A Story Of TV History Treasure…LOST

For a year and a half, on what was then WRCA, Bill Cullen hosted a local (New York) fifteen minute television show called “Inside NBC”. Here is a description of just a few of the shows. It would be fantastic to see all of this backstage stuff, BUT…sadly, as far as I know, all of this is gone. If you know more, please tell us.

Monday, December 12, 1955 [DEBUT] Bill Cullen hosts this 15-minute program which spotlights NBC’s personnel, history, features, and entertainment. NBC cameras pick up rehearsals in progress, previewing shows to appear the same evening or later that week.

Monday, December 19, 1955 Viewers see a “Playwrights 56” rehearsal in action. Bill Cullen interviews producer Fred Coe, director Arthur Penn, and stars Kim Stanley and Louis Jean Heydt.

Friday, December 23, 1955 Bill Cullen visits David Aiken as he is made up for his role in Sunday’s “Alcoa Hour” production of “Amahl and the Night Visitors”. The cameras also pick up a rehearsal of “Babes in Toyland” to be seen on Max Liebman Presents.

Monday, December 26, 1955 Bill Cullen tours the “Home” show studios. Guest: Dick Linkroum, Home’s exec. producer.

Friday, December 30, 1955 Bill Cullen’s guest, Mary Martin, discusses the forthcoming “Peter Pan”.

Friday, January 6, 1956 The operation of the NBC news department is explained through interviews and films. The cameras pick up a rehearsal Ken Banghart’s news program.

Monday, January 9, 1956 Bill Cullen visits NBC’s special effects dept. to show how fog, rain, snow, etc. are made for TV.

Friday, January 13, 1956 Les Colodny, director of NBC’s comedy development program, explains and tells of plans for ’56. He introduces an act by some new talent.

Monday, January 23, 1956 Tex Antoine explains the preparation of his weather programs. Bill Cullen interviews Henry Salomon, producer of Circle Theater’s “Nightmare” in Red, to be repeated tomorrow evening.

Friday, January 27, 1956 Bill Cullen takes viewers behind the scenes of radio’s “Monitor”. Guest will be Gene Rayburn.
Monday, January 30, 1956 The NBC Technical Operations Department demonstrates the transmission of a TV picture from coast to coast. Cameras pick up a rehearsal of Milton Berle’s show from Hollywood.

Friday, February 3, 1956 Host Bill Cullen and Maurice Evans discuss this Sunday’s “Hallmark Hall of Fame” production of “The Good Fairy”, starring Julie Harris. Chet Huntley of the NBC News Department previews “Outlook”, a news program which debuts this Sunday. Special guest: J. Fred Muggs.

Monday, February 6, 1956 Bill Cullen visits Sid Caesar at his office and studios.

Friday, February 10, 1956 Bill Cullen reviews the first NBC telecast, April 30, 1939. This was the NBC special events pickup of the opening of the World’s Fair at Flushing Meadows.

Monday, February 27, 1956 The cameras switch to Hollywood to pick up a rehearsal of Tuesday’s Matinee Theater production, “A Tall Dark Stranger”. Its star, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and host John Conte are guests. Bill Cullen, in New York, does a feature on the early days of NBC news coverage.

Friday, March 2, 1956 The cameras switch to the RCA Hall of Progress in Camden, N.J., which holds electronics equipment developed during the past century. Bill Cullen hosts.

Monday, March 5, 1956 Guest: Stockton Hellfrich of NBC’s Continuity Acceptance Dept. Bill Cullen shows “The Martha Raye Show” in rehearsal, via film.

Friday, March 9, 1956 Host Bill Cullen highlights NBC’s coverage of the Presidential campaign. He also interviews Laurence Olivier.

Monday, March 12, 1956 Ike Kleinerman, film editor of Wednesday’s “Project 20″ production, explains how the film was procured and edited.

Friday, March 16, 1956 Host Bill Cullen discusses the presentation of the TV “Emmy Awards” show.

Monday, April 16, 1956 Bill Cullen conducts a remote program with WRCA-TV’s new mobile unit.

Monday, May 7, 1956 Host Bill Cullen and his special guest, Lee Ann Meriwether, conduct a quiz show. Contestants are the five finalists of the “Miss NBC” contest.

Friday, May 18, 1956 Bill Cullen is host to Thomas B. McFadden, general manager of WRCA-TV and Ray Owen from the reporting staff of WRCA’s Pulse. Owens discusses Pulse’s technique for covering news.

That is a pretty amazing trove of treasure…and only a small sample of the “Inside NBC” shows Cullen hosted. I think these are all gone but hope someone knows if they survive. – Bobby Ellerbee

Below, Eddie Cantor hosting “The Colgate Comedy Hour”.

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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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TeleTales #266…TV Golf In The 1950s

With The Master’s fresh on our minds, here is a look at how CBS covered a match in Palm Springs in 1956…with very long lenses.

