November 1, 1960…Rare! The Photo And Video, Martin And Sinatra

Before the 1965-1974 ‘Dean Martin Show’ on NBC, there was the 1957-1961 ‘Dean Martin Show’ on NBC. Both were done in Studio 4 at NBC Burbank, but that’s where the similarity ends…sort of.

The ’57-’61 shows were specials and only aired two or three times a year and were black and white shows. This photo was taken at dress rehearsal on this day 54 years ago and the video clip is a ‘This Is Your Life’ style comedy bit Dean did with Frank on that show. The camera is an RCA TK11.

After ten incredible years as the hottest act in show business, Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin did their last show together at the Copacabana in NYC on July 24, 1956. During that time, they had their own radio show on NBC, hosted NBC’s ‘Colgate Comedy Hour’ on television and starred in 16 feature length films.

After the break, Lewis began to produce, star in and direct his own movies, while Martin returned to singing with three huge hits for Capitol including “Memories Are Made Of This”, “When You’re Smiling” and “Oh, Marie”.

1958 gave birth to The Rat Pack in Las Vegas and Dean’s carrier was on fire again. In the next post today, we’ll see twenty unpublished photo of the Rat Pack from Life Magazine. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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Halloween Special #5…One Minute Of Movie Magic That Lasts A Lifetime

This is perhaps one of most amazing transformation shots ever done, especially when you consider the date was 1943! Lon Chaney Jr’s face is in constant motion, yet the time lapse makeup application process by Jack Pierce is seamless as he becomes The Wolfman. This starts at 1:04 and follows the not as impressive, but pretty spooky 1941 transformation scene. The ‘American Werewolf In London’ transformation scene is great too, but that’s in today’s next video. Enjoy, share and Happy Halloween! -Bobby Ellerbee

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October 31, 1965…’The Ed Sullivan Show’ Goes Color

Although I can’t locate a clip of the debut color show from CBS Studio 50, I have the next best thing…a clip from a week later on November 7, 1965.

Starting in the late 50’s, Sullivan had done color shows from time to time, but they were all done from CBS Television City in Hollywood. As a matter of fact, Season 18 started in color from Television City on September 12, 1965 and the show stayed there till the seventh episode was broadcast October 24th with Richard Pryor, Marvin Gaye, Herman’s Hermits, Duke Ellington and Helen Hayes.

The move back home was Episode 8, and starred Liza Minnelli, Alan Sherman, Barry McGuire, The Grass Roots and London Lee, live from the Ed Sullivan Theater which was now equipped with six Norelco color cameras. In the photo below is Sullivan with his long time “personal cameraman” George Moses on Camera 1. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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October 31, 1953…NBC’s First Network Colorcast: “Carmen”

In essence, the opera “Carmen” was broadcast nationally in black and white with the color burst removed. BUT, the color broadcast was fed via closed circuit to viewing parties in New York, possibly Washington and to Chicago.

The colorcast was live from NBC’s first and only color facility, The Colonial Theater in New York. At the time, the only color equipment was here. No one had color transmitters and there were very few color monitors, even in the NBC O&O stations control rooms where the closed circuit feed came in. As the article states, WNBQ’s single 12″ color monitor, provided by RCA, was at the off site viewing party next to a 24″ black and white set that was carrying the nationally telecast monochrome broadcast.

The cameras used were the four RCA TK40 prototypes. The one hour presentation of the opera “Carmen” also included an audio trick or two. In passages where the vocal performance was critical, but extreme movement in dance numbers was too, look-alike actors were subtly inserted on stage to dance and lip synch while the principal operatic stars sang off stage. The principals would quietly return to stage and sing in more static shots. This is the only surviving photo. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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I think this is my all time favorite TK41 color shot. My like for this may be influenced by the art of the shot and the set, and even though this is not very colorful, it shows how great the black registration was on this camera. I would have loved to have been at NBC Burbank when this was done. Were any of you there? Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-RAnkH8Jxc

Andy Williams – O Holy Night

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To me, the best examples of the great pictures the TK41 made are captured on The Andy Williams Christmas Specials on NBC. This is my second favorite clip of their great color. Wait till you see my favorite which is up next! Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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Halloween Special #3…Universal’s Master Of Makeup, Jack Pierce

We said a brief hello to Jack Pierce yesterday, but today, we’ll get a full half hour of his mastery. Pierce created the most iconic and memorable monster looks ever to hit the screen, and they live on till this day. Did you know that the look of The Joker in the Batman comics was based on Jack’s “Laughing Man” make up? You’ll see that and much more here so feel free to skip around in the video. Enjoy and Share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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The GE PE 20…A Witness To History In Dallas

The Broadcast Engineering ad here is from March of 1962 and is part of the introduction of GE’s new PE 20 monochrome camera. Nationally, not many broadcasters used GE equipment, but there was an unusually large market for GE product in the southwest, and Texas in particular.

