About six months ago, I met a character named Joe Maltz somehow. Turns out that in 1961, Joe was the Supervisor of Engineering Maintenance for ABC in New York and had a GREAT STORY to tell! In a nutshell, Joe was put in charge of developing a handheld camera that was better than the one the engineers at ABC Prospect in Los Angeles had just developed.
To set the stage and I need to add some history for perspective, broadcast history and ABC west coast and east coast history. First, the broadcast history; in 1950, NBC had built the first handheld camera, two years before RCA introduced their version (1952) and both were Vidicon cameras. By 1956, RCA had developed a wireless version of the camera and they were used at the political conventions that year and had once been used on the sidelines at a football game in New York state, but only that one time for some reason. FYI, CBS engineering head Dr Dan Flaherty was working with Ikegami on a handheld camera too and the first known used of it was in February of 1962 during the Mercury flights at NASA.
On the ABC Los Angeles history side: Roone Arledge had just been hired (1960) and his job was to get ABC more deeply involved in sports broadcasting, and HE DID! Inside the company, managers began trying to forecast what kind of new technology would be needed and at ABC Prospect in Los Angeles, an engineer named Don McCroskey had an idea. He wanted to build a handheld camera using a full-size Image Orthicon tube. As luck would have it, he had two retired GE PC 7 Image Orthicon cameras on the lot, and they were the sacrificial lambs that would supply the parts for two portable cameras. Aiding Don were engineers Dean Cannon, Bob Bleiwiess and Jerry Buchi who helped refine the camera.
Below is Jim Angel behind one of the GE cameras testing the tubes before they were wheeled into the Prospect lot’s engineering garage for surgery…they were having their yokes “transplanted”.
Below is ABC’s first handheld cameraman Mike Friedman, one of their TOP operators for years before this photo was made of him shooting Jim McKay for WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS. Mike went on to directing on WIDE WORLD.
Below is ABC’S first portable camera “demonstrated” by our great friend DON “PEACHES” LANGFORD, who, as a firsthand witness to this history, also contributed to this article. Oh, and the bald wig Don is wearing is a tribute to his boss, Mike Friedman, who sported the look many years before it was a “thing.”
Below is a 2016 photo of Don Langford with the camera he used in the mid 1960s at ABC, the one you see him with in the photo above. When the two cameras were retired in the 70s, ABC LA manager Robert Trachinger made sure they were not lost to history and these two are still in his care.
Below is one final photo of the Los Angeles version in use in 1963 at The University of Virgina.
NOW TO THE EAST COAST ABC HISTORY AND THE “ABC PRESS ORTH CAMERA” DEVELOPMENT. Below is a photo of that rarity.
When Joe Maltz began to tell me about this, he kept mentioning the “press orth” and I had no idea what he was talking about, so I finally asked him what a press orth was. To my surprise he said that was the name of the camera! TWO EVEN BIGGER SURPRISES came when I was on the phone with Don “Peaches” Langford in LA fact checking this article. 1st, When I told him about the press orth name, he said “Yeah, that’s what we called ours too, but we were first, and New York just added the city name to the Press Orth name.” 2nd, their first press orth in LA was cabled directly the carcass of one of the GE cameras, minus the viewfinder! That must have been an odd sight. There was 50 feet of cable between the new camera head (basically the GE’s yoke assembly) and the old camera head with 50 more feet of cable to the truck. On their second version, they managed a better workaround. Oh, and Peaches did know Joe Maltz as he had covered many events in NYC too. I love to be amazed!
Here is part of the story Joe Maltz told me:
The engineers at ABC’s Los Angeles operation had, in order to give the cameraman more maneuverability, created a small hand-held camera by separating the television pickup tube assembly from the bowels of a GE television camera, extended the cable harness, added an optical viewfinder and created what I believe was ABC’s first broadcast hand “hand-held” camera. The “Creepy-Peepie”, as it was dubbed, was tethered to the carcass of the camera by the cable harness.
There were two problems. The concept was great, but the quality left much to be desired. The second problem was, considering the rivalry between the ABC East Coast and West Coast operations, the “Creepy-Peepy” was an NIH (Not Invented Here) creation. The New York Operations Group was jealous. This situation had to be rectified.
During this period, I was the Supervisor of Engineering Maintenance in New York. I had the reputation of being an innovator. Merle Worster, the Director of Technical Operations for the East Coast, asked me if I could come up with New York alternative for the Creepy Peepy. I agreed and did some research as to what would be required for a suitable hand-held camera. The unit had to have the following features:
Light enough to be easily carried and operated by a single cameraman.
The camera cable had to be extended to at least 200 feet and had to be able to operate with a 200-foot cable
An electronic viewfinder would be required.
The operating controls had to be easily accessible.
The electronics would have to be compatible with the existing Camera Control Units.
After six weeks of design and construction, with the help of Harold Gordon and Bill Wagner, the camera, with all of the above features was used for the first time on an ABC Wide World of Sports television program. I dubbed the camera, the “New York Press Orth”.
I designed the NY version and Harrold Gordon built it. The electronic viewfinder was created from CRT tube from Philco Safari portable TV with tube facing front of camera with 2 bending mirrors for the eyepiece. Interior of both (2 units built in NYC) cameras were made of TK31 parts as many were smaller than the TK30 components. – Joe Maltz
Below are pictures Mr Maltz sent that show some of the features of the camera and showing it in action…this first image is at the Liston–Clay fight (Ali had not yet changed his name from Cassius Clay), on February25, 1964 in Miami Beach, Florida.
Here is the shoulder harness that became a real necessity as soon as the camera was tested.
And finally, this is the auxiliary unit for the ABC Press Orth camera.
Below is one of the NYC Press Orths in use at the 1964 Olympics in Innsbruck
We will see three different Iconoscope cameras here…the first three all electronic cameras made by RCA at their Camden N.J. labs. These images are from the David Sarnoff Library Collection and are quite rare these days.
The first we’ll see will be the prototype camera developed by Dr. Zworykin around 1932. The second is a more sophisticated model that RCA introduced in 1934 and the last camera is the “icon” of early cameras, the one some refer to as the A500, which was first used in RCA/NBC experimental Studio 3H at Rockefeller Plaza. I would like to suggest that from here on out, we all refer to those hard-bodied cameras as the Studio 3H Iconoscope cameras.
RCA ICONOSCOPE PROTOTYPE CAMERA
If you look closely at the bottom of the camera, notice the rubber feet…items that suggest this sits on ‘something’ and we’ll see that something a few images down.
Below is the first ever shot of an electronic RCA TV camera with it’s camera control unit
Below is the paragraph from the RCA Broadcast News article (you’ll soon see) which describes the camera and configuration above, which is the original image that was photographed for the magazine article by Dr. Zworykin.
Here is the ‘something’ the camera sits on and the camera we see above is on the left. The unit it is sitting on is basically ‘the control room’ with all the components neatly packed together on this convenient rolling rack, so it is also a ‘remote unit’ of sorts since they can take it from lab to lab to experiment. Up top, in front of the camera there seems to be an experiment in progress as the prototype is shooting into a microscope with a light source shooting from the other side of the microscope’s slide table. It would be interesting to see the result of this experiment, which is possibly being conducted to see if there is a medical use for the new apparatus.
Before we move to the second camera, here is the August 1933 edition of the RCA Broadcast News magazine I mentioned with an 8 page paper on the new Iconoscope Tube by Dr. Vladimir Zworykin. On pages 6 – 14 he describes the technology in detail and the image of the camera above is shown here on page 13 with it’s description on page 12.
THE FIRST RCA ICONOSCOPE CAMERAS
Above are two shots of the camera in testing at RCA’s Camden N.J. labs. Notice there is viewfinder on this model very similar to the kind you find on photographic cameras which is an optical viewfinder made of ground glass which captures the image from the lens.
Above left we see the interior in a nice clear shot and on the right a helpful labeling of the parts. We know the date of this camera because of the date on this photo from Dr. Zworykin’s photo albums that he kept at work to record events. This is RCA’s Lesley Florey in early tests to the camera in 1934 at Camden, but we think this was in use in 1933 too. Notice the tube is bubble shaped, but as resolution increased the tube became more drum like.
Below is a 1937 article that shows this same camera at Philadelphia experimental station W3XE which was owned by Philco. Philo Farnsworth was there in the mid 1930s, but competition was fierce and trade secrets were held close to the vest. Some former RCA engineers had come to work there in the early 1930s when RCA refused to sell any of their iconoscope tubes, and they began making their own tubes.
When RCA set up their experimental Studio 3H at Radio City in the spring of 1935, they had an all new camera design (which we’ll see next) and once 3H had been in operation for a while, Philco convinced RCA to sell them their bellows lens cameras (of which I believe there were two) to use in their W3XE station. Below is an article from 1937 that shows the RCA camera in use there. I included this image and info to help with any confusion with seeing the same camera at two different places.
Above we see the camera shooting a test pattern in Camden and below, a transmitted image of this pattern in 1933.
THE 1935 RCA STUDIO 3H ICONOSCOPE CAMERA
Above, the very first all electronic television studio…RCA Studio 3H at NBC’s 30 Rockefeller Plaza. In 1937, RCA transferred control of the studio to NBC Television, but until the mid 50s, there was usually some kind of testing going on in this space, along with programs originating here like Howdy Doody. As a matter of fact, when Howdy started December 27, 1947 the show was shot with these very cameras. Only after Studio 8G opened in June of ’48 did Studio 3H get three new RCA TK30 Image Orthicon cameras.
