Forgotten Gem! Steve Martin’s “The Great Flydini” Sketch…CLASSIC!

That “wild and crazy guy”, Steve Martin, has done so much great work, for so long, it’s easy to have missed some of his sketches. Even though I am a big fan, I had not seen this till recently. This is one of the best pieces of comedy I’ve ever seen, and I hope you’ll enjoy this as much as I do. -Bobby Ellerbee

http://www.thebeamreport.com

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My Show…”Squidbillies” Season 10 Debuts Tonight!

For those of you that don’t know, I am the voice of The Sheriff on the “Squidbillies” which has been the top rated show on Adult Swim since we started in 2006. (FYI: at night, Cartoon Network becomes Adult Swim).

It is rare for my character to not be in an episode, but tonight, Sheriff and I will be at my house watching the wild, and crazy shenanigans the New York Times attributes to us, with great pride.

It’ll be fun night in Dougal County, Georgia ya’ll. Congratulations to all my fellow voice mates, our producers, artists and sound engineers on 10 great years, and thanks for inviting me on this trip!
-Bobby Ellerbee

‘Squidbillies’ Is Still Blazing a Caustic, Backwoods Trail

The Adult Swim series returns for a 10th season, and lipstick will never be the same, while “Duck Dynasty,” on A&E, lacks spontaneity.

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July 10, 1950…The Original, TV Music Countdown Show Debuts

“Your Hit Parade” was television’s first ever Top Ten type music show, and radio’s too. It started on the NBC Red Network on April 20, 1935 and ran there till 1955. The television version started on NBC on this day in 1950 and ran there till ’58 when it went to CBS for a year.

In the great photo below, we see one of the show’s biggest stars, Dorothy Collins singing before the cameras at NBC’s Ziegfeld Theater, in color. The show started July 10, 1950 in NBC’s brand new Studio 6A which was converted from radio to TV on May 29, 1950.

The show needed more floor space for the 10 song scene sets, and the next year it moved to NBC’s brand new 8H which was converted to television on January 30, 1950. The show was done in color occasionally from The Colonial Theater, but went all color in 1956 when it moved to Perry Como’s new home at the Ziegfeld Theater. As a side note, the 4 RCA TK41s at the Zeigfeld were sent to Studio 8H when that beacame the “Peacock Studio” in 1963.

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TeleTales: “Film At 11″… WPIX Coined The Phrase In 1948

“First on the scene. First on the screen”. That was the motto for NYC’s newest television station, WPIX, which went on the air June 15, 1948. It was owned by the New York Daily News, which was famous for their pictures, thus the name PIX, and the video arm was just as determined to be a leader in their film and visuals.

At the time, WCBS, WNBT and WABD all ran their newscasts in the early evenings, and all signed off before 11 PM. In order to add some extra time for viewers to catch the news, and (aha!) have their set tuned to WPIX the next day, when it was turned on, they ran their WPIX Telepix Newsreel program at 7:30 PM and again at 11 PM.

Two days later, a United DC 6 passenger plane went down in Mt. Carmel PA. The NYDN had a plane, and WPIX film cameras went along to get the first footage and pictures for the late edition of the paper, and the 11 o’clock newscast.

That evening, June 17, 1948, WPIX announcers reminded the viewing public that soon, they would see the first images of the incident, and ended each mention with “film at 11”. This also added punch to the fact the WPIX was Channel 11.

For years, WPIX was the only NYC station to run an 11 o’clock news cast, and was the first TV station in the US to do this. There can be no doubt that “film at 11” was born then and there. Below is the NYDN front page from sign on day. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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Mystery Photo Reveals…THE FIRST WNBC TV Was NOT In New York!?!

Believe it or not, there was another WNBC TV, before there was WNBC New York!

Yesterday, our friend Barry Mitchell sent this to me and I was as bewildered as he was, so I started digging. How could these famous call letters be on the side of this TK11 with a Channel 30 designation? WNBC New York is Channel 4.

Well, as it turns out, before NBC’s flagship station took the WNBC calls in 1960, the network bought its first, and only UHF station in New Britain, Connecticut and named it…WNBC. Who knew?

