUFACTURER, CANCELLED THE PROGRAM BECAUSE IT COULDN'T KEEP UP WITH THE DEMAND FOR NEW TV SETS CREATED BY PROGRAM. SOON AFTER, NBC , AT THE HAND OF UBER-PROGRAMMER SYLVESTER "PAT" WEAVER, TEAMED THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED CAESAR, WHO HAD STUDIED SAXOPHONE AT JULLIARD BEFORE LAUNCHING A CAREER IN COMEDY,WITH VERSATILE AND VIBRANT CO-STARS IMOGENE COCO,CARL REINER AND HOWARD MORRIS ON YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS. MOUNTED LIKE A NEW BROADWAY REVUE , EACH WEEK, WITH SATIRICAL, COMIC SKETCHES, SPRAWLING PRODUCTION NUMBERS AND TOP GUEST STARS,YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS WAS AIRED ON NBC-TV, LIVE FOR 90 MINUTES EVERY SATURDAY NIGHT, AND IS BELIEVED TO BE A PROGENITOR OF SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. THE CLIPS BELOW DISPLAY THE MANIFOLD TALENTS OF CAESAR'S CO-STARS, HIS LEGENDARY WRITING STAFF ( WHICH INCLUDED MEL BROOKS, NEIL SIMON AND LARRY GELBART) AND HIS OWN COMEDIC BRILLIANCE. THE FIRST SKETCH IS CALLED THE GERMAN GENERAL AND IT HAS A GREAT SUPRISE ENDING.THE SECOND CLIP IS FROM CAESAR'S WORLD , A 1956 NBC-TV SERIES THAT CAESAR HOSTED AFTER YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS LEFT THE NETWORK. HE RETAINED MOST OF HIS WRITING STAFF , CARL REINER , HOWARD MORRIS AND WAS JOINED BY A NEW FEMALE , CO-STAR, THE MULTI-TALENTED NANETTE FABRAY. HERE, THEY PANTOMIME A DOMESTIC DISAGREEMENT TO BEETHOVEN'S FIFTH SYMPHONY.ENJOY !!!!!
IN FALL OF 1954, THE STEVE ALLEN SHOW, WHICH HAD AIRED IN LATE NIGHT, LOCALLY, ON NEW YORK'S WNBC-TV (THEN WNBT-TV) FOR ABOUT A YEAR, DEBUTED ON THE NBC TELEVISION NETWORK AS NBC'S TONIGHT, STARRING STEVE ALLEN.HE WAS A TRUE VIDEO INNOVATOR, WHOSE WORK INSPIRED CARSON,LETTERMAN,LENO AND O'BRIEN,BY THEIR OWN ADMISSION. HE AD-LIBED HIS OPENING MONOLOGUE AND MUCH OF THE MATERIAL IN THE NINETY MINUTES THAT WOULD AIR LIVE,EACH NIGHT, FIVE NIGHTS A WEEK. FOR A WHILE HE HOSTED TONIGHT AND A SUNDAY NIGHT, NBC VARIETY SHOW. IN 1956 HE LEFT TONIGHT TO HOST THE SUNDAY VARIETY SHOW AND TO MAKE FILMS, LIKE UNIVERSAL'S BENNY GOODMAN STORY. BORN ON 12/21/21, HE WENT ON TO HOST SEVERAL TALK AND VARIETY PROGRAMS, APPEAR IN FILMS AND TELEVISION SERIES,AUTHOR MANY BOOKS AND WRITE HUNDREDS OF ORIGINAL SONGS BEFORE HE PASSED AWAY IN 2000. HIS MOTHER WAS VAUDEVILLE COMEDY STAR, BELLE MONTROSE, WITH WHOM HE PERFORMS, BELOW,IN THIS RARE CLIP ,FROM HIS 1959 NBC-TV VARIETY BELOW. ENJOY!!!
JUST AS THE FORMAT FOR THE ORIGINAL, BRITISH VERSION OF THE OFFICE WAS PURCHASED AND RE-PRODUCED FOR THE AMERICAN TELEVISION AUDIENCE, FRENCH TELEVISION HAS ITS OWN COMIC, OFFICE CLONE.HERE ARE CLIPS OF THE HIT COMEDY, WHICH IS DRIER THAN ANY ALSACE RIESLING,AS IT IS SEEN BY FRENCH TELEVISION VIEWERS. EVEN IF YOU ARE NO FRANCOPHONE, JUST WATCH AND YOU WILL RECOGNIZE SOME OF THE FUNNIEST MOMENTS FROM THE PILOT EPISODE.
WHEN CBS-TV WAS PREPARING TO LAUNCH IRWIN ALLEN'S HIGH BUDGET, HIGH CONCEPT PRODUCTION OF LOST IN SPACE, AN INTERGALLACTIC REDUX OF SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON, IN THE 1965-66 TELEVISION SEASON, THIS PROMOTIONAL AND SALES PIECE WAS PRODUCED TO IGNITE THE INTEREST OF A SELECT AUDIENCE: NETWORK AFFILIATES , NATIONAL SPONSORS AND ADVERTISING AGENCIES.
