Home Of ‘Queen For A Day’…Moulin Rouge, 6230 W. Sunset Blvd

You can see the main room of The Moulin Rouge in the first few seconds of this video. NBC carried the show weekday afternoons at 1:30 from 1956 till 1960 when it moved to ABC and stayed on till ’64.

‘Queen for a Day’ began on the Mutual Radio Network on April 30, 1945 in New York City before moving to Los Angeles a few months later. Believe it or not, this series is considered a forerunner of modern-day “reality television”. The show became popular enough that NBC increased its running time from 30 to 45 minutes to sell more commercials, at a then-premium rate of $4,000 per minute.

The venue was originally The Earl Carroll Theater and opened December 26, 1938 for lavish Earl Carroll musical comedy revues. The exterior featured a 20-foot high neon silhouette of Beryl Wallace, one of the Earl Carroll girls. Over the entrance doors it said: “Through these portals pass the most beautiful girls in the world.”

The theater was sold following the deaths of Earl Carroll and Beryl Wallace in an airplane crash. In 1953 it re-opened as the Moulin Rouge nightclub. Martin & Lewis, Red Skelton and many of the top performers of the 40s and 50s performed here as it was the largest nightclub in Los Angeles and on any given night, you could find a who’s who of movie stars there.

The club has had many names since, but below is a link to a video clip from 1966 announcing the opening of the Hullabaloo Club…I think you’ll find the names and faces familiar! Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfpLw1uh2ac&feature=player_embedded

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The Amazing Back Story Of ABC’s Vine Street Theater…1313 Vine Street

Did you know this was originally the home of The Don Lee – Mutual Network? Or, that this is the first place Johnny Carson ever went on network television?

The building was originally built in 1948 as a radio and television studio facility at a cost of $3 million. The dedication of the Don Lee-Mutual Broadcasting building was held on August 18, 1948. It is the oldest surviving structure in Hollywood that was originally designed specifically with television in mind.

Cadillac dealer Don Lee got into broadcasting to stay competitive with his friend Earle C. Anthony, a Packard dealer, who bought radio station KFI as a method of appealing to his customers. Lee bought KFRC in San Francisco and KHJ in Los Angeles, ultimately building the chain to 12 West Coast stations. Though named for him, Lee, who had died 14 years earlier, never saw this building.

The building was the original home of Los Angeles Channel 2, which is now KCBS-TV, through the 1950s. KCBS-TV is one of the oldest television stations in the world. It was signed on by Don Lee Broadcasting, and was first licensed by the FCC as experimental television station W6XAO in June 1931. The station went on the air on December 23, 1931, and by March 1933 was broadcasting programming one hour each day only on Monday through Saturdays.

During World War II, programming was reduced to three hours, every other Monday. The station’s frequency was switched from Channel 1 to Channel 2 in 1945 when the FCC decided to reserve Channel 1 for low-wattage community television stations. The station was granted a commercial license (the second in California, behind KTLA) as KTSL on May 6, 1948, and was named for Thomas S. Lee, the son of Don Lee.

Don Lee’s broadcasting interests were placed for sale in 1950 following the death of Thomas S. Lee. General Tire and Rubber agreed to purchase all of Don Lee’s stations, but chose to spin-off KTSL and the building at 1313 Vine Street to CBS. On October 28, 1951, KTSL changed its callsign to KNXT to coincide with CBS’ Los Angeles radio outlet, KNX (1070 AM). In April of ’84, it became KCBS.

These are the studios where Johnny Carson’s earliest mid-’50s television appearances, including ‘Carson’s Cellar’ and ‘The Johnny Carson Show’ were done. I had always thought they were from the Columbia Square studios a few blocks away.

ABC bought the building from CBS around 1967, installed GE color cameras and produced shows like ‘The Joey Bishop Show’, ‘The Dating Game’ and ‘The Newlywed Game’ from 1313 Vine Street.

Today, it is the home of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science’s Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study. It was dedicated in honor of legendary silent film actress Mary Pickford in 2002. Pickford was one of the founding members of the Academy. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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Ever See One Of These? This Is The GE PE 25 Color Camera

There are not many photos of this camera, but thanks to David Crosthwait at DC Video, we have a new black and white photo taken at KCOP in Los Angeles. The color photo (the only one we know of) shows our friend Mike Clark with a PE 25 at WCNY Syracuse NY. By the way, the Marconi Mark IVs in the background are from ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’….those are The Beatles cameras.