This is an extended Zoomar Field Lens on an RCA TK11/31. The studio version was the TK11, and the field version was the TK31; the only real difference between the two control chains is that the field version’s power supply required less voltage. The camera heads were the same.

Notice the operator is using a rod through the camera for zoom and focus. For zoom in close, you pushed the rod in, and pulled it out for a zoom out to a wide shot. For focus, you turned the rod left or right. Many of the pro cameramen carried their zoom rod with them in a hard case, because working with a bent rod (no pun intended) made the zoom and focus jumpy and ragged.

The camera is mounted on one of the coolest mobile peds ever, the Baughman Spider pedestal. -Bobby Ellerbee

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Stunning Animation Technique Brings Antique Photographs To Life….

Like so much of the new software advances in animation, I don’t know how this is done, but this is pure magic. Take a look and keep the sound up. Thanks to “Tonight” show cameraman Rich Carter for sharing this. -Bobby Ellerbee

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A New DANGER To Credibility And News? Yes…This Is Scary!

Without as much real news, from real journalists these days, it is already hard enough to know what the truth is, but now…the anti has been UPPED!

Although the original software was developed several years ago for CGI facial animation in motion pictures, now, several inexpensive versions of this kind of software are available to the public. With this, and a good sound-alike voice actor, you can make anybody, say anything, and it would look and sound like it was real. Here is how it is done. The technical part is in the last half. What are your thoughts on this? -Bobby Ellerbee

CVPR 2016 Paper Video (Oral) Project Page: http://www.graphics.stanford.edu/~niessner/thies2016face.html IMPORTANT NOTE: This demo video is purely research-f…

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“That Thing You Do”… The Secret Gene Pitney Connection

For a number of reasons, this is one of my favorite movies, but did you know that “Mr. Downtown”, and the fictional character that sings it, Freddie Fredrickson, is based on Gene Pitney and his “Town Without Pity”?

Hear; Gene Pitney “Town Without Pity”…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7BRraVMZzc

Hear; Freddy Fredrickson’s “Mr. Downtown”…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqzkWSz1Onk

By the way, the Norelco cameras were all from History For Hire, LA’s top prop shop for cameras. There are lipstick cameras under the lenses, and LCD displays in the viewfinder hole. -Bobby Ellerbee

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ULTRA RARE! New, Unseen Early RCA Color Trials Photos

These first 2 images are from the personal collection of long time NBC Washington TD Bill Wells, who was there from 1947, until his retirement in the mid ’70s. I have added 3 others to help support what we are seeing in the Wells photos, and there is text on each.

RCA began live camera development for its simultaneous color television system as early as 1946-47 at the Wardman Park Hotel in Washington DC. At least three finished studio cameras of this type were built by the Television Research Group of RCA Laboratories, and two were installed there. The third one may have been kept in Camden, and later used in mobile trials.

The cameras were used for the demonstrations of the RCA Dot-Sequential Color Television System to the F.C.C. during the color television hearings in 1949 through 1950. After the FCC rejection of the RCA Dot Sequential Color System, further color camera development responsibility was transferred from RCA Laboratories, to the RCA Engineering Products Department (Broadcast Equipment Group) in Camden. Studio development activity was moved from Washington to the RCA building in New York City.

These cameras did not go to Studio 3H at 30 Rock…they stayed in Camden. The second generation of color cameras went to 3H, and those “coffin cameras” looked a lot like what would be the third of four generations of experimental color cameras, the TK40 prototypes, used at The Colonial Theater. The fourth generation was the RCA TK40 released for use in April of 1954. In early 1955, the RCA TK41 was put into service and also had four generations, the TK41, TK41A, TK41B and TK41C.

Thanks to Tom Buckley, custodian of Mr. Wells’ collection, we are able to see these rare images of the men that were part of this early color history, and these are the first of many more yet to come. In today’s next post, ultra rare color photos of the 1954 NBC Color Caravan, and also today, a primer on the color camera generations! Enjoy! -Bobby Ellerbee

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Marilyn Monroe….’Person To Person’ April 8, 1955

http://youtu.be/L05TYBXwU3A?t=4m12s
At the clip above, we start with photographer Milton Green walking through the living room we see in the photos. While he’s walking toward the kitchen where Marilyn is waiting, he is talking live with Edward R. Murrow via the new Shur “Vagabond” wireless microphone.

The Vagabond was the first broadcast quality wireless mic and you can see Marilyn holding the unit in her hand before the CBS technician helps her put hide it under her clothes.

In the second photo, we see another rare sight. As she poses with the “Person To Person” crew, there are two new RCA TK11/31s behind them. The rarity is the striped banding around the top. Usually, this was only done with the TK10 and TK30.

In case you don’t know, the banding is actually a very clever grayscale camera chart. Early on, the settings on the black and white cameras tended to drift and some “on the fly” adjustments were needed, but that required a test pattern or grayscale chart. As a quick fix, the CBS NY engineering department came up with these grey and white alternating bands and put them on all their cameras so that all you had to do for a quick alignment was shoot the camera next to you.

