This is where Lester Holt anchors the weekend edition of NBC’s ‘Nightly News’ show. This is Media Room 1, which is one of four small studios inside Studio 6E, otherwise known as the Global Media Center.

The control room for all four is right next door. This was the main news desk used by Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams in 3C from 1998 till 2008. In ’08, a new set and desk was built in 3B where the weeknight show is done now. The control room for 3B is under the ‘Today’ studio in the basement of Studio 1A, across 49th Street.

Below you see the single robotic camera in the studio on the left and just to the left of the camera is a production desk with the prompter controls. That’s me at the desk and on the right, a shot of me in the monitors in front of the desk. Notice the virtual set on the wall monitor. Enjoy and share.

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‘Superman’…Rarities From Radio & Television

This is Superman’s “flying pan” which was used by George Reeves in ‘The Adventures Of Superman’, that many of us grew up watching. After a few falls from wire suspension, on which was fairly serious, the pan was developed for Reeves to lay in and tilting and rolling was controlled by a long lever.

Often you can see it under his suit if you know what to look for. Included is  a drawing of the device in use and that is the actual pan which is now in the Superman Museum in, wait for it…Metropolis, Illinois. Enjoy and Share!

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NBC Director Max Schindler’s Day….November 22, 1963

At the link is our friend Max Schindler’s account of the arrival of President Kennedy and President Johnson from Dallas. He was the director sent to cover the arrival for NBC in Washington, and as it turns out, for CBS and ABC too, as his truck was the only one that had been linked to AT&T lines.

In the first eight or so minutes, Max describes the incredible drama of the day and the many unknowns at they went to air. He helped direct the funeral a few days later and speaks of that as well as the MLK “I Have A Dream” speech which he covered.

Schindler later started a two decade long association with ‘Meet The Press’ in 1965 and directed the show for over 20 years. As a director, he was very highly regarded at the time, and, in the 70s, he was the coverage director when other important events, such as the Watergate, the Iran hostage crisis and the Pope’s visits to the United States occurred.

Schindler’s work in television has influenced many to-be directors through his six decade work as a director, producer, and cameraman.

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December 21, 1958…’Dancing: A Man’s Game’ With Gene Kelly

NBC’s great ‘Omnibus’ program, which I remember well, was a wide ranging show that on one Sunday afternoon included a half hour segment conceived, written and narrated by Gene Kelly.

Assisted by the top names in sport, like Mickey Mantle, Sugar Ray Robinson and Johnny Unitas, Kelly sets out to demonstrate the rhythm and coordination required of great athletes. He also traces the history of modern American dance, and sets out to prove that dancing is, not the property of women but that, rightfully, it’s “a man’s game.”

The show was done at NBC Brooklyn and the cameraman in the black and white photo is Don Mulvaney (who by the way was also the main crane cameraman on Perry Como and the original crane cameraman on ‘Saturday Night Live’). The color photo is from another scene in the show.

At the clip is one of the only known pieces of the kinescope of the show. Enjoy and share!

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‘The Dick Van Dyke Show’…Full Pilot Episode

This is part of the text from the Emmy Legends story on the pilot show called ‘Head Of The Family’ that starred Carl Reiner as Rob Petrie. Read on…

Back in the summer of 1958, Carl Reiner, already an established writer and supporting actor on Sid Caesar’s ‘Your Show of Shows’, sought to create a sitcom in which he would star. He followed the adage of “write what you know” and created thirteen scripts of ‘Head of the Family’, a largely autobiographical series centered around Rob Petrie, head writer of “The Alan Sturdy Show.” Rob was married to Laura, they had a six-year-old son, Ritchie, and Buddy and Sally were Rob’s cohorts in the writers’ room. Sound familiar?

Reiner’s agent, Harry Kalcheim, shopped the Head of the Family pilot script around, and actor Peter Lawford wanted to front the money to shoot the pilot. Once Reiner sent a script to Lawford’s father-in-law and supplier of the cash, Joseph P. Kennedy, Reiner was given the green light.

The pilot was shot in December of 1958 in New York, with Reiner starring as Rob, Barbara Britton as Laura, Gary Morgan as Ritchie, Sylvia Miles as Sally, and Morty Gunty as Buddy. And then … nothing. The pilot failed to sell for the Fall 1959 season, and for the next year, Reiner thought the project was dead. But Kalcheim refused to abandon the show. He presented the pilot episode to another client of his, producer Sheldon Leonard.

Already a successful creator/producer of The Andy Griffith Show, and producer of The Danny Thomas Show, Leonard recognized genius in Head of the Family, but identified one major flaw: Reiner completely miscast himself as Rob Petrie. It’s difficult to see how Reiner could be wrong for a role that he based on himself, but Reiner was a natural sketch performer, not a sitcom actor.

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History’s Most Infamous Game Show Footage…’Twenty One’

This show was done live from NBC Studio 6B, Wednesday night, November 19, 1956. This was the fourth and final round of play on ‘Twenty One’ between Charles Van Doren and Herb Stempel. The other three were tie games…21 to 21.

The video is Qed to the point where MC Jack Barry asks Stemple the famous “Marty” question. This is the whole episode and is very interesting to watch in full. Anyone who is a fan of the movie “Quiz Show” will certainly appreciate seeing the real thing.

For the younger crowd, this was ground zero of the quiz show scandals that hit television in 1958. At this link (and copied in full below) is a very good PBS ‘American Experience’ write up of the details.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/quizshow/peopleevents/pande01.html

Notice in the video that the headsets for both have different ear cups on each set. These headphones were modified by NBC engineers, with one side allowing them to hear the questions from Jack Barry, and that only. The other side allows them to hear the other contestant when they get to face off at the end of the game.