GE had a camera called the PE 15 that looked almost like this but it’s handles were at the top of the doors instead of underneath. This camera debuted in 1965 and as usual for GE cameras, were mostly used in west and southwest markets. If anyone know if one of these cameras survives, please let me know. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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In Case You Missed This…ABC Prospect, 1950 And Today

A week or so back, I posted this shot (below) from what we think is from ‘The Marshal At Gunsight Pass’…a 1950 western themed kids show done live Saturday afternoons for ABC’s west coast stations. It ran for 22 weeks and was pulled due to the expense and difficulty of adding the outside elements of the production.

Thanks to ABC veteran Charlie Henry, here is a recent picture of the same location we see in the old black and white shot, which is the parking lot at ABC’s Prospect Studios. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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Dinah Shore With The Colonial Theater’s RCA TK40s…1957

Continuing on the theme from the previous post of Peter Katz photo from The Colonial Theater, here is Dinah Shore with these rare cameras.

Notice the first camera we see had no vents on the viewfinder. This was how the first RCA TK40s were made. The four TK40s at The Colonial were the prototypes and these four were built in the fall of 1952. No more were made until RCA started the production line in late 1953 and even then, they only made 20 TK40s before switching to the TK41 in early 1954.

When they began building the TK41s, they added vents to the viewfinder enclosure and to the door over the high voltage box and sent out these modified pieces to The Colonial, KNBC in LA, WRC in Washington and WNBQ in Chicago. For some reason, one of the TK40s at the Colonial was never updated, but the others were. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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Adelphi Theater Stage Is Now…New York Hilton’s Grand Ballroom

If you ever want to conjure up the ghosts of ‘The Honeymooners’, make your way to the Grand Ballroom of the New York Hilton as that is where the stage of the Adelphi Theater was located.

After I posted the rare new photo from Peter Katz yesterday of the ‘Honeymooners’, our friend Howie Zeidman from ABC called me with this interesting information. In the color photo, you see on the left what I think is the Hilton’s ballroom entrance which is directly across from the (new) Ziegfeld Theater at 144 W. 54 Street. The Adelphi was at 152 W. 54.

In the second photo, we see a long shot up 54th from 6th Ave. By the time this photo was taken, Dumont had moved out (1957) and the theater was renamed The 54th Street Theater. It was torn down in 1970 to make way for the Hilton.

Speaking of The Ziegfeld Theater, the one shown here (above right) is not the original theater where NBC did ‘The Perry Como Show’, but its location is very close. That original theater was on the corner of 6th Avenue and 54th street and this new Ziegfeld movie theater was built right behind where the original was.

By the way, CBS Studio 50 (Ed Sullivan Theater) is only a couple of blocks from here. Gleason started there with CBS in 1952 and had offices in the Park Sheraton Hotel which was only a block from Studio 50. When he decided to do the half hour ‘Honeymooners’ on film, he wanted something close and choose Dumont’s Adelphi which Dumont had just equipped with their new Electronicams.

After Dumont folded, the theater was sold and became the 54th Street Theater as we see in a couple of shots below taken in the 1960s. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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ULTRA RARE EXCLUSIVE PHOTO! For The First Time Anywhere!

Although there are two similar photos of Jackie Gleason’s ‘Honeymooners’ being shot by these Dumont Electronicams, this one has never been seen before. It was taken by our new friend Peter J. Katz at the Adelphi Theater in November of 1955. The episode being filmed is Episode 7 of the “classic 39” titled ‘Better Living Through TV’ and below is a Bing Video link to the video. There is an extra bonus at 14:40 where a regular Dumont camera is on the set.

This photo is rare on many levels. Gleason usually did only one rehearsal and this was taken during that one run-through of ‘Better Living’. In case you have never seen a Dumont Electronicam, this is a Dumont television camera with a Mitchell 35MM movie camera mounted alongside and both are shooting through a shared lens.

In the photo, Ralph is trying to convince Alice to go along with him on yet another get-rich-quick scheme – selling Handy Housewife Helpers on TV…this comes at around 12 minutes in, in the video. This features a rare gone-wrong moment when one of the gadgets flies off the handle, forcing Gleason to retrieve it and then ad-lib his way back into the scene. When airtime comes, Ralph suddenly contracts a bad case of stage fright.