That was 1956, and at the time New York was WRCA (’54-’60), and of course, had started as WNBT (’41-’54). Today, that first WNBC TV is WVIT, but when NBC bought it, it was WKNB, which went on the air in 1954 on UHF Channel 30.

UFH was barely receivable back then, but with RCA as a maker of all things television, I suppose they bought it more to play with and test than anything else, but it was not a very successful venture. NBC was out by 1959, and fortunately, took these glorious calls with them and plugged them in the next year in the Big Apple.

I had no idea this had ever happened, and you never know where opportunities to find out these kind of things will pop up. If you have some mystery photos like this, share them with us and let’s see what we can find out. Below is a link to more on the WVIT history. Thanks Barry! Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WVIT

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July 5, 1982…”NBC News Overnight” Debuts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFTw6LFuclE Video 1
#t=37″ target=”_blank”>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKBMuyZFmhQ #t=37 Video 2
Many have called this “the best written, best executed news program ever produced”. I agree…I watched it every night. Before I get too far along, at the first link above, Linda Ellerbee talks about Overnight in the same style that endeared her to so many. The second video is the last few minutes on the air and the full 60+ staff and crew credits with video of all of them! You may see some familiar faces!

‘NBC News Overnight’, a live one-hour news program, aired from 1:30 till 2:30 AM for about seventeen months starting on July 5, 1982. Its debut coincided with a lunar eclipse, and despite science reporter Robert Bizel’s disappearance during the live broadcast (he went for some coffee), it was a success from the first night.

It never talked down to its viewers because, from day one, it never assumed that the lowest common denominator was the way to go. Entirely the opposite, in fact. The writing was crisp, witty, and smart. Overnight closed its doors in the first week of December 1983, after NBC management dropped it because of low ratings.

The first co-anchors, co-writers, and co-editors for Overnight were Linda Ellerbee and Lloyd Dobyns, who had, a few years previously, co-written and co-hosted Weekend, an offbeat weekly magazine for NBC.

After about six months of helping to shape Overnight, Dobyns left to do other work for NBC. Bill Schechner ably took his place as co-anchor and co-writer until ‘Overnight’ went off the air.

Overnight featured literary quotations, subtitled reports from overseas news programs for a new perspective, the best features (or sometimes just the silliest) from local affiliates, and a whole grab bag of things never before seen on national news programs. As Bill Schechner said on the final program, it proved that there is more than one way to deliver and to receive the news. Overnight must have been puzzling to some, though, because it had an unexpected mix of both seriousness about important issues and irreverence for nonsense.

As with any live broadcast, goofs occurred from time to time on the program. However, the anchors always made the best of it. They would chuckle instead of becoming mortified and simply corrected their mistakes, often injecting a bit of humor. Ellerbee once said this on the program after one such mistake:

“Live TV is a great time saver. It allows you to make a fool of yourself in front of large groups of people instead of one at a time.”
Shortly after Dobyns left, an NBC News executive suggested to Ellerbee that she take Lloyd’s seat now that she was the senior anchor. Ellerbee said she felt no need for that, but agreed to give it a try. Some nights later, she returned to her old spot. During that broadcast, she explained, after showing a tape of her position changes:

“Lately, you may have noticed a bit of musical chairs being played on this program. But in three nights, I have spilled three cups of coffee because the coffee was where it should be, but I was not. So I have moved back. And if the executives don’t like it, they may jolly well come and do the show and spill their own coffee.”

A year and a half after its birth, NBC decided to cancel Overnight in November 1983, due to low late night ratings and corresponding lack of ad revenue. In the following days and weeks, thousands of viewers (ten thousand, to be exact) called and wrote letters or telegrams of protest to NBC management. Some even sent checks and cash to defray the costs of producing the program (all the money was returned).

NBC’s news release on the program’s cancellation said the program remained “the model of a one-hour news program,” but it was being canceled because “being the best is not enough”. And so it goes!

