April 15, 1946 & 1955…Big Days For Dumont, Gleason And Lewis

This is a two part story, of two April 15th news making days for Dumont; one in 1946, the other in 1955.

Part 1, The Glory Days: This big photo was taken April 15, 1946 and shows the inaugural broadcast from the new Dumont studio at Wanamaker’s department store in Manhattan. The telecast was fed to Dumont’s W3XWT (WTTG) in Washington for broadcast there, and in Washington, some FCC officials making congratulatory comments were fed back to New York and viewed by the audience here.

Before this, Dumont’s limited local broadcasts on it’s WABD, had come from a small experimental studio at their 515 Madison Avenue headquarters,

Part 2, A Dying Breath Brought New Life To Video Assist: In the very last days in operation as a network, Dumont introduced the Electronicam.

By late ’54 the handwriting was on the wall…in February of 1955, Dumont executives realized the company could not continue as a television network. It was decided to shut down network operations and operate WABD and WTTG as independents. On April 1, 1955, most of DuMont’s entertainment programs were dropped.

April 15, 1955, nine years to the day after opening their studio at Wanamaker’s Department Store, the company introduced the 35 and 16mm versions of the Dumont Electronicam. The hope was that this new video and film production tool would help save the company, and after all, the end result was much better than the kinescope.

In September of ’55, Jackie Gleason began production of the new half hour “The Honeymooners” show for CBS. It was shot at Dumont’s Adelphi Theatre on 54th Street, with three 35mm Electornicams.

On a visit with Gleason at The Adelphi in 1956, Jerry Lewis saw the Electronicam, and never forgot that.

’56 was the year he and Dean Martin split, and Lewis did a few solo movies for director Hal Wallis, but became involved in the production as well.

By ’60, Lewis was on his own and began writing, directing and starring in his own movies with Paramount as a partner. All the while the Electronicam process was on his mind, and by the early 60s, he had begun the process of developing a true video assist technology.

By ’66, he had created “Jerry’s Noisy Toy” which included instant video and audio tape playback capacity using an RCA vidicon cameras interlinked with Mitchell BNC cameras, and one inch Sony videotape. -Bobby Ellerbee

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