Soon, more rare photos from Peter J. Katz, all of which are copyrighted and we thank Peter for sharing. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

Bing Videos

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‘Wheel Of Fortune’…Behind The Scenes, 1988 Part 1

Tomorrow, I’ll post part two which follows the show to New York for a week of taping there, but for now…welcome to NBC Burbank Studio 4, which was also home to Dean Martin.

The cameras are RCA TK47s and we get a good look at the studio in the first minute and again just before the 7 minute mark. For Vanna White fans, there’s a lot of this Atlanta girl here to enjoy and, of the show’s producer Nancy Jones. Tomorrow, we meet the show’s director, Dick Carson…Johnny’s brother. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryV1yGk4xz4

Aired November 12, 1988. Some of the backstage faces seen in this special are announcer M.G. Kelly, producer Nancy Jones, director Dick Carson (Johnny’s brot…

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‘Wheel Of Fortune’…Pilot Number 2…1974

‘Wheel Of Fortune’ premiered as a daytime series on NBC on January 6, 1975, and continued to air on the network until June 30, 1989, but not before some major reworking of the original pilot we see in today’s first post.

In this second pilot, Ed Byrnes, the actor who played “Kookie” on the ’77 Sunset Strip’ series, served as host for the second pilot which by now was titled ‘Wheel of Fortune’, and was directed by Marty Pasetta, who gave the show a “Vegas” feel that more closely resembled the look and feel that the actual show ended up having.

Now the wheel was mounted horizontally and spun by the contestants themselves, and had a lighted mechanical puzzle board with letters that were now manually turnable. Showcase prizes were located behind the puzzle board, and during shopping segments a list of prizes and their price values scrolled on the right of the screen.

I think there was actually a third pilot that kept the new set but was shot with the host of the first pilot, Chuck Woolery. NBC had liked Chuck and the new set, so the did one more pilot that combined the two, just as a demo and production began in December 1974.

Susan Stafford turned the letters on Byrnes’ pilot episode and continued there when the show went to air on NBC with Woolery as the hose and Charlie O’Donnell as its announcer.

O’Donnell left in 1980, Woolery in 1981, and Stafford in 1982; they were replaced, respectively, by Jack Clark, Pat Sajak, and Vanna White. After Clark’s death in 1988, M. G. Kelly took over briefly as announcer until O’Donnell returned in 1989; O’Donnell remained on the network version until its cancellation, and continued to announce on the syndicated show until his death in 2010, after which he was replaced by Jim Thornton, who has been the announcer since.

Sajak left the network version in January 1989 to host his own late-night talk show, and was replaced on that version by Rolf Benirschke. Bob Goen replaced Benirschke when the network show moved to CBS, then remained as host until the network show was canceled altogether. The syndicated version has been hosted continuously by Sajak and White since its inception. Thanks to James Barr for the video. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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The First Hallmark Sponsorship…’Amahl And The Night Visitors’

At 9:30 PM on December 24, 1951, in NBC Studio 8-H, the first opera ever written expressly for television went live on the air. The sponsor for the NBC holiday spectacular was Hallmark Cards. This was their first venture into television and this lead to the development of the now famous ‘Hallmark Hall Of Fame’ series.

In the photo below, we see one of the four cameras used on the show in 8H shooting the child lead, Chet Allen. In researching this, I’ve come across an interesting description of that night in 8H and have included Mitchel Hadley’s account below.

Christmas Eve in a TV Studio

The scene was a dramatic one – and, par for the course for early television, far from ideal. For one thing, although 8-H was the largest television studio in America, it wasn’t nearly large enough for the cast, crew, and musicians. The result, among other things, was that singers and orchestra would have no direct contact with each other. The orchestra was located in Studio 8G…the conductor could see the action on the set via the monitors while the singers would hear the music piped in through speakers in the studio.

Up in the control room would be Director Kurt Browning. At his disposal were four cameras – three inside the “hut” where Amahl and his mother lived, and one outside – and three boom microphones, one between each camera. His “control” was far from absolute, however; union rules of the era prevented the director from speaking directly to the cameramen, requiring him to go through the technical director to communicate his instructions. Such an arrangement was a recipe for disaster, especially for a live broadcast. Menotti was no stranger to the challenges of television, though, and he and Browning worked closely on the camera script, ensuring that there would be no spare gesture, no extraneous movement that would throw an actor out of frame.

The cumbersome equipment of the time would also prove to be a challenge, as Browning recalled in a 1994 interview. “As I remember, I had pedestal cameras which weighed four to five hundred pounds and a dolly camera that weighed another seven to eight hundred pounds. Movement was limited, however, for “once you got over a 90mm lens, you couldn’t move the camera because the movement registered on the camera and you would lose focus almost immediately.”