The first time most of us saw pictures from a PE 20 were in November of 1963 when President Kennedy was killed in Dallas. The then CBS affiliate there, KRLD had these and you can see a couple of them here in these photos of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby. Thanks to Jeremy Butler at The University Of Alabama for sharing the ad with us…this gives us more information on the rather sketchy GE equipment timeline. Anyone ever work with these? Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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October 30, 1931…NBC Begins Work On Empire State Tower

On this day in 1931, NBC began putting a TV transmitter on top of the Empire State Building. The first experimental TV broadcast from the building was on December 22, 1931.

I don’t think the broadcast tower atop the building’s dirigible mooring mast was added till after 1936. At this point, antenna elements were simply attached to the existing mast.

RCA’s first experimental television transmissions began in 1928 by station W2XBS in Van Cortland Park and then moved to the New Amsterdam Theater Building, transmitting 60 line pictures in the new 2-3 mHz band allocated to television. A 13 inch Felix the Cat figure made of paper mache was placed on a record player turntable and was broadcast using a mechanical scanning disk to a scanning disk receiver. The image received was only 2 inches tall, and the broadcasts lasted about 2 hours per day. By 1931 the station became part of NBC and began to transmit from 42nd St.

The Empire State Building was completed in May of 1931, and RCA leased the 85th floor for a studio and transmitter location for experimental television broadcasts. RCA, through its broadcasting division NBC, applied to the Federal Radio Commission on July 1, 1931 for construction permits for the sight and sound channels of a television station, which were issued on July 24, 1931. The call sign W2XF was issued in December 1931 for the “sight” channel of that station on an assigned frequency of 44Mc. The RCA transmitter had an input power to the final stage of about 5Kw, giving an estimated power output to the antenna of about 2Kw.

The sound channel of the TV station was separately licensed as W2XK for a 2.5Kw transmitter to operate on 61Mc. Both transmitters were located on the 85th floor and used separate vertical dipole antennas.

Below are some shots of the Empire State mooring mast built as a dirigible docking station, but aside from King Kong and Fay Wray, no one ever went up there. The winds proved to be too strong and there were several near accidents in mooring tests, but a bag of mail was once delivered via the mast. The last photo is I think from the late ’50s and shows the assigned areas of the tower. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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Halloween Special #1…Rare Frankenstein Color Footage

This is a short color home movie clip shot by Boris Karloff’s wife who took this on the set of ‘The Son Of Frankenstein’ in December of 1939. In it, we see Karloff goofing and playing with Universal’s top monster makeup man, Jack Pierce. There will be much more on Pierce in the next post.

This was the third and final Frankenstein role for Karloff and he and Pierce had been working together since Pierce first developed this classic look in 1931 for ‘Frankenstein’. Their second together was ‘The Bride Of Frankenstein’ in 1935. They both cooperated on the design of the now iconic make-up, with Karloff removing a dental plate to create an indentation on one side of the Monster’s face. He also endured four hours of make-up under Pierce’s hand each day, during which time his head was built up with cotton, collodion and gum, and green greasepaint (designed to look pale on black and white film) was applied to his face and hands. The finished product was universally acclaimed, and has since become the commonly accepted visual representation of Mary Shelley’s creation. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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Speaking Of Toys…Here Is The First Ever Barbie Commercial

This is reported to have aired on ABC on ‘The Mickey Mouse Club’ in 1959. Did you know Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts and was from the fictional town of Willows, Wisconsin?

Me either, but unlike most YouTube posts, this one actually has some interesting and correct background information included in it’s About section. Enjoy and share. -Bobby Ellerbee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8-avPUxyno

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Incase You Missed It…Fantastic NBC ‘Monitor’ Site!

The page linked here is just great, but it’s just one page of a whole site dedicated to NBC Radio’s weekend show ‘Monitor’. A note…just on this page, there are dozens of great ‘Monitor’ moments, BUT, at the bottom of this page, there are some priceless outtakes and goofs so look and listen there too! Thanks to Dennis Hart for creating this and to Jodie Peeler for sharing it with us. Enjoy, bookmark and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

http://monitorbeacon.net/nbc-monitor/the-sounds-of-nbc-monitor/

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