Thank You For Helping Me Make Snowballs! A Personal Message…

As a body of television history, Eyes Of A Generation is like the snowball that gets bigger and bigger as it rolls down the hill. I am the snowball maker, you guys are the snow covered hill…without which, the snowball would not get any bigger. I am constantly amazed by the extra added facts and information that come from you, and very thankful for your input.

Unfortunately, there is not always solid information out there on the topics we cover here, and due to that, I am not always one hundred percent correct, but I’m doing the best I can with the facts I can find, so please bear with me. The things you ask, send in and add with your comments is incredible and greatly appreciated by all of us playing with this huge puzzle. Those pieces add up and the next time we revisit a past topic, the snowball we start with is a bit bigger, and it’s all thanks to you. I couldn’t do this without you! Each of you! I hope you enjoy the ride! -Bobby Ellerbee

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EXCLUSIVE ULTRA RARITY! NBC 3rd Floor 1933 Configuration

For once and for all, this will put to rest any doubts on the history of the conversion of NBC Studio 3H to 3K. Until yesterday, when I received this drawing of the original 1933 radio studio configuration, there had never been a reliable floor plan available anywhere earlier than one from around 2000, and that one only had tiny amounts of this information. Studio 3K was created in the fall of 1955 by combining Studio 3H and 3F and transforming it from black and white to color. Unfortunately, previous reports have stated that 3H was adjacent to 3C and the two were combined to make 3K, but as you can clearly see, that would be impossible.

If you remember, 3H was the first radio studio converted to television in 1935 and served as the home of RCA/NBC’s experimental broadcasts with the Iconoscope cameras and in 1951, the RCA color “coffin cameras” began their tests in 3H. At the time of their combining, 3F was still a radio studio.

Ed Reitan and I have had several conversations about this and with the people we have talked to that were there at the time, we have never doubted this history, but neither of us had never seen this floor plan before which is a great help. You can see Ed’s account of this at his great site, which is now under the care of the Early Television Foundation http://www.earlytelevision.org/Reitan/

I’m not positive, but I think this would be the first operational color studio inside 30 Rockefeller Plaza. NBC began live color operations at the Colonial Theater in 1953 with RCA TK40s. Like in Studio 6B where columns were recently removed for the return of ‘Tonight’, columns were a problem in creating 3K as well and two large columns had to be removed from the wall between 3H and 3F.

We all owe a huge Thank You to our new friend Joel Spector for sharing this drawing, and other floor plans to come, and to Gady Reinhold for introducing me to his childhood friend. Joel started with NBC in 1965 and Gady with CBS in 1966, but as kids and teens, they went to hundreds of live broadcasts all over the city. Joel is now semi retired but still plays all the music on the great Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade annually and works with the legendary Milton Delugg, who at 95, is still the parade’s musical director. Joel was also on the original SNL crew and still does audio occasionally on ‘Nightly News’, ‘Today’ and other shows when needed. More on Joel and Gady soon!

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Meet Sullivan Associate Producer, Jacques Andre

On Sunday nights, between 8 and 9 PM, Jacques was the “middle man” on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’. During the week, he worked for producer Bob Precht, but on show night, he stood with Ed at the side of the stage keeping the show’s running time and was the hub between the control room, stage manager Eddie Brinkmann and Sullivan. Although quite capable, he would always feel the need throw up before each show. Below, Jacques is holding the Q card and on the left is standing behind Ed. He looks a little different as the left photo is three weeks after the tape session and live show and was taken during dress rehearsal of the February 23 show. In the monitor, you can see the tape slate for the Beatles video insert. The Q card on the boom has at the top, the band members names and the second two blurbs list the songs in each set.

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A Meeting Of The Minds…The Directors And The Beatles

The photo above was shot after the Saturday morning rehearsal on February 8, 1964…the more relaxed day of the weekend. In one of the world’s most unique photos, we find assistant director John Moffit posed behind Ringo’s black oyster pearl Ludwig drums (without his glasses). In the center we see Sullivan director Tim Kiley writing and behind him (with glasses) is assistant director John Moffit with Paul and Ringo. On the bottom, John Moffit and Tim Kiley with the whole band on Sunday morning.