There were three of these hard bodied camera in Studio 3H and most of the time, at least one of the cameras was mounted on a Panoram dolly. In-fact the one shown here in the second image down may be a prototype as it has a nice wooden footrest/step up for the cameraman, the wheel base is longer and the rotating section is more centered in the chassis than the versions we see in the late ’40s and ’50s.
NOTICE AS WE GO! This is a “dating” trick of mine that gives me an idea when photos were taken. NOTICE on the photos above, there is a round RCA decal and below it is a square NBC decal, which are the original markings of these cameras. When you see that you know the photo was from about 1935 till 1937. After ’37, the round NBC decal was there and many times the second (or low viewfinder port) is sealed as in the image below.
Keep in mind, the camera bodies are the same three that were built in 1935…even the silver versions. All that changed was the internal workings and especially the Iconoscope tube’s resolution. These cameras started with 345 lines of resolution with their original dressing, then when they went to 441 lines, the camera art changed to the round NBC logo and the bottom viewfinder port was sealed. The silver on these cameras at NBC (and the ones they sold to CBS) occurred when the 525 line tubes came along on July 1, 1941.
The next image shows you the removeable lens plates that snap on and off for quick changes in the studio when a close up or wide shot is needed.
Here is the interior of the camera that shows you just how the optical (ground glass) viewfinder worked and where the tube was.
One of the big drawbacks to the optical viewfinder was the impossible upside down and backward image the cameraman had to deal with. To him, the voice command of left, meant right and up meant down!
In this image below, notice the 345 line Iconoscope tube is very bubble like which marks this as the original tube style in these cameras. If you are confused, these opened from the back and tilted up to get to the interior components.
Notice in the image below, the bottom viewfinder port is gone and the Iconoscope tube is now the very familiar drum shaped tube we think of as the “normal” shape for these instruments. This image may be from around 1939 and shows a 441 line resolution setup.
If you thought Felix The Cat camera models went out with mechanical television, think again! Here is a photo shot off the monitor in Studio 3H on February 5, 1937 showing how he looked with the new 441 lines of resolution.
Below, the final step as the camera bodies are painted silver to denote the upgrade in resolution to 525 lines of resolution and this is a good look at the 1850A style six inch iconoscope tube.
Here are our last images which show up top, a 1941 “Miss Legs” contest and below, an early necessity in Studio 3H…Miss Patience, a mannequin that acts as a stand in under the blistering light needed for the iconoscope.
I’ve just recently been able see these stunning in-house marketing photos that reveal some news about the first three sets of RCA’s compatible color prototype cameras. We now know the “name” of the first set of color compatible prototype cameras.
These are the Princeton Cameras. There were two of these and after being built in Princeton NJ at RCA Labs, they were sent to NBC’s Wardman Park Hotel studios in Washington DC where they were put through their paces for the FCC, members of congress and of course the engineers in Princeton that saw everything on a closed circuit feed, while still developing support equipment. The other two camera types we’ll see here are thethree Coffin Cameras and the four TK40 Prototype cameras.
If you look closely at the date in the photo label at the bottom right (top photo) notice that the photo is dated 1948, but the 8 is struck through to give us a date of 1947! Also, notice “additions” as we go and note that these first few images are most likely the first pictures as there are not any exhaust fans on top yet, AND…notice the big boxes that each camera is connected to. Chuck Pharis and I have come to the conclusion that these are what he calls an, “intermediate or auxiliary box”, which is just a place for components which were as of yet, unable to be included inside the camera head. As we go, you will see that at first there is a single cable from the camera to the box, but later these Princeton Cameras will have 3 cables to the box. The early DuMont cameras had these aux boxes too.
Below is Dr. Richard C Webb with his invention with the cowling off so we can see the optical system which uses what look like three 90mm lenses behind the dichroic mirrors. The preamps are on top, but notice the intermediate box underneath. You may have seen this image before, but this is the original uncropped image as you notice the crop marks for the smaller images.
The image below shows a bit of the inside with the rear door removed BUT, in the two images below, notice the cameraman seems to be gripping a rod (like a Zoomar rod) which now answers the question of just how focus was handled on this early model, which still depends on moving the camera in and out to achieve close ups as there is yet a zoom or turret lens system.
In the final two images (above) of the Princeton Cameras we see the final refinement that shows us a newly configured optical system box which is now in a separate enclosure with a cowl cover of it’s own. FYI, the smaller camera is the experimental Tri Color camera. Oh…and if you thought the viewfinder looked familiar, it is the same one RCA used for the TK10 and TK30 models.
The Three RCA Coffin Cameras were the immediate successors to the Princeton Cameras and were also built in Princeton. When the Princeton Cameras were retired, they went back to RCA Labs there where they were bench tested a lot but compatible color trials had moved onward and “upward”…from NBC’s Wardman Park studio to Studio 3H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. These black cameras were said to be big enough to be buried in so their nick name caught on…the Coffin Cameras.
Notice these cameras have the new turret mounted lenses and a side focus just like their black and white brothers, the TK10 and TK30. In the middle image is NBC Color Girl Marie McNamara in Studio 3H and at the bottom, is Nanette Fabre performing in the daily close circuit show that was shown to the engineers at 30 Rock, Princeton and in the RCA Exhibit Hall just across from NBC on 49th Street. These were in use for testing from about 1949 till 1952.
RCA TK40 PROTOTYPES
There were four of these cameras made and were used only at NBC’s first color studio at The Colonial Theater in New York which began testing in 1952. The hand of RCA’s top industrial designer John Vasos is evident in the now smooth lines of this classic look.
NBC’s 1938 vintage mobile units were retrofitted for color when Coffin Cameras were still in use and broadcast live from Palisades Park for one of the first color remote tests. One on the Colonial’s TK40 prototypes was also occasionally kidnapped for color field tests, and in 1954 when the Rose Parade was broadcast in color from Los Angeles, the new NBC Color Unit stopped by The Colonial to “borrow” all the cameras for a week.
The top two images show the TK40 prototypes with no vents on the viewfinder hood and that was the way ALL TK40s were made…all 28 of them, until the TK41 debuted in 1954. All except for one of the Colonial’s TK40s were retrofitted with vented VF covers as is seen in the final photo. Also, in that color image, notice the turrets on the two cameras on the right…those are salvaged from their Coffin Camera predecessors. I’ll bet the turret on Camera 3 (in the background) is glossy black too. -Bobby Ellerbee
January 13, 1957…Dinah And The Colonial Theater TK40 Cameras
The Colonial Theater was NBC’s first color facility. A few seconds after this video’s start point, the first camera we see is the TK40 in it’s original configuration…notice there are no vents on the viewfinder housing. The Colonial was the only NBC theater with TK40s and these are the original four pre production/prototype cameras that were delivered in November of 1952. Production in Camden would not start till April of 1954 with only 25 TK40s built before a quick switch to the TK41 later that year.
Once the crane camera comes into view, notice it has a vented viewfinder housing, but it is still a TK40. My long study of The Colonial’s cameras has always made me wonder why they left one TK40 with the original un-vented VF cover. RCA supplied the updated, vented cover to TK40 owners once the TK41s went into production in 1954.
Usually, Dinah’s show came from Burbank, but for some reason, they are in NY for a couple of weeks. Dinah’s one hour show ran on NBC from October of ’56 till May of ’63 and was always in color. Bob Banner was the producer. -Bobby Ellerbee
Just In From Associated Press…A Story About Yours Truly!
By Frazier Moore
Posted Dec 19, 2016 at 3:00 PM
WINDER, Ga. — What does Bobby Ellerbee see when he looks at his antique TV cameras? He sees a bit of what they’ve seen since the birth of television.
His cameras are now dormant, decommissioned from performing any on-air service. But those 15 cameras arranged in, fittingly, his family room in Winder, Georgia., have been cosmetically restored to mint condition and they teem with history.
Here’s his RCA model TK-10, his oldest, which hails from 1946. It is trimmed with a jaunty red stripe and name plates designating its long-ago owner: Chicago station WGN-TV.
“It’s one of the original eight cameras they bought when they put the station on the air,” Ellerbee says.
Nearby is his Mark VII, a color camera built by the Marconi company whose no-nonsense design belies its fanciful role in the early 1970s: It is one of six then owned by New York’s Tele-Tape Productions, where “Sesame Street” first came to life.
Ellerbee’s pride-and-joy is his half-century-old RCA TK-41C, a slightly modified version of the industry’s first widely used (and, for some years, only) color camera, which was introduced in 1953. It’s a silver beast, weighing in at more than 300 pounds but with a swept-back, streamlined profile.
“No other camera looks like that,” says Ellerbee.
One of only a couple hundred ever built, this behemoth saw duty at NBC’s Burbank, California, studios, home to “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” “Laugh-In” and dozens of other shows aired, per the network’s famous peacock, “in living color.”
In the current era of pocket-sized minicams available to anyone, this camera, which new cost more than $400,000 in today’s money, stands as a monument to TV’s early challenges and promise.
That promise enthralled Ellerbee, now 66 (and a distant cousin of TV journalist Linda Ellerbee), from a tender age.
As a child in the studio audience of “The Popeye Club,” a wildly popular 1950s kids’ show hosted by “Officer Don” Kennedy on Atlanta’s WSB-TV, young Bobby was as much captivated by the cameras (RCA black-and-white TK-30s, a model he owns one of today) as by encountering Officer Don in the flesh.