On the set itself the cast, after a month of preparation and anticipation (but only four actual days in the studio), was ready.

When the camera light winked on at 9:30, viewers saw a blurred image of church bells, followed by a title card announcing that the following program was presented by Hallmark. It is often stated that the actress Sarah Churchill hosted that first broadcast, since she subsequently served as host of Hall of Fame for the first couple of years, but in fact it was Nelson Case, host of NBC’s Armstrong Circle Theater, who greeted the audience. (Amahl was, in fact, being presented in Armstrong’s regular Tuesday night time slot.) After a solemn, if overlong, introduction, Case presented Menotti, who stood on a set in front of a fake fireplace decorated with garland, the Bosch painting hanging over the mantle.

Speaking from notes and in Italian-accented English, Menotti said he hoped that parents had allowed their children to stay up late for the broadcast, since the opera had been written for them and “I don’t want you to be like those awful parents who insist on playing with their children’s toys.” He then introduced the people who had helped make Amahl possible, asking them to join him on camera since the audience “won’t see [them] while the opera goes on”: Browning, who “photographed this opera the way I saw it in the windows of my imagination,” Schippers, who “captured the sounds of my childhood,” and set designer Eugene Berman, “who designed the sets that come straight out of my own heart.”

As a series of handwritten slides (taking a moment to come into focus) introduced the cast and crew, the overture began in the background – a tender, moving melody that soon gave way to the sound of a pipe. The camera dissolved to a star high in the sky, and then slowly panned down to a young boy playing the pipe. Amahl and the Night Visitors had begun.

Here it is worth noting that the broadcast features a fascinating attempt at a primitive “special effect.” Menotti wanted the approach of the Kings to suggest a journey of a great distance. The entrance of the Kings began, therefore, with only their voices being heard. While Amahl and his mother lie sleeping, the camera zoomed in on a close up of Rosemary Kuhlmann. Then, using her back as a movie screen, a pre recorded film of the Kings’ entry was projected. Browning then cut to a shot of Kuhlmann from a different angle, while the lyrics “the shepherd dreams inside the fold” were sung – suggesting, subtly, that the Kings might be nothing more than a dream. It was a complex effect, sophisticated for the time, especially for live television. It’s not known how many times this effect was used in subsequent broadcasts of Amahl; by 1955 it had been replaced by a simple cut from the inside of the hut to the outdoor set.

This was done live each year for many years till video tape came along. In 1954 was done in color and in ’63, finally recorded on color video tape. More interesting photos from Amahl soon! Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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‘NBC News Overnight’…The Final Minutes & More In Two Video Clips

Many have called this “the best written, best executed news program ever produced”. I agree…I watched it every night. Before I get too far along, at the link above, Linda Ellerbee talks about ‘Overnight’ in the same style that endeared her to so many. The embedded video is the last few minutes on the air and the full 60+ staff and crew credits with video of all of them! You may see some familiar faces!

‘NBC News Overnight’, a live one-hour news program, aired from 1:30 till 2:30 AM for about seventeen months starting on July 5, 1982. Its debut coincided with a lunar eclipse, and despite science reporter Robert Bizel’s disappearance during the live broadcast (he went for some coffee), it was a success from the first night.

It never talked down to its viewers because, from day one, it never assumed that the lowest common denominator was the way to go. Entirely the opposite, in fact. The writing was crisp, witty, and smart. Overnight closed its doors in the first week of December 1983, after NBC management dropped it because of low ratings.

The first co-anchors, co-writers, and co-editors for Overnight were Linda Ellerbee and Lloyd Dobyns, who had, a few years previously, co-written and co-hosted Weekend, an offbeat weekly magazine for NBC.

After about six months of helping to shape Overnight, Dobyns left to do other work for NBC. Bill Schechner ably took his place as co-anchor and co-writer until ‘Overnight’ went off the air.

‘Overnight’ featured literary quotations, subtitled reports from overseas news programs for a new perspective, the best features (or sometimes just the silliest) from local affiliates, and a whole grab bag of things never before seen on national news programs. As Bill Schechner said on the final program, it proved that there is more than one way to deliver and to receive the news. Overnight must have been puzzling to some, though, because it had an unexpected mix of both seriousness about important issues and irreverence for nonsense.

