The Original Amateur Hour With Ted Mack: Part 2
The Original Amateur Hour With Ted Mack: Part 2
Like many other shows that moved from radio to TV, this one was a continuation of ‘Major Bowes Amateur Hour’ which had been a radio staple from 1934 to 1945. Major Edward Bowes, the originator of the program and its master of ceremonies, left the show in 1945 and died the following year. He was ultimately succeeded by Ted Mack, when the show was brought into television in 1948.
Despite the program’s title, it was generally only a half-hour show, the only exception to this rule being from March 1956 to June 1957 on ABC, when it was expanded to an hour. The format was almost always the same. At the beginning of the show, the talent’s order of appearance was determined by spinning a wheel. After it was announced how many episodes the current one marked (the final broadcast on CBS being the 1,651st), the wheel was spun. As the wheel spun, the words “Round and round she goes, and where she stops nobody knows” were always intoned. From the late 1950s forward, the wheel was gone. The photo below was taken during a quick rehearsal at the Adelphi Theater and is courtesy of Albert Fisher…the shows longtime producer.
While Bowes hosted, he was assisted by a young girl named Belle Silverman, known by her nickname of “Bubbles”…she became opera star Beverly Sills.
Is that an iconascope (sp) camera? Is that the viewfinder on the side of it? Are all the lights because the cameras were not very sensitive?
Iconoscope tube cameras where very inefficient. After more sensitive tubes came as as the Image Orticon and others. The final use of Iconoscope hardware was in film & slide chains where they could blast enough light to the tube. The last one I saw (film chain) in use was at WSUN channel 38 on the St. Pete Pier in the 1960’s.
I’m fascinated by the lighting… Were they all photo floods? It must have been like working under a thousand heat lamps. I wonder why they didn’t use film or theater lamps? Was color temperature a factor?