In high school he took a detour — radio announcing — from his planned path of becoming a TV director.
“I had to train myself,” he recalls in his seasoned baritone. “At first, I sounded pretty much like, ‘Hiiii, how y’allll?’ and I had a high voice. But I got it down. Smoking cigarettes and drinking liquor helped a lot.”
When he entered the University of Georgia, his career as a deejay was flowering on local Athens radio, and after college he landed jobs in Atlanta, Dallas, San Francisco and Miami, among other major markets, before forging a lucrative career as a commercial announcer.
More recently, he landed a dream gig voicing the Sheriff on the Adult Swim cartoon show “Squidbillies,” now in its 10th season.
“But I always had a thing about TV cameras,” he says, and from childhood he made it his mission to learn all about them, even sending off requests for product manuals from manufacturers like RCA, General Electric and Norelco.
“I always thought to myself, one of these days I’m gonna have a camera of my own,” he says.
That took a while.
“Being in radio, you have to move every few years and you can’t drag along a lot of stuff. But when I left Miami and came back to Georgia a dozen years ago, I thought, ‘It’s time to get a bigger place and get one television camera — at least.’”
Getting started was easier than he expected. He called an Atlanta TV station, asked for the chief engineer and left a message: “I’m looking for TV cameras. If you got any, call me.”
In a flash he was the owner of nine scrapped TK-44s and 45s (RCA color cameras from the late 1960s) that once were based at NBC Burbank before landing in a Peachtree Street junk bin.
His collection now totals more than two dozen, each a glorious totem of TV’s past.
It’s a past Ellerbee has curated with stories, photo archives and technical lore for his website, whose name — eyesofageneration.com — seems to him a no-brainer: “What’s another name for television cameras, in the broader sense? They were the eyes of a generation — us baby boomers, the first generation to grow up with TV.”
Though, strictly speaking, his cameras don’t work, they operate for Ellerbee exactly as he wants them to. They evoke warm memories of past eras they served and programs they beheld. His burly TK-41 speaks of countless nights when Johnny Carson laughed it up with Ed and Doc. His slick Norelco PC-60, emblazoned with “CBS COLOR,” sparks recollections of CBS’ variety shows of the 1960s and ’70s like those of Carol Burnett and the Smothers Brothers.
“The cameras are where it all starts,” says Ellerbee. “They’re kind of like a vortex, because they bring that whole outside world” — he makes a broad, gathering sweep with his arms — “to MY house.
“They have seen a lot of people up close and personal that I watched on TV,” he observes.
That, finally, is what his cameras mean to him.
“They’re like old friends, in a way,” he says. “We have something in common.”
STATE OF THE ART: The Studio Cameras…A Primer On Innovations
The best way to illustrate the current configurations of camera platforms is with this set of images from Conan O’Brien’s “Tonight” show, taken for us by Bruce Oldham, who was Camera 3 with Conan for many years. Below is a typical setup…a Canon DigiSuper studio lens and a Sony HDC 1500 camera, and some interesting mounting as we will explore in detail. Now is the time to look closely if you have never seen this kind of arrangement.
Above is what is now called a “studio buildup kit.” Below is a Sony HDC 1000, and it’s called a “hard body” camera. This is the configuration most of us are familiar with, as this is was the traditional design since there was such a thing as television.
The first departure from the norm came from RCA when they introduced the TK760, which in essence was a ‘hard body’ chassis with an RCA TK76 ENG (Electronic News Gathering) camera inside. The TK76, was their first shoulder mounted color portable, but with in the 760 configuration, the 76 gained a full size box lens and full size viewfinder.
Above, the RCA TK760 with and TK76 inside…below, the RCA TK76. Both cameras have a 1976 vintage.
If you haven’t quite caught on yet, this should do the trick. Do you notice the difference in the light and dark parts of the camera? Well, that’s because these are two unique elements. Below, you can see the sled’s back opened up to reveal a small ENG/EFP-size camera inside. In this case, the camera is a Sony HDC 1500.
Okay, here’s what is going on. Above is the Sony HDC 1500 (Hi-Definition Camera) and below is the Sony HDLA 1505. (HDLA means “Hi Definition Lens Adapter.”)
Ikegami has a slightly different version of its build-up kit, called a System Expander. Above is the Ikegami SE S500 in the studio. Below is yours truly behind an Ikegami HDK 79EX III with the SE S500 field configuration. Chuck Pharis took the picture at the University Of Georgia’s Sanford Stadium while I was visiting him at work the day before game day. Below that is the Ikegami HDK 790 EX III hard body camera.
Thomson did something like this in the 1990s and called it a “sled.” One each side, you can see their sled that started as an easy new way to move their big cameras without taking them apart, like the LDK 9. A few years later, Thomson had a better idea, and mounted an ENG camera in the sled as you can see on the right. The arrangement sidesteps the need for ‘hard body’ cameras and allows the small camera to be quickly and easily removed from the large lens adapter for maintenance and repair, or for use in the field or studio as a hand-held with quick addition of a smaller EFP-style lens. Call me old-fashioned, but I still like hard bodies.
Before we go further, let’s talk about ENG and EFP. ENG stands for “Electronic News Gathering” cameras.The term started with the RCA TK76 that debuted in 1976. EFP, which stands for “Electronic Field Production” cameras, is a new manufacturers designation for the same small cameras most of us still refer to as ENGs. I may be wrong, but I think the difference is mostly in the usage. ENG cameras are usually sound-equipped and are used in “stand alone” point-and-shoot, news-gathering situations. EFP cameras have no audio capabilities, are usually used in pairs or threes, and require setup time, cables and switchers.
Above and below are more interesting new technical developments. Above, we see a camera using the standard EFP-style camera lens instead of the large Canon box lens. Below is a great side-by-side comparison shot.
As mentioned above, the camera itself can be used in the studio with the large or small lens configurations. The small lens allows for quick use of the camera as a hand-held medium. In the-hand held mode, the camera’s eye piece viewfinder must be used. When mounted, one of several kinds of large viewfinders can be used with the Sony Large Viewfinder Adapter. This can be seen in the two images below. Upper image is the Sony HDLA1507US catalog image; the real thing is seen just below.
Closer looks at the EFP large viewfinder adapter’s use are above and below. With Sony, when the camera is seated in either the viewfinder adapter or larger lens adapter, the power and controls of the camera are partially transferred to the control panel on the back of the sled, as seen in the image below.
We’ll close with a couple of camera shots that show Bruce’s camera 3 (above) and the main interview set. Below, a full large lens adapter kit was in use next to Andy’s podium; to the right, the smaller EFP camera is naked. It’s just mounted on a light weight ped and ready to go hand-held instantly. Bruce’s camera was one of the three large lens cameras mounted on the new Vinten Quattro peds, and was equipped with a Canon 72X DigiSuper lens. It did guest close-ups at home base and other zones. The other two large lens cameras had Canon 27X DigiSuper lenses and were cameras 1 and 2. All together, there were nine cameras with eight operators in the studio. Cameras 4 and 6 were the combo hand-held and ped-mounted. Camera 5 was the jib, and 7 and 8 were robo-cams with one operator. There were also 2 Iconix lockoff lipstick cameras for audience shots.
A while back, my friend John Bolin came from California to see my camera collection. He brought along a few old Kodak shots of a camera he made as a boy of 13. No doubt it’s a TK30 mock up, complete with toilet paper rolls for lenses and Christmas tree lights for tally lights. You really have to marvel at the friction head and the viewfinder hood! Most excellent work, John! Unfortunately, we can’t see the pedestal, but it had a steering ring and wheels, just like the big boys’ version.
I made myself a camera at around age 10, and my dad even had one made for me for Christmas of 1961, when I would have been 11. It tilted up and down via a hinge in the pole that supported it, and unfortunately all it took was one good tilt forward and that was all she wrote, but it was the thought that counts. In conversations with many of you, I hear stories about the cameras many of you made, but like me, many of you drew them, too!
Below are more than a dozen really good pictures our friend Martin Perry drew as a kid. I swear, they look almost exactly like the pictures I used to draw. I started drawing them about age 10 and drew them until I was 15. Martin now runs Phillips Productions in Dallas, and owns a nice GE camera collection.
Boy, do I wish I could have one owned one of these three Marconi Mark IV cameras from WCNY-TV!
These three Mark IV cameras are very rare, and have a very interesting history. Here are a few shots of these historic cameras in action at WCNY, a PBS affiliate in Syracuse, NY circa 1969.
Believe it or not, these are the same cameras that first showed 73 million Americans The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show at 8 pm on February 9, 1964! And that’s just one of the thousands of legendary names whose images they captured.
Jackie Gleason also used these cameras in Studio 50, as you’ll see below. I don’t know how many Marconi cameras were used in the theater, but when RCA cameras were in use there, there were always at least five TK10s or TK11s – four on stage and one at audience level. I’m guessing there were at least four, maybe six, of the Marconis there.
These three cameras were donated to WCNY by CBS after Studio 50, also known as The Ed Sullivan Theater, was temporarily closed to prepare for color telecasting. The show moved to Television City in Hollywood for six weeks while the Norelco PC60s and new lighting were installed. The first colorcast from Studio 50 happened on my 15th birthday, Halloween night, 1965.