IN 1956, MASTER STORY TELLER, PERFORMER, WRITER, DIRECTOR ORSON WELLES PRODUCED A 30 MINUTE, TELEVISION PILOT FILM IN ASSOCATION WITH LUCILLE BALL AND DESI ARNAZ'S COMPANY,DESILU PRODUCTIONS. THE RESULTING SERIES , HAD IT BEEN SOLD TO A NETWORK , WAS INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN A SOPHISTICATED, WEEKLY ANTHOLOGY , WITH THE CELEBRATED AUTEUR HOSTING AND PRODUCING A STYLISH MIX OF DRAMA AND COMEDY,SEEN THOUGH HIS UNIQUE, CINEMATIC PRISM. THE NETWORKS REJECTED IT , SAYING IT WAS TOO NUANCED FOR THE MASS AUDIENCE, AND PERHAPS, THEY WERE ALSO CONCERNED WITH HIS REPUTATION FOR SLOW, METICULOUS WORK , PUNCTUATED WITH JET SET JAUNTS TO PARTY IN EXOTIC LOCALES AROUND THE GLOBE. THE FASCINATING PROGRAM POSTED, HERE, IS A DARKLY FUNNY AND TELLING CONFECTION ABOUT A VERY DANGEROUS ROMANTIC TRIANGLE: THE VOLATILE MIX OF SCIENCE, LOVE AND ENVY. "ORSON WELLES PRESENTS THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH," SAT IN THE VAULT AT DESILU, UNSOLD, UNTIL THE SUMMER OF 1958. THAT'S WHEN NBC-TV RAN IT AS A ONE TIME, SPECIAL EDITION OF THE COLGATE THEATER.THAT YEAR, THE SHOW WON THE COVETED GEORGE FOSTER PEABODY AWARD FOR ITS INNOVATIVE STORY TELLING TECHNIQUES.WHILE WELLES MADE MANY GUEST APPEARANCES ON TALK AND VARIETY PROGRAMS, OFTEN DOING HIS MAGIC ACT,I CAN FIND NO RECORD OF HIS EVER HAVING WRITTEN , PRODUCED OR DIRECTED A TELEVISION SHOW,AGAIN. ENJOY !!!!!!
HERE ARE THE TWO GREATEST, POPULAR SINGERS OF THEIR GENERATION , TOGETHER FOR AN ABC-TV, HOLIDAY SPECIAL, AIRING IN THE MID-1950'S. THE PROGRAM,PRODUCED BY SINATRA AND SAID TO HAVE BEEN SHOT ON COLOR FILM, AIRED IN BLACK AND WHITE.THE MASTER WAS RECENTLY RESTORED. IT'S A TOTAL 1950'S VISION OF THE AFFLUENT, BEVERLY HILLS LIFESTYLE :) ENJOY!!!!!
COMEDIAN GEORGE CARLIN WAS A STAPLE ON TELEVISION TALK AND VARIETY SHOWS OF THE 1960'S AND 1970'S,LONG BEFORE ENTERING HIS BOHEMIAN-HIPPIE PHASE. HERE , A STRAIGHT-LACED,TV SANITIZED,CARLIN DOES A MONOLOGUE ABOUT DAYTIME TELEVISION ON ED SULLIVAN'S, SUNDAY NIGHT, CBS-TV SHOW.ENJOY!!!!!
BEFORE THE FAB FOUR HIT IT BIG IN AMERICA AND PRIOR TO ACHIEVING GLOBAL STATUS AS MUSICAL ICONS, THE BEATLES MADE MULTIPLE APPEARANCES ON THE BBC'S READY STEADY GO! THE PROGRAM,AIRED LIVE, WAS A ROCK AND ROLL DANCE PARTY THAT , IN RETROSPECT , BECAME ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANTC COMPONENTS OF 1960'S POP CULTURE IN THE UK. ENJOY!!!!!!
IN THE EARLY 1960'S. JUST AS VIDEOTAPE TECHNOLOGY WAS STARTING TO COME WITHIN FINANCIAL REACH FOR LOCAL TELEVISION STATIONS, KTTV-TV ( CHANNEL 11) IN LOS ANGELES PRODUCED THIS INVENTIVE ( FOR ITS TIME), COMPREHENSIVE PRESENTATION REEL TO ENCOURAGE SPONSORS AND PROGRAM PRODUCERS TO CREATE CONTENT WITH "TELEVISION TAPE." IT REFLECTS THE STATE OF TELEVISION PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES IN THE EARLY 1960'S AND SOME OF THE SOCIAL MORES OF THE TIME. ENJOY!!!!!!
My name is Paul Gluck ( aka PAGEONE ) and while I have been working in Television for over 30 years, I have watched Television for my entire life.From the very first, monochrome images of Dave Garroway on the TODAY SHOW that I saw flickering across the screen of my parents 21",blond wood, Zenith console TV, to the vibrant video of SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL blazing across the LCD flat panel in my living room, I have always loved television. I have worked as a production assistant,a writer, an assignment editor, a producer,an executive producer, an executive editor,a news director and a station manager. My fascination with the medium , the programs we create and the people who produce that content, grows with each & every day. KINESCOPE HD is a site dedicated to classic television, creative content production and vintage performances on video. I hope you share my love of television.If you do, share your thoughts on the programs we post.Enjoy!!!!!