This worked well on the TK10s and TK30s because they didn’t have handles like the TK11/31. With the handles in the way, the shot was blocked and effectiveness of this arrangement was diminished. When the new TK11s arrived, they put the banding on but after a few months, stopped adding it, so only a few of the new TK11s were banded and actually, with the new updates onboard, drifting was not as much of a problem as it had been with the older TK10s and 30s. – Bobby Ellerbee

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SNL Classic! Behind The Scenes Of “The Continental” Sketches

Whenever Christopher Walken hosts SNL, he does a recurring character…”The Continental” which is always shot from the woman’s Point Of View by a hand held camera.

Here is “The Continental” sketch from February 22, 2003. This special video shows us what the studio audience is seeing as well as the home audience by way of a box insert. I think the cameraman is Michael Bennett, and Wally Feresten is the Q card man. Enjoy! -Bobby Ellerbee

The Making Of S*N*L’s “The Continental” – enjoy!

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The Masters Of Stage Craft Magic…IATSE Local 1, New York City

Before videotape came along in 1956, live television was very dependent on skilled stage hands to move scenery in and out during the broadcasts of everything from comedies like “Your Show Of Shows” to dramatic anthologies like “The Kraft Playhouse”, and all the rest.

Videotape brought in “time shifting”, and once it became widely used at the networks, a lot of stage hands lost their jobs, because now, game shows for instance could be set up, a weeks worth of shows taped, and the set struck in just one day. Before this, each set had to be set and struck for every show, which was of course live.

When production started to move from New York to Los Angeles, east coast people were struck by the difference between how the stage crews worked on each coast. In New York, stage crews usually had Broadway experience, and sets were flown in and out and moved quickly.

In LA, the stage crews had motion picture experience and were used to a slower pace, because they always did their work between takes.

When CBS produced a second live performance of “Cinderella” in color in 1965 at Televison City, it cost twice as much as the original, live color presentation in 1957 at their Studio 72 in NYC. The cost difference was mostly due to the speed of the New York stage hands. -Bobby Ellerbee

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A Fuller History Of NBC Television News…

After posting today’s first story on CBS’s Douglas Edwards, as television’s first live, daily network anchor, I mentioned – but barely scratched the surface, on NBC’s part in this deeper history, so, here is a more detailed account.

The most widely celebrated dates in NBC news history are February 16, 1948 and February 16, 1949. In ’48 “The NBC Television Newsreel” debuted as a 10 minute weekday newsreel which was narrated off camera by John Cameron Swayze.

The next year, Swayze moved in front of the camera and that began “The News Caravan” as a live news show. CBS had put Douglas Edwards on camera May 3, 1948.

BUT…this was not the start of news at NBC. In fact, almost immediately after their first regular TV service began April 30, 1939, news had begun to be reported on W2XBS (WNBT).

Newscaster Lowell Thomas had occasionally simulcast his NBC Radio show locally from Studio 3H as early as December 1939 and from February till July of 1940, he regularly simulcast his “Sunoco News” show to New York viewers.

There was also the weekly “Esso Television Reporter” from March until May of 1940 hosted by William Spargrove, who narrated off camera. The Esso program used live organ music and on camera was a mix of newswire photos, maps and graphic miniature depictions of news event locations.

From July of 1941 till May of 1942, Sam Cuff hosted a weekly news commentary called “Face The War”, but the show ended as RCA and NBC cut television operations down to next to nothing five months after Pearl Harbor.

On February 23, 1944, things started to stir a bit as “The War As It Happens” came to television, and NBC News has been on the air more-or-less continuously since then.

“The War As It Happens” began as a local program, but NBC records indicate that in April of 1944, it was fed to Schenectady and Philadelphia on the fledgling NBC Television Network and became the first news cast regularly seen in multiple cities.

At the time, even the great NBC Radio news department was tiny compared to the wire services and newspapers and newsreels. Television was even less able to gather news because they didn’t even have local film crews. The first breakthrough came in 1944 when John Royal, the first head of television at NBC, acquired the rights to Army Signal Corps film.

Using this footage, “The War As It Happens” followed what was basically a newsreel format, using the film with Paul Alley narrating and Ray Forrest in the studio with commentary, maps and wire photos.

In August 1945, the war was over and the Sunday “The War As It Happens” newscast was renamed “The NBC Television Newsreel”.
In mid 1946, it gained a sponsor and became “The Esso Newsreel” and was rescheduled to two nights a week, Monday and Thursday.

On February 16, 1948 Esso bowed out and a new sponsor came to the show which became “The Camel Newsreel Theater”. The next year, it went live with Swayze on camera, but surprisingly there are reports of background music throughout the broadcast until the early 1950s. That was a remnant of the old newsreel shows.

Swayze’s live nightly news was initially called “News Caravan”, as Camel had not immediately followed along in its sponsorship, but a few months in, they came back and the show became “The Camel News Caravan”.

In 1956, Swayze was replaced by Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. I think you know the rest of the story. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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