CBS was pretty consistent in donating its old equipment through the years. A lot of it wound up at colleges, educational stations and churches, including the Catholic Broadcast Center run by the Brooklyn archdiocese. That’s where my TD-1 pedestal was rescued from, thanks to “Cardinal” Paul Beck in Boston.
I have quite a soft spot for the Sullivan show and all things associated with it. I’d kill to have owned one of these cameras and would love to know if anyone has any idea where the WCNY Marconis wound up. I have been in contact with the station, but they have no recall. I am fortunate to have one artifact from the Ed Sullivan Theater though, and thank John Smith for giving me the backstage announce microphone he rescued during the Reeves Teletape years in the theater.
UPDATED March 3, 2023: Around 2010, I found a photo of an odd looking NBC camera in use in 1947. Not knowing what else to do, I passed around a picture to a group of what I consider REAL experts. There was a lot of discussion but finally Ed Reitan, who has the great Early Color Television site http://www.earlytelevision.org/Reitan/index.html came up with part of the answer and I have worked on developing the rest of a great back story and timeline and have found never before seen pictures, so here it is.
The reason they do not look very RCA, is because they were not built by RCA…they were being built by NBC engineers at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York beginning in late 1945! So now that we know WHAT they are, the next question that begs to be answered is WHY they are!
Well, if you think of RCA as the baker and NBC as the sandwich maker, the sandwich makers knew how hungry people were going to be for entertainment when the war was over, and that they would be coming for sandwiches is a big way. The problem was, most did not think the baker would be able to make bread fast enough. This is why the NBC New York engineers went ahead of RCA to get some hardware ready for what would happen, once World War II ended in 1945. RCA was projecting early ’47 as delivery dates on their new RCA TK10 and TK30 Image Orthicon cameras, but everybody else in TV thought that was a very optimistic date, given all the war shortages including white phosphorus needed for viewfinder and home receiver screens.
Remember…RCA was busy making radar and radio communications equipment for the U S armed forces and even when the war would come to an end, it would take many months or even a year or more to swing production back to the civilian needs. RCA did understand NBC’s point of view, which is why they gave them 4 of the new Image Orthicon tubes and the associated yokes and other equipment for their ND-8G cameras. Not only would it put them ahead with hardware, but getting the new parts into use would allow a longer runway for testing and trouble shooting before RCA went into mass production on their new TK series cameras.
In reality, NBC got 4 TK30s from RCA for the June 1946 Joe Lewis-Billy Conn fight and in October of ’46, the TK30 cameras were made available to broadcasters on a limited basis. At first, NBC had priority and got theirs first. Many of the new TK30s sold to non NBC affiliates came without viewfinders on delivery, until the white phosphorous shortage was overcome and back ordered viewfinders were delivered.
NBC built a lot of custom things for special uses inside the company and they cataloged their creations by giving them a New Development, or ND number. No one I’ve spoken to knows what this camera was actually called, or what its ND number was, but the reason I call it the NBC ND-8G is because the 4 cameras built were only used in NBC studio 8G in Radio City. That was the first large radio studio converted to use for TV because it was a 2 story studio and allowed room to add the light grids. Studio 3H was the first converted from radio to television in 1935 by RCA as the birthplace of experimental electronic television. Compared to 8G, it was only a third the size.
PART OF THIS REVISION IS TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT AND UPDATE THE TIME LINE OF THE CAMERA’S AND STUDIO’S USE. The article below from the July 1948 issue of RADIO AGE is the chief culprit in misreporting the timeline of the camera and the 8G studio history in places other than Eyes Of A Generation. It leaves people wondering why NBC would build these cameras in 1948, when RCA was supplying them with new TK10 and TK30 models as early as June of 1946!
THE PROBLEM…the author uses the official NBC studio dedication date of April 22, 1948 to base his assumptions on, BUT…radio studio 8G had been being used for television since at least May 9, 1946 when “Hour Glass” – television’s first variety show debuted, and NBC was building these cameras in late 1945.
Now, all of the information in the article is true in 1948, but it was not true in 1946 when radio studio 8G had been drafted into use as a television production “stage” too. Daily radio shows were done here, usually with audiences (folding seats) in the early part of the day, but later the lights and ND-8G cameras rolled on to the studio floor and it was TV time.
One of the best ways to show you what was going on is to present this video…HERE, WE SEE FILM SHOT IN NBC STUDIO 8G, OF TV’S FIRST VARIETY SHOW “HOUR GLASS”. This was television’s first non-scripted entertainment show, and the performers here are the acrobatic, dancing Costello Sisters in their mini costumes. So, now, you’ll be one of the few people to not only have seen this show, but also to know what the show is and who the dancers are.
Milton Berle and Phil Silvers mug for this very unusual looking camera. Notice the 2 viewfinders and the right handle that closely resembles the RCA TK40 and 41 handles that allows focus control. The reason for the dual viewfinders was to give the cameraman the ability to see the scene in the viewfinder, even if the camera was up high.
Below, “Uncle Miltie” goofs around in front of one of these cameras and IS looking into the taking lens.
From the front, notice that it does have a turret but only three lens positions. The man at the piano I think is Buddy Greco.
Here they are in use in the October 1948 presentation of the Philco Playhouse in Studio 8G. Notice the wall hanging in the picture above. A pretty clever way to get an otherwise impossible shot.
Studio 8G shots from the spring of 1948.
In the only known photo of its kind, here are all 4 of the NBC build cameras at work in Radio City’s Studio 8G…their permanent home. Two more were scheduled to be built and added here, but they never got here. There is a rumor that the four more of these were built and sent to NBC’s new Washington DC station, WNBW in mid 1947, but it is just that…a rumor.
After Studio 8G was equipped with RCA TK30 cameras and all new video switching gear, and officially converted to a television studio, these cameras found a new purpose at 1780 Broadway at The Television Workshop. There they became the cameras students learning television trained on. Below is a photo taken there in 1957.
Below I have collected more than twenty images of the fabled CBS Field Sequential Color cameras in action. Until their debut here, these images have not been seen like this before. Below, Ed Sullivan prepares for his part in the production that is documented in this one-day sequence of photos.
This page is mostly about the cameras and some history, but the full technical story, beautifully told and impeccably accurate, is available at Ed Reitan’s great site. http://www.earlytelevision.org/Reitan/index.html
Other parts of the Ed’s posts and research include the entire story and chronology on the great battle between CBS and its Field Sequential Color System and RCA’s Dot Sequential Color System, and how we morphed into the NTSC standard.
It should be quite obvious that these are retrofitted RCA TK10s, but I’ve just recently discovered the two images below. At top, we see a prototype of a different color camera configuration that possibly anticipates strong pushback from RCA on the CBS customization of its TK10 design. Below that is a photo of the console that controls each camera. The camera appears to have two lenses on a hinged front, and on the camera’s left side, there is what looks like a Mitchell movie camera viewfinder.
In the photo below, you can see the color wheel just behind the turret in a place you would normally find the filters. That color wheel has alternating clear film sections of red, blue and green filters and spins to give an effect similar to this, but much faster.
On the other end, there is an identical mechanism in the home receiver and you can see a trial version of it below. The broadcast signal has an embedded timing pulse to synchronize them.
Interestingly, this story is a lot like the one told in the NBC 8G Camera section of this site. Both prototype cameras had their own studio, were built by network engineers, and in limited numbers. There were four of the 8G cameras, but I can only identify three of the CBS Color cameras and only by their left side (operator’s left) vent systems. One appears to have no left door vent, one has a vertical row of center vents, and one has a wire mesh configuration.
These photos are from Life Magazine and the only reference was the date of June 1951. Using the information from Ed’s CBS Color Programming page, I believe these pictures were all made the same day…probably June 24, 1951, at the final dress rehearsal of Premiere. The air date was the next day, June 25th from 4:30 to 5:30, and it originated in Studio 57 (not to be confused with the current Studio 57 at the CBS Broadcast Center).
CBS Color Studio 57 was located at 109th Street and 5th Avenue. The host for the first half-hour was Arthur Godfrey, while Ed Sullivan handled hosting duties for the second half. Among others on that day’s show, there was Faye Emerson, Garry Moore, Robert Alda and Isabel Bigley (stars of Guys and Dolls), the New York City Ballet, William S. Paley (CBS Chairman) and Frank Stanton (President of CBS), with Archie Bleyer and His Orchestra (the house band for Arthur Godfrey’s programs). FCC Chairman Wayne Coy also appeared, talking about the FCC’s decision on color and praising the “hour of triumph” for CBS…but, given what would soon happen, those words would ring hollow.
By the way….the crane cameraman here went all the way up the corporate ladder, to become a very valued VP of CBS Sports. His name is Harold Classen.
(All photos below courtesy of Life Magazine).
The first thing I noticed in this shot was that everybody is hot and mopping sweat. I’ve heard it got so hot in there the floor buckled. This is June in New York with massive lights in a huge studio with NO air conditioning.
With monitor in view, this crew member sits on the pedestal of one of the cameras. Notice the metal mesh-like sides on this camera. As we go along, you’ll see that every camera had different side panel modifications for cooling.
Before we get too far along with the cameras, remember that the CBS Field Sequential Color system worked on the basis of a synchronized spinning color wheel. There was a wheel in the camera and a wheel in the receiver…eventually. I’m guessing here, but this seems to be a external color wheel distributed for home demonstrations of the CBS color broadcasts, as I don’t think there were any receivers in 1951 with the wheel inside. Only a few hundred were ever made, and then were actually recalled.