On March 11, 1957, Van Doren was finally upset by Vivienne Nearing, a lawyer whose husband Van Doren had previously beaten. Enjoy and share!

THE QUIZ SHOW SCANDAL | ARTICLE

Herbert Stempel

Before the TV Quiz Show Scandal broke in the late 1950s, Herbert Stempel was destined to be a little-remembered contestant on the NBC quiz show “Twenty-One.” However, as the man who helped expose Charles Van Doren, the most famous quiz show contestant of all, Stempel earned a place in television history.

When Stempel was chosen as a contestant, he was a 29-year old college student, who had a prodigious memory and a remarkable fund of knowledge. He had graduated from the prestigious Bronx High School of Science and had scored an impressive 170 on an IQ test. He worked at the Post Office before enlisting in the army in 1944. He left the army in 1952 to attend City College of New York on the G.I. Bill.

Like millions of other Americans, Stempel had watched the popular TV quiz shows of the day. After seeing two telecasts of “Twenty-One,” Stempel wrote a letter to Barry and Enright Productions, the show’s producers. He wrote, introducing himself as a married man with a 14-month old son and went on to give the reasons why he believed he would be a strong contestant:

Doctors have told me and many of my friends say that I have a very retentive, if not photographic memory, and I have thousands of odd and obscure facts and many facets of general information at my fingertips. I have stayed home continuously watching many television shows and I answer so great a bulk of the questions that my wife has continually urged me to try out for your fine show.

A few days later, Stempel received a reply and was invited in. After he took the 3 1/2-hour test he was called by the staff producer. Stempel had answered 251 items out of 363 successfully, the producer told him, the best test performance on the show until that time. Stempel was to be a contestant.

“You want the viewer to react emotionally to a contestant,” explained Daniel Enright, one of the producers of “Twenty-One.” “Whether he reacts favorably or negatively is really not that important. The important thing is that he react.” Enright believed viewers would react negatively to Stempel. “[They] would watch him and pray for his opponent to win.”

Enright visited Stempel at his home and told his new contestant: “Play ball with me kid and you’ll win $24,000 just like that.” Over the next five weeks, Enright would sit down with Stempel and go over particular questions and answers before each show — including deliberate mistakes. The two would also discuss stage directions, including gestures to use, when to pause and what exactly to say. In the dressing room before each session, both men would do a run-though to make sure Stempel knew the script for that evening.

Stempel was aware of the game plan and learned it well. “The reason I had been asked to put on this old, ill-fitting suit and get this Marine-type haircut was to make me appear as what you would call today, a nerd, a square,” Stempel remembers. As planned, Stempel came across as a somewhat smug contestant who struck viewers as a know-it-all.

Stempel’s string of successes brought him close to $50,000, no small change at the time. Stempel’s final opponent was Columbia University English professor Charles Van Doren. Enright scripted what would happen next: Three ties would ensue. When that happened, Stempel figured Van Doren was also in on the fix. Before the fourth and final match between the two men Enright told Stempel that while he had brought the ratings up, they had reached a plateau. “We feel it is time for a change,” Enright told Stempel. That change was clearly the well-bred Van Doren.

Before Stempel’s last appearance, he asked Enright if he could play honestly against Van Doren, arguing that the match was really a duel between his CCNY versus Van Doren’s Columbia University. Enright again explained that the success of the show necessitated Stempel’s leaving and told Stempel that he might be able to find him a full-time job on a quiz show down the road.

On the morning of Stempel’s last show, promotions were aired featuring Jack Barry, the host of “Twenty-One,” saying: “Tonight, here on “Twenty-One,” Herbert Stempel, our 29-year-old G.I. college student, can win $111,500 — the highest amount of money ever to be won on television.” Stempel remembers the spot. “Every few minutes, an announcement would break in saying, ‘Is Herb Stempel going to win over $100,000 tonight?’ and I said, ‘No, he is not going to win $100,000. He’s going to take a dive.’”

On the show that evening, in a decisive question, Stempel was asked, “What motion picture won the Academy Award for 1955?” Stempel knew the answer was “Marty” — it was one of his favorite movies. But instead of answering correctly, Stempel gave the answer “On the Waterfront.” With Stempel’s scripted blunder, Van Doren became the new “Twenty-One” champion.

Backstage after the show, Stempel overheard someone say, “Now we have a clean-cut intellectual as champion instead of a freak with a sponge memory.” Afterwards, Stempel fumed about his loss and Van Doren’s fast-rising popularity — something Stempel had never gained during his reign as champion.

Before he lost, Stempel had told several friends, including reporter Dave Gelman of “The New York Post,” that the show was fixed. But no one took Stempel seriously, and his whistle-blowing fell on deaf ears. It wasn’t long before Stempel lost all his earnings. In early 1957, he started appearing at Enright’s office regularly demanding more money or a job.

Fearing blackmail, Enright convinced Stempel to sign a document stating that he had not received any help with his answers. In return, Stempel now was promised a panelist slot on a future program after his college graduation. In June 1957, the promised job fell through when Enright said all his shows had been sold to NBC. A bitter Stempel went back to the press. This time he talked to the New York “Journal-American,” which investigated the charges but could find no corroborating witnesses, and thus didn’t print Stempel’s story.

When the rigging of the CBS game “Dotto” show was revealed in May 1958, official sources finally listened to Stempel. In August 1958 the “Journal-American” finally published Stempel’s accusations.

Van Doren, who had repeatedly denied Stempel’s charges, finally confessed to being part of the fix before a Congressional committee investigating quiz shows. Yet when the hearings were over, the crowd of reporters mobbed Van Doren, making it clear that Van Doren, whether a star or confessed liar, still outshone the vindicated Stempel.

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