By the way, Linda is a distant cousin of mine through marriage. Even if she wasn’t related, I would still think she’s still one of the best and most unique in the business! Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

See the full interview at http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/linda-ellerbee

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Remembering Noel Neill…Superman’s Lois Lane Is Gone

Actress Noel Neill, the First Lois Lane of the Screen, Dies at 95

She starred as the intrepid Daily Planet newspaper reporter in 1948 and ’50 movie serials and in TV’s ‘Adventures of Superman.’

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“Legend Has It”…The Fence Between Networks At Super Bowl 1

Many of us have heard about the fence that had to be built between the CBS and NBC crews covering this event, but finally, here is the only photo proof that it happened.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1986-01-26/sports/8601070170_1_nbc-sports-pat-summerall-super-bowl
From the Chicago Tribune, here is the story as it was reported back in the day. FYI, CBS crews covered the game action, and used Norelco PC70s, which NBC carried, in the first and last simulcast of a Super Bowl. At the time NBC was near the start of their use of PC70s on their sports trucks too. Enjoy! -Bobby Ellerbee

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A Rare Two Headed Monster…MGM’s Over/Under Studio Crane

With motion picture studios all cranking at full tilt in the late 1930s, innovation at every level was part of the game. With so many Berkley and Ziegfeld type production numbers in vogue, this is actually a pretty clever approach to getting twin perspectives on a single tracking shot. Thought you may enjoy seeing this curiosity. -Bobby Ellerbee

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Commercial Television’s 75th Anniversary…Friday, July 1, 2016

To set the stage for this week’s anniversary, I’ll lay out some pictures and share some little known stories about how broadcasters got ready for the move from experimental to commercial television. At the time, it was a big commitment to the new media, and involved a lot more than just changing call letters.

Two of the major obligations were in the money and staff area, as the legal commitment to the FCC required a promise to carry at least 15 hours of programing each week, and a fully tweaked upgrade to the 525 line resolution format, and many more newly adopted NTSC transmission guidelines, including audio via FM.

Although 10 new licenses were granted, the first two were for New York City stations operated by NBC and CBS.

New York actually had three stations, but Dumont’s experimental station W2XYV (that in 1944 became WABD), opted out on the first round siting technical and programing challenges. Money was probably also an issue for them then.

On June 24, 1941, NBC’s W2XBS and CBS’s W2XAB were granted permission to change to WNBT and WCBW, to become effective on July 1. Both were granted simultaneous sign on permission too, so that neither could lay claim to being the nation’s first commercial television station, but you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men.

1:30 was the stipulated sign on time that day, but CBS was an hour late coming to air and I’ve heard that it was the film camera chain that was the problem. With that in mind, today, we’ll take a look into the early days of CBS Studios 41 & 42 at Grand Central Terminal.

The photo below shows what I think is Studio 41 control room around 1942. Notice the two black square holes in the wall at the top of the photo. Those are the film port windows and hanging from the ceiling to their right is a track mounted RCA Iconoscope camera that slides into place over the ports to capture the film projected from the other side of the wall. I think that was the chain with the problem.

The man in the center is CBS legend Worthington Minor who was “Mr. Drama”, creator and director of “Studio 1” and an overseer of most CBS anthology shows. To his left is the assistant director and the audio man. To his right is what we now call at technical director and on this end, the video man. Thanks to Tom Buckley for his help. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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June 24, 1963…NBC Studio 8H Goes Color

NBC Studio 8H become “The Peacock Studio” on this day in ’63 when it began broadcasting in color. There is a lot of interesting detail in the NBC Press Release, but one thing they left out was…the four RCA TK41s installed in 8H actually came from The Ziegfeld Theater.

The color equipment was all new when NBC opened The Ziegfeld for “The Perry Como Show” in September of 1956. Around ’61 though, Como’s show became “The Kraft Music Hall” and moved to Brooklyn. Until they moved out in 1963, NBC used the Ziegfield for colorcasts of other shows like “Tic Tac Dough”, the primetime version of “Concentration”, and even the Emmy Awards shows in ’59 and ’61. Enjoy and Share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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