Host of the first half of Premiere, Arthur Godfrey, in a Ritz live spot run-through…
…and performing “On Top Of Old Smoky.”
Given what I’ve seen in the full set of pictures, I believe there may have only been three of these cameras. The one mounted on the Sanner crane has vertical center vents on the left door vent, one of the cameras has the partial wire mesh door, and the camera below seems to have no vents in its door.
CBS Chairman (in the crane chair…naturally) William Paley and CBS President Frank Stanton as guests on the Premiere debut show.
Co-host Arthur Godfrey and guest star Faye Emerson are getting along famously. Godfrey was already famous for his radio and television programs, but Faye Emerson was a big star in her own right. Referred to as “Mrs. Television,” she was a well-rounded entertainer, and such a ‘natural’ that she even hosted two late night talk shows in 1949…one on CBS and one on NBC. Wow! For more on Faye’s very interesting life, click here.
Above and below, Faye Emerson shows off colorful paintings by Picasso, Renoir and Hopper, on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art.
Above, Isabel Bigley and Robert Alda perform Irving Berlin’s “You’re Just In Love” from the musical Call Me Madam.
Members of the New York City Ballet, under the direction of George Balanchine with staging by Sol Hurok, perform Maurice Ravel’s La Valse.
From here on, I’ll just let the pictures below explain themselves with no further captions.
You Mean They Used Color Cameras For B/W Broadcasts?
Yes, they did and WICU was not alone…so did WSB in Atlanta, and many other local stations in the mid ’60s.
This photo is one I recently found, and it reminded me of a the disbelief many young people had on an article I did here, a year or so back on the conundrum that the ’65 network color conversions had caused at the local level.
From ’65 till about ’67, RCA’s booth at the NAB had the TK60 B/W camera next to their TK42 color camera, and lot of local stations were struggling to decide how to handle local color.
Many had just plopped down a hefty sum for a new color transmitter and support equipment, but what was next? How long could they hedge their bets on local B/W?
To add to the problem, the TK42 was not as good a camera as the TK41, and most knew it, but RCA didn’t have a fix yet. They had discontinued the TK41 in 1964, and the TK44 didn’t come till ’68. On top of that, Norelco’s PC60 came to the market in ’65, and CBS was all over that, and ordered them by the dozens, crowding out local orders.
Back then, sometime the best idea was to buy a color camera and use it without the colorburst on two + camera shows. I know it is hard to believe, but believe your eyes…it happened. -Bobby Ellerbee
A while back, my friend John Bolin came from California to see my camera collection. He brought along a few old Kodak shots of a camera he made as a boy of 13. No doubt it’s a TK30 mock up, complete with toilet paper rolls for lenses and Christmas tree lights for tally lights. You really have to marvel at the friction head and the viewfinder hood! Most excellent work, John! Unfortunately, we can’t see the pedestal, but it had a steering ring and wheels, just like the big boys’ version.
I made myself a camera at around age 10, and my dad even had one made for me for Christmas of 1961, when I would have been 11. It tilted up and down via a hinge in the pole that supported it, and unfortunately all it took was one good tilt forward and that was all she wrote, but it was the thought that counts. In conversations with many of you, I hear stories about the cameras many of you made, but like me, many of you drew them, too!
Below are more than a dozen really good pictures our friend Martin Perry drew as a kid. I swear, they look almost exactly like the pictures I used to draw. I started drawing them about age 10 and drew them until I was 15. Martin now runs Phillips Productions in Dallas, and owns a nice GE camera collection.
Boy, do I wish I could have one owned one of these three Marconi Mark IV cameras from WCNY-TV!
Why? What’s so special about them? Well, aside from the fact that Mark IV cameras are very rare, these three cameras have a very interesting history. In the Camera section, where these cameras are also shown, I gave a clue: “Studio 50.” Can you guess?
Before you scroll down for the answer, here are three more photos of these historic cameras in action at WCNY, a PBS affiliate in Syracuse, NY circa 1969.
Read this before you see the images below!
Did the “Studio 50” clue ring a bell?
Here is another clue…”toast of the town.”
Got it yet?
Well, believe it or not, these are the same cameras that first showed 73 million Americans The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show at 8 pm on February 9, 1964! And that’s just one of the thousands of legendary names whose images they captured.
Jackie Gleason also used these cameras in Studio 50, as you’ll see below. I don’t know how many Marconi cameras were used in the theater, but when RCA cameras were in use there, there were always at least five TK10s or TK11s – four on stage and one at audience level. I’m guessing there were at least four, maybe six, of the Marconis there.
These three cameras were donated to WCNY by CBS after Studio 50, also known as The Ed Sullivan Theater, was temporarily closed to prepare for color telecasting. The show moved to Television City in Hollywood for six weeks while the Norelco PC60s and new lighting were installed. The first colorcast from Studio 50 happened on my 15th birthday, Halloween night, 1965.
CBS was pretty consistent in donating its old equipment through the years. A lot of it wound up at colleges, educational stations and churches, including the Catholic Broadcast Center run by the Brooklyn archdiocese. That’s where my TD-1 pedestal was rescued from, thanks to “Cardinal” Paul Beck in Boston.
I have quite a soft spot for the Sullivan show and all things associated with it. I’d kill to have owned one of these cameras and would love to know if anyone has any idea where the WCNY Marconis wound up. I have been in contact with the station, but they have no recall. I am fortunate to have one artifact from the Ed Sullivan Theater though, and thank John Smith for giving me the backstage announce microphone he rescued during the Reeves Teletape years in the theater.
I also have a Norelco PC 60 from CBS Studio 52, which at one time was linked by a passageway to Studio 50, but during the Letterman renovation that was bricked up. Wonder if my Studio 52 camera ever worked next door on Sullivan? I’m pretty sure it was used on Captain Kangaroo, which originated from CBS 52 in the late ’60s.
By the way, after Studio 52 was closed and sold by CBS, it became the infamous New York nightclub Studio 54…the “54” comes from its location on 54th Street. No longer a disco, it’s become a playhouse again.
Unfortunately, many TV historians refer to the DuMont Network as “the forgotten network,” and in many ways, that’s true. There were brief spurts of growth and promise, but there seemed to be twice as many pitfalls. After only ten years, the network shut down in 1956. Some problems were just plain old bad luck, but some problems came from the sharp elbows of fierce completion from much bigger players like NBC, CBS and ABC. Remember, before television, they had big, well-known radio networks and long histories with AT&T, which supplied all the phone lines for their radio networks. DuMont was TV-only and had no radio exposure. AT&T’s coaxial access for TV signals would become a major issue for DuMont as time and space rationing come into play in the early 1950s.
The DuMont network as an offshoot of DuMont Labs, created in 1931 by Allen B. DuMont, and they actually had a number of early innovations including the first consumer, all electronic television set in 1938. Later that year, they were granted an experimental television license in New York City. In 1945, DuMont took on a partner; Paramount Pictures which seemed like a good idea a the time, but that too turned sour.
As you will see on the GE camera page, it has just recently come to light that DuMont actually manufactured GE’s early Image Orthicon camera line. GE’s Iconoscope cameras with their internal viewfinders looked quite different than DuMont’s with their side mounted viewfinder. If you have ever noticed the striking similarity of the GE and DuMont cameras starting around 1948 and wondered why they looked so alike, well…now we know.
I was going to start with the comparison of the early DuMont image orthicon cameras and their GE twins, but…that’s before these images came in! I’ve just got to start the DuMont page with these two stunning photos of the famous DuMont Electronicam in action.
NOW THIS IS RARE! These are two images (above and below) I have never seen anywhere else, and I thank the unnamed private collector who was kind enough to share them with me. Above, we see the full cast of ”The Honeymooners’ with Jackie Gleason at the controls of the 35mm version of the DuMont Electronicam. This setup marries a modified 124B image orthicon camera to a modified Mitchell 35mm studio camera through the use of a beam-splitter. The Electronicam was designed in both 35mm and 16mm versions and below (color image) is the 16mm version owned by Chuck Pharis.
Below, another very rare image from the same collection. Here is one of the very few pictures ever made of the full three-camera set-up used to record an episode of The Honeymooners. The program was recorded on Kodak Tri-X film. The video signals from the cameras are fed to the control booth, where the director chose the shots live. A kinescope tele-recording of the shots chosen by the television director during the performance is then used in editing to match those shot preferences to the three film versions to produce a final 35mm copy. Interestingly, this is how many shows are done today. Now, it is quite common for each camera to feed it’s own dedicated VTR. I’ve written about this editing and production technique in the Gallery in the story about how the Conan Show on TBS is put together. I hope you’ll read it.
Taking a close look at the two pictures below, we see practically no difference between the top image of the GE-badged camera and the DuMont 124B Image Orthicon camera below. Interestingly, both bear a similar feature of the early RCA Iconoscope and TK40 and 41 lines…can you spot it? Clue: see the right hand pan handle. Like the RCAs, it’s a twist to focus handle. KRLD photo courtesy Andrew Dart at akdart.com. WHAS photo courtesy Life Magazine.
Let’s go back to the start of the DuMont cameras and work our way forward. We’ll start in 1946.
Above is a 1946 shot from the control room of the DuMont broadcast studios at Wanamaker’s Department store in NYC. There are three live iconoscope cameras on the set, and they are seen below. Interesting that all the lighting is from flood lights with no big scoops or spots, but these cameras did require a lot of light.