As with any live broadcast, goofs occurred from time to time on the program. However, the anchors always made the best of it. They would chuckle instead of becoming mortified and simply corrected their mistakes, often injecting a bit of humor. Ellerbee once said this on the program after one such mistake:

“Live TV is a great time saver. It allows you to make a fool of yourself in front of large groups of people instead of one at a time.”

Shortly after Dobyns left, an NBC News executive suggested to Ellerbee that she take Lloyd’s seat now that she was the senior anchor. Ellerbee said she felt no need for that, but agreed to give it a try. Some nights later, she returned to her old spot. During that broadcast, she explained, after showing a tape of her position changes:

“Lately, you may have noticed a bit of musical chairs being played on this program. But in three nights, I have spilled three cups of coffee because the coffee was where it should be, but I was not. So I have moved back. And if the executives don’t like it, they may jolly well come and do the show and spill their own coffee.”

A year and a half after its birth, NBC decided to cancel Overnight in November 1983, due to low late night ratings and corresponding lack of ad revenue. In the following days and weeks, thousands of viewers (ten thousand, to be exact) called and wrote letters or telegrams of protest to NBC management. Some even sent checks and cash to defray the costs of producing the program (all the money was returned).

NBC’s news release on the program’s cancellation said the program remained “the model of a one-hour news program,” but it was being canceled because “being the best is not enough”. And so it goes!

By the way, Linda is a distant cousin of mine through marriage. Even if she wasn’t related, I would still think she’s still one of the best and most unique in the business! Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

#t=37″ target=”_blank”>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKBMuyZFmhQ #t=37

For all the devoted Overnight fans out there, this is (in parts) the last Overnight broadcast, with Linda Ellerbee and Bill Schechner. In this part, say bye-…

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How Rin Tin Tin Got His Name & More…96th Anniversary & Video

If you are like me, you may have wondered where this great dog actor got his odd name. After I tell you about the name, we’ll look at some of the history and a full episode of the TV show, but now…let’s go to Lorraine, France. The year is 1918 and these are the last few months of World War I.

An American soldier named Leland Duncan was stationed in the Meuse Valley and had been ordered to search a bombed-out German encampment. Inside one of the ruined buildings, Duncan found a German Shepherd cowering with her two pups, which were only a few days old. He named the pups Rin Tin Tin and Nanette, after little yarn puppets that the French children played with. They gave these puppets to American soldiers as good luck charms.

In the photo, we see Corporal Duncan with Rin Tin Tin as a pup on their return to the states and a postcard with Rin Tin Tin and Natalie. The puppets were actually characters from a French children’s book that came out before the war.

Nanette died shortly before Duncan made it home to Los Angeles, but Rinty, as Duncan called him, became a beloved pet.

After the war, Duncan began entering Rin Tin Tin in local dog shows. At one show, an inventor wanted to try out his new slow-motion movie camera, so he filmed the dog scaling a 12-foot wall. It struck Duncan that maybe he had a future movie star on his hands, so he wrote a silent movie script featuring the dog and shopped it around at various studios.

He was turned down by all of them. Then one day he was out walking with Rin Tin Tin when he came upon a film crew trying to shoot a scene with a wolf hybrid. The wolf wasn’t cooperating, so Duncan suggested that he and his dog could do the scene in one take. He was true to his word, and Rin Tin Tin had his first big break. He later signed a deal with Warner Brothers, and the dog had his first starring role in ‘Where the North Begins’ in 1923.

In addition to 26 feature films, Rin Tin Tin starred in a radio program, ‘The Wonder Dog’, in 1930, in which he did his own barking and other sound effects. The original Rinty died in 1932, and his son, Rin Tin Tin Jr., took over the role in his place. The immense profitability of his films helped make Warner Brothers Studios a success and advanced the career of Darryl F. Zanuck. In 1929, Rin Tin Tin may have received the most votes for the first Academy Award for Best Actor, but the Academy determined that a human should win and never released the vote totals.

In 1954, ‘The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin’ came to television. The show ran for five seasons on ABC on Friday evenings from October 1954 to May 1959. ABC reran the series on late afternoons from September 1959 to September 1961 and that’s where I remember watching this. How about you?

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The Latest Article From Richard Wirth…”From Kinescopes To Digital”

Television’s main technical challenge has always been, how to deliver the best image. That has not been easy given the need for time delays in the broadcast world and in this article, Richard does a fine job of bringing us through the many steps that have lead us to where we are now. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

From Kinescopes to Digital Cinema

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