Unknown Production History Of ‘You Bet Your Life’…
On October 6, 2014
- TV History
Unknown Production History Of ‘You Bet Your Life’…
Did you know this was the first television show to be filmed before a live audience? Me either till I read pages 31 and 32 of this August 1952, Television Magazine story.
It’s written by Isidore Lindenbaum who owned Film Craft Productions, the studio that filmed the NBC series for it’s entire run from 1950 till 1960. This is very interesting and even discloses that they used 8 35mm cameras on the show, 4 for the first half hour and 4 for the second half hour. And yes, they shot an hour of film to get a half hour show. I think you’ll also find the sound synchronization process interesting too. There’s a lot of great information here so take a look and share it! -Bobby Ellerbee
You Bet Your Life: four pair of cameras, one pair on a single of Groucho, one pair on the master shot, one pair on a two-shot of the contestants (or was it a three-shot with Groucho?), and one pair on singles of one or the other contestant.
Bob Barker talks about T or C: http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/shows/truth-or-consequences#
I’ve heard Bob Barker talk about T or C several times. He describes how it was done live on NBC at like 7 am Pacific time, airing at 10 am Eastern time. I’m not sure if the west coast saw a kinescope or a repeat performance. It was done from the “Hollywood Palace” theater at Yucca and Vine, across the street from where the Capitol Records building is now, the same theater used by Ralph Edwards for This Is Your Life. As we all know, This Is Your Life HAD to be live. In addition, T or C aired Monday through Friday and there would not have been enough time to edit film. At the same time, John Guedel was producing a show which was also filmed by Lindenbaum’s FilmCraft: People Are Funny. It was a weekly show done on film with multiple cameras before a studio audience, Being a weekly show there was a week to edit the film. I think people have gotten their audience-participation shows and packagers mixed up over the years, with T or C being live Monday through Friday and People Are Funny and You Bet Your Life airing weekly and produced on film.
Donald Sinex: did you see You Bet Your Life at the NBC studios at Sunset & Vine in Hollywood?
I Love Lucy was filmed in front of a live audience in 1951.
His sidekick George Fenemen hosted the first home film show called ” funny funny films” on which I was the youngest participant in 1959. My Dad forced me to mangle his name. Never recovered the embarrassment.
‘You Bet Your Life’ is correct as it was shown everywhere on film. ToC was seen live on the west coast and film in the east and midwest.
I heard years ago that ‘You Bet Your Life’ was shot on film from the start as NBC was terrified at what Groucho might say on the air live.
Some great reading about the history of our business. The Help Wanted ads were a bit slanted towards men, but that’s understandable for that era.
Actually this was fairly well known already. Groucho’s grandson is the one that gets the credit for answering Groucho’s phone and saving what was left of the films of the show which by then was just 16mm but 5000 reels of it! http://boingboing.net/2013/03/12/the-day-my-grandfather-groucho.html
I noticed on the syndicated package, they “fogged out” the Desoto advertisement and The NBC logo on the ribbon mic
Bobby, thanks so much for that link. I love learning about early television history, and I’m looking forward to checking out the mags in that link. 10 years ago, I wrote a history/recollection of central Indiana television for my Historic Columbus Indiana website (What Columbus Indiana Watched On TV). I had a blast learning about that part of our history. Thanks for all you do here. Love your page!
This contestant was so funny, he even made Groucho laugh.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0mucg6nN_g
Hmmm. I think the article may be incorrect. Truth or Consequences was filmed before a live audience and it launched in September of 1950 according to imDb. That’s a month before You Bet Your Life went on TV, according to Wikipedia. (Great article!)
Fascinating article. Thank you for bringing it to my attention!
I’m wondering how they deployed those eight 35mm film cameras. It wasn’t entirely clear to me from the article.
Unless they had some sort of special, massive film magazines, one camera could not shoot for 30 minutes straight. In those days, a typical 35mm film magazine would hold about 10 minutes of film.
So, did they have four cameras shooting simultaneously and then switch to four other, standby cameras when they needed to reload magazines? The article seems to suggest that when it says, “stand-by cameras must be ready for quick change-over while reloads are made.”
Intriguing!
And, you’re right, the part about sound sync is also interesting. What a headache that must have been–until they developed some sort of proprietary system to deal with it!