Above we see, at Philadelphia’s WFIL, the DuMont iconoscope camera and pedestal. The peds for these cameras served double duty as they not only moved it, but housed part of the CCU. You can’t see it above, but there are 5 cables coming out of the camera head and go into the pedestal where some of the electronics were housed. For a better look at the design, I’ve attached a color photo below that Chuck Pharis sent me a while back. Chuck took this picture through a wire fence at the Henry Ford Museum’s warehouse and it is the only known intact DuMont Iconoscope surviving. Photos courtesy Life Magazine and Chuck Pharis
You can see the extra ”on board’ components again in these two images of the DuMont iconoscope cameras at work in 1947 at KTLA-TV in Los Angeles. From what I can tell by photo dates, the I/O 124B camera probably came out in late ’47 or early ’48. Photos are courtesy Tom Genova’s site, TVHistory.TV.
Even though we’ve moved into the next phase of DuMonts with the introduction of the 124B Image Orthicon cameras, they still require the “on board” CCU component. That pretty much rules out using them with any Houston Fearless pedestals. KRLD photo courtesy Andrew Dart at akdart.com
Life Is Worth Living was the name of the show hosted by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, seen above behind a DuMont Network camera. His show on DuMont won an Emmy in 1953 and ran from ’52 to ’56 on DuMont, and went to ABC when DuMont went dark. Below is a nice, clean shot of a DuMont 5098C head and cable connecting device. You can see one of these in the University of Nebraska Collection by clicking here. Top photo courtesy archbishopfultonsheencentre.com and below is courtesy TVHistory.TV
Above is a 1958 shot from KFMB in San Diego showing two DuMont 124Bs on location. Notice the huge, early telephoto lens on the far camera and that great Chevy Impala convertible.
Huntsville Alabama’s WAAY-TV Cerebral Palsy telethon in 1963. Notice how small the DuMont viewfinders were compared to RCA’s. Photo courtesy M. B. Smith IV and www.31alumni.com
1948: A WHAS DuMont camera captures this class room singing and saluting the flag. An experience like this in 1960 forever lit my desire to have a Marconi Mark IV camera. Two of them shot my fourth grade class dancing at WETV in Atlanta. I’m still trying to get that camera. Photo courtesy Life Magazine
I wonder if the boy looking into this camera at a 1949 WICU open house later went into television? I’ve noticed that a lot of us in broadcasting were influenced by things like this at an early age. Obviously some in the photo below are under the influence of something as we see an early college-level TV class in session. What a mess. Can you spot both cameras? WICU photo courtesy Life Magazine. Below courtesy Rollo Thomase.
Above shows the 124B at Florida’s first TV station, WTVJ in Miami (my old alma mater). I’m guessing this is circa 1948 and would bet these were the station’s first live cameras. Here is another factoid about WTVJ: according to the PBS series Pioneers Of Television, Merv Griffin once hosted a kids show there. I can’t find that reference anywhere else, but I saw the clip with the WTVJ logo in the frame and he was definitely not a guest. Speaking of kids’ shows, that’s where we find the HF dolly mounted 124B below. Seems that with the extra on board equipment the DuMonts required, your only mounting choices were either the very awkward DuMont push pedestals or a tripod with a shelf. To get any up or down motion, the only answer was a dolly or crane.
Not long ago, I received some GE catalogs from Randy Blakeney in Laurel, MS. In researching the GE material I have discovered two important facts about the GE television cameras.
First Discovery: I have found definitive details in regard to the proper GE model designations of the PC and PE cameras.
Unlike the RCA TK prefix on all their cameras, GE had the PC and PE prefixes and this has caused a lot of confusion about what is a PC and a PE camera from GE. Close study of the GE catalogue from 1965 has led me to a conclusion that I will share with you below and illustrate with an image.
Above, left is a GE PC 11 and right is a GE PE 23. This photo is possibly from WAAY, channel 31 in Huntsville, Alabama but it’s a very interesting photo none the less for reasons I will discuss below. The left camera is a GE PC 11, 3″ Image Orthicon camera. The camera on the right is also a 3″ IO camera and is the 1965 GE PE 23.
Prior to the PE 23, the GE catalog refers to their new or modified camera control chains with a PE prefix and then a model number, and then lists their existing cameras that will work with that new chain using a PC prefix for the camera models. For instance, the PE 28 chain worked with the PC 12 IO camera, but something happened along the way and GE started giving their cameras the PE prefix too. (Oh, the humanity!)
Here’s the change…the PE 23 camera is described in their catalogue as “the first totally transistorized” studio camera and chain. My conclusion is that starting with the PE 23 camera in 1965, all the new GE cameras were solid state, transistorized cameras with no tubes (other than the imaging tubes) and were from then on identified with the PE prefix…that means that all GE cameras with the PC prefix had tubes, and/or were built before 1965.
Second Discovery: the early GE cameras were actually manufactured for GE by Dumont in the early years.
It is pretty obvious that their cameras bear a striking resemblance, especially when you look at the same small viewfinder and cable connections on some of these cameras on this page and on the Dumont page. Ed Reitan has verified this bit of history, but neither of us yet have any details or documentation. Even Bruce DuMont in Chicago does not know the details. Unfortunately, GE broadcast equipment history is sketchy at best as the brand was not that widely used. For some reason, GE camera use was concentrated in Texas and the southwest, although Syracuse NY is where they built the GE cameras.
Above left is a GE badged camera (model unknown) at KRLD that is almost identical to the Dumont 124B in the Chuck Pharis collection.
Above, we see the WRGB remote truck with two of these Dumont made cameras on top and below, we’re inside the van sweating it out with the boys in Albany, New York.
This mint condition PC 11A camera now belongs to my friend Steve McVoy and is on display at his Early Television Museum in Hilliard Ohio.
Photo courtesy earlytelevision.org.
This KRLD camera is believed to also be a PC 11, but a later model with a flat top. It could be a PC 11B or C. If you have any old GE catalogs, please contact me because there are very few resources to research these cameras.
In the two images above and the two below we see The GE Beast! The top image at WRGB is the GE PC 15 circa 1958. Notice the handles are on top of the camera body. Just above is the GE PE 25 color camera that came out in ’65, and the top handles are now bottom bar handles. This camera is at WCNY, Syracuse, NY and is being operated by Mike Clark.
This 3 image orthicon creation resembles the RCA TK41 in looks and mass, but weighs in at ”only’ 215 pounds compared to the TK42’s 280 pounds and the TK41’s 350 pounds. I did not know this, but WRGB in Albany, NY claims to be the world’s first television station. It traces its roots to an experimental station founded on January 13, 1928 by General Electric under the call letters W2XB on channel 4.
Below is a PE 25 from KGBT in Harlingen, Texas. The bottom image is thought to be part of a GE magazine ad. Although GE broadcast equipment was built in Syracuse NY, in general it seems the west and south were their best broadcast markets. In a discussion with Pete Fasciano (inventor of the Avid editing system), Pete recalled that GE was so far behind in sales that had the plumbicon tube not come along when it did, GE may well have gotten out of the broadcast business because without them, they would not have had the 250s, 350s and 400s. All photos are courtesy of Mike Clark.
I have referred to the GE color camera as the PE 15 but later versions of the camera were labeled as the PE 25 as can be seen in the information above. On top is a GE catalog image from the late 50s calling it a PE 15, and on the bottom, a 1965 GE add describing it at the PE 25.
Here is a newly found GE brochure on the PE 25 from our friend Martin Perry.
Above is the GE PC 12 I/O camera on November 24, 1963 at the Dallas police headquarters and in the foreground is Lee Harvey Oswald the day before being shot by Jack Ruby. This same camera, or one of the 3 KRLD PC12s that were there that day, is now in the collection of my friend Chuck Conrad who has the Chalk Hill Media site listed in our links. In another interesting link to the Kennedy assassination, Chuck has the WFAA remote bus, a Dumont Telecruiser that was then equipped with Marconi Mark IV cameras. In the Marconi section, you can see one of the WFAA cameras at the Dallas police HQ, again, just moments before Oswald was shot.
Here are two great shots of the PC 12 at work. Above and below are from WCNY, PBS in Syracuse which is where these cameras were made. Thanks to Mike Clark (shown below) for these photos. Notice how young Mike is in this and the PC15 shot above…still in high school. I can relate to his early entrance to TV. I started visiting the local radio station at age 14 and have been fortunate enough to be heard on radio or TV almost continuously for 45 years.
Around 1966, GE updated the PC 12 to the PE 28 (3″ IO) and PE 29 (4 1/2″ IO) and thanks again to Martin Perry, here is that intro brochure.
Above is the GE PE 250 at WTVT Tampa around 1968…when GE dropped the PE 25, the PE 250 was the next new color camera. The 3 photos below also show their GE cameras at work on the set of Sony Pictures “Marooned” movie shot at Cape Canaveral. (I know it’s Kennedy now, but my generation first knew it as Cape Canaveral.) In the first shot of the photos below, notice there are 2 blue Norelcos, a grey Norelco, 2 of the GE cameras and even 2 RCA TK10s or 11s. Can you find them all? The 2 oblong photos below that are WTVT’s 350s. Photos courtesy of Mike Clark, big13.net and Sony Pictures.
One final shot from the Big 13 showing their GE PE 400s shooting a Publix spot. Gotta’ love the faux wood grain side panels.
