Eyes Of A Generation…On Tour…One Week From Today
Eyes Of A Generation…On Tour…One Week From Today
Next Sunday morning, I’ll get a top to bottom tour of NBC. My tour guides will be Dennis Degan of ‘Today’ and Joel Spector, who began with NBC in 1965. Joel is still the chief audio engineer on the ‘Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade’ and has been doing the show for around twenty five years. Although he “retired” a few years back while working on SNL, he gets called in frequently to work shows like the ‘NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams’.
Accompanying me will be my tour guide from Thursday and Friday at CBS, Gady Reinhold, who’s been with CBS since 1966. Who better to show you the CBS Broadcast Center and Studio 50?
Joel and Gady were neighbors, and both loved television. As teenagers, they made it their mission to visit all the shows and studios in the 50s. Both are walking encyclopedias, but add Dennis to the mix, and this will be one of the most interesting tours anyone could ever imagine, much less have the experience of taking.
Since my first interest in television at around age 11, 30 Rockefeller Plaza has been my “somewhere over the rainbow”. My first friend in network television was Mrs. Kathryn S. Cole. She was head of the NBC Viewer Relations Department. Starting in 1961, I would write to her once a month and ask for pictures of the studio and she never disappointed me!
Thick packs of 8×10 glossy’s would appear in my mail box, inside the blue grey envelope with the NBC snake logo on the outside. I was ecstatic and would pour over them for hours on end. I think the last time I wrote to Mrs. Cole was around 1965.
I wish I still had ALL of what she sent, but below are three of about a dozen photos I still have and cherish. On the left is a photo that will be familiar to anyone who’s ever visited the main web site at http://www.eyesofageneration.com/home.php
That’s Perry Como at The Ziegfeld Theater in 1962. In the middle is John Davidson and Bert Lahr, taping “The Fantastics” for ‘The Hallmark Hall Of Fame’, which was done at the Brooklyn studios in 1964. On the right is a rehearsal photo from a 1963 ‘Andy Williams Show’ at NBC Burbank.
I know your site primarily shows vintage cameras & studios, but I would love to see some of the old switchers from time to time.
Do an audio audio recording if you can.
That’s gonna be a hell of a tour. I’ve been privileged to have a few behind-the-scenes tours at 30 Rock courtesy of Jim Starzynski, who I know from my days as a student at Brookdale Community College where he was a learning assistant. He went on to work through the ranks to eventually become Director, Advanced Engineering & Principal Audio Engineer at NBC Universal.
Bobby, you’ve assembled a “Dream Team” for the tour. I’m looking forward to your posts after your visit!
Mister C!!!
Bobby, it is a privilege to read your posts every day. One can see the love that you have for your craft and profession and I so enjoy the history of American television. We in South Africa are new comers to television, when finally got television in 1975. First cameras were Bosch Fernsehs and RCA cameras. The largest OB units were 4 cam units. Today, the company I work for has 20 cameras on the truck and a further six can be wired in (the newest truck that arrived this month). We are all HD and use the Sony 950s and Canon lenses.