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The Huge Mystery Of The NBC ND-8G Cameras…Part 2

In yesterday’s “The Huge Mystery Of The NBC ND-8G Cameras…A Discussion” post, I danced around a nagging question till I got more sources and last night, I got them*. Here’s the problem: if 8G went live on April 22, 1948, how is it that ‘Hour Glass’ and ‘Television Scene Magazine’ are shot with the NBC ND-8G cameras over a year earlier? FYI, both shows were two of NBC television’s first network shows. ‘Hour Glass’ stared May 9, 1946 and ended March 6, 1947 and the other one stared November 17, 1946. The photo on the right is Ursula Holleran of ‘Television Scene Magazine’ and all of the others are on the ‘Hour Glass’ set and the blonde “femcee” is Helen Parish. The date of the NBC/Pathe film in another of today’s posts is also 1947. The studio is too big to not be 8G as the only other studio at the time was the smaller 3H. In yesterday’s post, I also discussed the mystery of why NBC would build their own Image Orthicon cameras in 1947 and put them in service in 1948 when RCA delivered the first TK30s to them in June of 1946. Yesterday, I suggested that these cameras may have first been put to use in 3H before they went to 8G when it was completed. Another train of thought leads me to wonder why NBC would keep these ND 8G cameras in use when they had the superior RCA TK30?

I want your input and research info into this, but as of now…here’s what I think. Given the mad rush at the end of WWII for broadcasters to get television back in gear, I think the ND 8G cameras were actually in operation by early 1946. I think the 1969 “RCA Engineer” article (which was the basis for much of this information and linked in yesterday’s post and below), written twenty plus years after the fact, is ambiguous on several key issues and wrong on some dates. I’m feel sure RCA would have given NBC Image Orthicon tubes “early” (in spite of the military’s wishes) at least to “test” (wink, wink). Keep in mind that by July 16, 1947 RCA had demonstrated the first all electronic color camera with three IO tubes. Although NBC was leasing theaters to convert to studios, production space was at a premium as nothing new had been built for four years, so immediately adding a new studio inside 30 Rock, would have made sense. This leads me to think that 8G may have been converted earlier than 1948. The only source for the April 22, 1948 debut date of 8G is a 1948 “Radio Age” article which was reproduced in yesterday’s post and linked below.

Are both wrong? Are both right? Is one wrong and one right? I don’t know. I do know that this new photo dating evidence makes me wonder though! As we’ve seen before, even NBC’s marquees outside their famous studios have errors and omissions which, in the case of television’s history, seems to be the human condition.

What do you think? To read all the background info, go here
https://eyesofageneration.com/the-nbc-nd-8g-cameras/
* The dates of the shows is verified in “The Complete Directory To Prime Time And Cable TV Shows” by Brooks and Marsh.

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NBC’s ‘All Star Review’

In the post just before this, Jackie Gleason mentioned in a letter to Eddie Brinkmann that they “had their competition at NBC on the run”. Jackie’s competition for his first season at CBS was NBC’s ‘All Star Revue’. A rare full episode is here for you to watch. Notice at the start, the show billboards as stars Jack Carter, Jimmy Durante, Olson & Johnson, Danny Thomas and Ed Wynn, however…they did not all appear on each episode. They would rotate on a weekly basis and this May 10, 1952 episode was Danny Thomas’s turn. After Gleason hit the air, Martha Raye was added to the line up and the line up was cut to four which eliminated two hosts. By the end of the 52-53 season, Martha was the sole host. In the 53-54 season, the show’s name changed to ‘The Martha Raye Show’ which ran once a month in place of ‘Your Show Of Shows’. One of these sketches is about a woman president…it’s funny. Enjoy!

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