The following 6 pictures pictures courtesy of Martin Perry
GE PE-250 KOSA-TV Odessa, TX 1970 (The Admiral Foghorn Show)
GE PE-350’s WFAA-TV, Dallas Circa 1969 (Peppermint Place)
GE PE-400 CBS NFL Football (Used KDFW Remote Truck) Texas Stadium Cowboys vs Bears 1976?
GE PE-350’s on Vinten 419 Peds WFAA-TV Studio C 1980
GE PE-350 on Vinten 419 Ped WFAA-TV Studio A 1980
GE PE-250 from the Martin Perry collection
These 10 pictures are from a 1950 dress rehearsal of a Ford sponsored drama set in Africa. The cameras have finally been identified as GE PC-7A models and were probably made by Dumont for GE. This is a major production and the sets and camera positioning are really just amazing. With no camera art or identifying logos anywhere, it’s impossible to tell who is doing this, but my research leads me to believe it was an ABC production.
Every major city had its own version of Miami’s Skipper Chuck Show. Here he is in the 1950s at WTVJ. My old alma mater…I was the voice of the station for several years in the 1985-90 period.
Early GE Cameras at WRGB
Let’s start in the present and work our way back to the 1940s, shall we? What you see below is one of two surviving GE Iconoscope cameras from WRGB-TV that are in the loving care of the Schenectady Museum, which is a major repository of GE and WRGB archives. Many thanks to the Museum and it’s archivist, Chris Hunter, for his help and the images below.
The camera is mounted on its 1930 style ‘trolley’…a three-wheel forerunner to the four-wheel studio dolly.
As we transition from today to yesterday, we see the final today shot of what may well have been the 1947 cameraman’s mount below. It seems that WRGB had three cameras with mounted on this three wheel ‘trolley’, a four wheel Houston Fearless Panoram dolly and one of the old style peds that also housed some camera control units. By the way…take a close look at the man singing. I wonder if this is Rev. Al Sharpton’s father? Really.
Now this is real history. The date is September 11, 1928 and you are seeing the very first television drama ever to air. This performance of ‘The Queen’s Messenger’ was shown on the experimental TV system and simulcast on WGY radio. The director of the program was Mortimer Stewart and one of the actresses was a retired Broadway star actress, Izetta Jewel Miller. WRGB was started by GE as an experimental station in early 1928 and claims to be the oldest TV station in the country.
Over time, the cameras changed a little with the metal GE badge shown above, removed and replaced with the large GE logo and the WRGB call letters added as seen below. The call letter were originally W2XB in the experimental days, but changed in 1948. WRGB would have been a great name for the first color station with the red, green and blue referral, but the RGB is for Walter R. G. Baker who was a very senior GE engineer and head of the NTSC.
In the three images above, you see WRGB cameras mounted on the 790 pound PD-1-A HF Panoram dolly. This was an item in the 1951 GE catalog along with a very interesting pedestal. You can see several GE catalogs from the ’40s and ’50s in the Archives section, courtesy of the Schenectady Museum.
Circa 1947, an unidentified production is underway with GE Iconoscope cameras at WRGB in Albany, NY. Note the awkward pedestal design. This can be seen better in the picture below in the shot from the control room. Photo courtesy Life Magazine
Rear shots of one of the GE Iconoscope cameras shown in the studio shots above. Notice that you can see the rear of the Iconoscope tube. Below is an incredible photo of an image focused inside that tube. Photo courtesy Life Magazine
This is the front of the 1943 GE camera. Notice how there is a lens for the viewfinder as well as a taking lens for the camera. Photo courtesy Life Magazine
GE Experimental Cameras
I don’t know if any of us have ever seen these four cameras before, but I know I never have. Above is a small camera in use at WRGB…GE’s first television property so it makes sense that a lot of trial runs happened there. The GE Review of January 1948 said: “a multiple-lens turret, an improved focusing system, and greater operating case were incorporated in a new television studio camera (B&W), turret-mounted lenses permit close-ups and long-distance shots from the same camera position”.
As I study this closely, and compare it to the Iconoscope cameras above, I am coming to the conclusion that this is an updated Iconoscope camera. Now, it has turret mounted lenses and an RCA like twist to focus pan handle on the right. I can’t tell if it has a viewfinder, but would bet that it did. There appears to be four openings on the turret; for early Iconoscope cameras, one lens was for taking the image to the tube and one lens fed the view finder requiring two focal ports. This turret probably turns and has two big lenses for different focal lengths and two small lenses that mimic the larger lens images in the viewfinder. Here what is said in the GE Review of January 1947. ” One man operation features this new television studio camera (B&W), minimum controls on the camera allow the operator freedom to give the greatest possible attention to the show”.
If you are guessing this is an experimental color camera, you win the prize. From the GE Review of November 1953, “in developmental color television studios, equipment is being readied for next year’s commercial color telecast”. The article is named “Color television-today and tomorrow” and was written by Dr. Baker, the vice president of GE and chairman of the NTSC. The camera works with 3 IO tubes and is not a field sequential model. Place your bets on what the next image below shows!
Just above, we were taking bets…just like GE did with its color development. They worked both sides of the fence and bet on both types of cameras…dot matrix and field sequential. Above are two field sequential color cameras! From the GE Review of January 1955 we read: “field sequential color TV camera used with a chromacoder is light and easily handled and transmit a compatible signal.
My thanks to broadcasting101.ws and Rick Plummer in Iowa for the above images and information.
There is no mistaking the fame of the name. Guglielmo Marconi was known worldwide as the father of radio, and started his company, Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company, in 1897. In 1920 RCA acquired the assets of Marconi’s business in America, which was their radio division. In 1946, English Electric bought the company to complement their broadcasting division and began development of the Marconi-branded 3-inch image orthicon cameras. In 1948 the Mark I was introduced, the Mark II in ’50 and the Mark III in ’53.
The cameras were known and used widely in the UK and Europe, but it was not until the 1958 introduction of the Mark IV with its 4 ½ inch image orthicon tube that the Americas warmed up to Marconis. CBS loved the Marconi Mark IV because, like when the Norelco color cameras debuted in ’65, there was finally something to buy other than RCA. Canadians and some South American counties bought a lot of them too.
The next major camera from Marconi was the Mark VII color camera and CBS began to buy these too around 1967 to augment their huge stock of Norelco PC 60s and 70s. By ’69, The Ed Sullivan Theatre and a few other CBS broadcast centers were all using Marconi Mark VIIs. For the complete line up of Marconi, and many other makes and models, visit Brian Summers’ excellent UK site at https://www.tvcameramuseum.org/marconi/marconithumb.htm
Photo courtesy CBS Broadcasting Inc. All rights reserved. Credit: CBS Photo Archive. This image cannot be archived, sold, leased or shared.
On this page and this site, there is a lot of mention of CBS Studio 50 (also known as The Ed Sullivan Theater), and for good reason. It is hallowed ground. In case you did not know, one of the other famous shows that originated there was The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason and, later, The Jackie Gleason Show before the show moved to Miami. Above, “The Great One” directs a Honeymooners rehearsal with a Marconi Mark IV on the set.
If you saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan live, like I did, you saw them through a Marconi Mark IV.
In these two historic shots above, we see the Marconi Mark IVs at CBS Studio 50 bringing America the Beatles on Ed Sullivan for the first time. Below, on a different appearance, we see the a Houston Fearless crane-mounted Mark IV getting such a close shot of Ringo that there are shadows on John’s face. If you would like to know where the cameras that were in the Ed Sullivan Theater wound up, please visit the GALLERY and see the “Marconi Surprise” feature. In the final photo (bottom) from this sequence, here is a Beatles rehearsal image taken from the balcony. In the foreground is the unmanned crane camera and under it, a ped-mounted Mark IV that seems to be taping a promo, perhaps.
Mickey Rooney with Judy on the June 24, 1963 broadcast of The Judy Garland Show. A Marconi Mark IV mounted on a Chapman crane takes the shot at Television City even though from its inception, the show had been planned to produce in New York. Up against powerhouse Bonanza, the show only lasted one season with 26 episodes.
Photo courtesy NBCU Photo Bank.com. All rights reserved. This image may not be archived, leased, copied or shared.
Shot for insertion into the 12th Annual Grammy Awards in 1970, The Fifth Dimension tapes “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” at J.F.K. Airport…it was the Song Of The Year. From left to right: a new Marconi Mark VII color camera from New York’s famous Tele Tape Productions, Billy Davis Jr., Marilyn McCoo, and Lamonte McLemore.
Tele Tape Productions Mark VIIs again in use on the Sesame Street set for this crew shot sometime before the 1973 switch to RCA TK44s. One of the cameras in this photo is now in my collection, and can be seen by clicking here.
Photo courtesy Joe LaRe’
On my birthday in 1965, The Ed Sullivan Show broadcast live in color for the first time from Studio 50, now known as The Ed Sullivan Theatre. That was October 31, 1965 and Norelco PC60s were the cameras, but just three short years later, in 1968, they switched from Norelco to Marconi, and here from 1969 is a Marconi Mark VII shooting The Band on Sullivan. This and the two photos below are the only pictures I’ve ever seen of Mark VIIs at CBS.
Photo courtesy CBS Photo Archives. All Rights Reserved. This image cannot be archived, sold, leased or shared.
I had originally thought the photo above was taken at Television City, but now know that it, and the one below, are from the Ed Sullivan Theatre. In the summer of 1971, just after the final Sullivan show aired on June 6th of that year, CBS taped a summer special there called “Model Of The Year,” hosted by Hugh O’Brien. Thanks to Bob Franklin at ABC for setting me straight on this and for letting me know that the Mark VIIs came to Studio 50 in 1968. Also, thanks to Gady Reinhold for the pictures and his recollections of his days there.
Photos courtesy CBS Retirees Website. All Rights Reserved. This image cannot be archived, sold, leased or shared.
Above is a Marconi Mark IV black and white camera at work for ABC at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria with a Varotal Mark III lens.
Photo courtesy of Marvin Parker.
Bob Dylan on Ed Sullivan in 1963.
Photo courtesy of CBS Photo Archives. All Rights Reserved. This image cannot be archived, sold, leased or shared.
There is something VERY, VERY, VERY special about these 3 Marconi Mark IV cameras being used at WCNY in Syracuse, New York. To find out what, visit The Gallery section and look for the WCNY Surprise Story, but here is your first clue: Studio 50. Photo courtesy of Mike Clark.
In the these three photos (one above, two below), you’ll see these WCNY Marconi cameras at work on Christmas and PBS fund raising specials. You won’t believe the history these cameras have, but here is another clue….Beatles. Photos courtesy of Mike Clark.
Mark IV in use at CBS circa 1964
Courtesy Life Magazine
These are yet two more very special Marconi Mark IV cameras, or, one in the same. On November 24, 1963, this WFAA (ABC) camera was one of only 3 that were in the garage of Dallas police headquarters. Soon after this image was snapped, the world saw Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald. KRLD/CBS had a GE PC 12 there operated by John English, and WBAP/NBC had a TK30 there operated by Homer Venso. When the shooting occurred, only the WBAP camera was feeding live to a network (NBC), as the other two cameras images were going to tape. In videos of the incident, you may remember that one of the cameras racked (changed lenses to a medium shot) just seconds before Ruby shot Oswald…that camera was the WBAP TK30 shot. Homer Venso told me that his director told him to change lenses, even though they were feeding NBC live. Homer managed to rack and focus just in time. Above is the WFAA Marconi on that fateful Sunday in Dallas. Below we see either this exact camera today, or one of its two sisters from the WFAA mobile unit. This historic camera and the WFAA Telecruiser are part of the Chuck Conrad Collection and can be seen here. https://texasbroadcastmuseum.com/
Why are half these men are sitting down? The “sitters” were probably the ones that put these 18 Marconi Mark VIII cameras on this three-level platform…quite a job at over 400 pounds per camera and ped. In the early 1970s, the CBC moved to a new 8-studio building in Montreal, and the two cameras considered were the RCA TK44 and the Mark VIII. The ones standing were probably “supervisors.”
Photo courtesy of Serge Bordeleau.
THE EARLY MARCONI COLOR CAMERAS
The photos and facts below are from email messages shared with me by my flesh friend Paul Beck, and my virtual friend Dicky Howett in the UK. Both know more about television than almost anyone else I know. They are discussing these exchanged images of the early Marconi color camera, the BD-848, also called “the British version of the TK41.” To be clear, these are all BD 848 cameras, the difference being…the camera body stayed the same but the viewfinder configurations changed. The early versions had the TK41 rounded viewfinders, but were later made (and modified) with a newer style tilting viewfinder version.
This is the early (circa 1961) version of the Marconi BD 848.
Above and below, two great shots from front and rear of the BD 848s at the BBC. The camera below is from an experimental BBC color show in 1965 at Studio H, Lime Grove and is mounted on a 1956 vintage Vinten HP 419 ped, steered by a tiller. Bet that was a heavy going!
June 19, 1946…1st Image Orthicon Cameras & Network Sponsorship
In the photos, you see the first RCA TK30s ever used anywhere. The introduction date was officially set for October of ’46, but the Lewis-Conn rematch was such a big deal that RCA rushed a few into production for the fight. Four to six TK 30s, and their two new trucks arrived two days before the fight.
The fight, at Yankee Stadium, was the first World Heavyweight Championship bout ever televised, and this was the first time an advertiser sponsored a network television program. The company was Gillette. “The Gillette Cavalcade of Sports” began on NBC radio in 1942 and when the Louis – Conn fight came along, they sponsored it both on radio and TV. On November 8, 1946, Gillette’s first regular Friday night television broadcast of “The Cavalcade Of Sports” show began on NBC, and ran till 1960. Here’s a sample.
At the time, the NBC Television Network was really only live in three markets, NYC, Philadelphia PA, and Schenectady NY, and kinescopes were still in the testing phase, but at this link is a rare kinescope test that shows the Louis – Conn fight and mentions the first use of the Image Orthicon cameras.
Newspaper reports on the television coverage were glowing. “These cameras had delivered the clearest, sharpest pictures ever and with four lenses on each turret, were able to offer a never before available range of shots per camera”. Enjoy and share. -Bobby Ellerbee
Camera Rarities 2, Of 3…Three Generations Of GE Cameras
From 1969, here is a photo of three generations of GE’s at Fort Worth’s KTVT.
Starting with the KTVT marked camera, that is a black and white GE PC11. On the left is the GE PC25, their first color camera; this one has a four lens turret while it’s sister has a Rank-Taylor-Hobson zoom lens. The two cameras at the top are GE PE350 color cameras.
The PC and PE prefix means the PC models were built before 1965 and had tubes inside. The PE prefix means, except for the image tubes, there were transistors inside. Thanks to Martin Perry and the KTVT FB page for the photo. -Bobby Ellerbee
NBC’s official grand opening date for 8G, their second ever television studio at 30 Rockefeller Plaza is listed as April 22, 1948. Actually, television had been coming from 8G long before that, while it was still designated a radio studio.
At this link, you can see Studio 8G in action, during a broadcast of “Hourglass”.
Later that year, “Let’s Celebrate” was done here as a one time show on December 15, 1946 with Yankee’s announcer Mel Allen as host.
“The Swift Show” (a Swift Company sponsored game show), and “Americana” (a game show about American history) started here in 1947.
NBC knew television had to grow fast after WW II, but there were still war related shortages, like phosphorus for kinescope screens and military embargos on technology like the Image Orthicon which was used in guidance systems. Believing that new cameras would come more slowly than RCA’s October ’46 promise date, NBC engineers knew they had to have more than the Iconoscope cameras in 3H to work with.
On the sly, RCA gave them four Image Orthicon tubes, and four seven inch kinescopes for the VF and they started to work building a camera I call the NBC ND-8G. The ND was an NBC engineering code that stood for New Development.
These cameras were ready for use by the spring of 1946. “Hourglass” debuted from 8G on May 9, 1946 which was six months before the TK30 scheduled release in October. NBC got their first five TK30s in June, just in time for the Billy Conn – Joe Louis rematch at Yankee Stadium.
8G, as a radio studio, did not have built in audience seating like 6A, 6B and 8H, but it was thankfully three times the size of NBC’s only other television studio, 3H. “Radio Age” states that 8G could handle four consecutive shows, which meant the often fifteen minute, and half hour shows, with only one small set, could be staged one after the other from different walls of the studio. -Bobby Ellerbee
Four Generations Of The Experimental RCA Color Cameras…
The 1st generation of RCA’s simultaneous color television system cameras (shown above), is generally referred to as the Wardman Park cameras. They were in NBC’s Wardman Park Hotel studio in Washington DC, but just recently, we have learned that RCA’s called these “The Princeton Cameras” as that is were they were built and developed.
RCA began live camera development there as early as 1946-47, and 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. The Wardman cameras went to Camden.
The 2nd generation of RCA color cameras were installed in NBC Studio 3H at 30 Rock, and are generally referred to as the “Coffin Cameras”. The joke was, they were so big, you could bury someone in one of these. They were the first to have the rounded viewfinder. The 3H cameras were in use for about two years, until The Colonial Theater came on line in late 1952.
Even after camera testing left 3H, color component testing continued there, because quality color monitors were a must.
The 3rd generation of cameras came with the opeining of The Colonial. These were the RCA TK40 prototype cameras. Remote testing with the Coffin Cameras had taught them the the dark umber color in the sun was not a good idea, and these TK40 prototypes came in a cooler silver color to reflect the sun’s heat.
Speaking of heat, these TK40 prototypes did not have vented viewfinder covers, but by the time the TK40 went into production in 1954, they were beginning to figure this out.
The 4th generation, was the RCA TK40 which began being delivered in April of 1954. Only 25 TK40s were built, and they all had the unvented viewfinder cover, like the prototypes, but vented covers were sent to TK40 customers once the RCA TK41 began production later in 1954.
The TK40s had also been shipped with panheads that were either friction or single wide cradle types. Once the TK41 began shipping, the new double wide cradle head was included and shipped to TK40 owners too.
The RCA TK41 also had four generations, the TK41, TK41A, TK41B and TK41C. There is more on the photos. -Bobby Ellerbee
Photo courtesy CBS Broadcasting Inc. All rights reserved. Credit: CBS Photo Archive. This image cannot be archived, sold, leased or shared.
Photo courtesy NBCU Photo Bank.com. All rights reserved. This image may not be archived, leased, copied or shared.![Intel(R) JPEG Library, version [1.51.12.44]](https://eyesofageneration.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/xxx.jpg)
