Behind The Scenes…Craig Ferguson’s Show, CBS Studio 56

When we first see the studio around 1:20, be ready for a surprise. It’s a lot smaller than it looks on television. It’s only 5,963 square feet and you can see the layout at this link. http://www.cbstelevisioncity.com/stages#

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_m19xqpl4I

This is a short promo piece from June 2008, offering a peek behind the scenes of the show on a typical day. Decidedly industrial decor back then, and still is!

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Welcome To The Ed Norton Apartment…

This great color photo was taken in April of 1955 at CBS Studio 50. At the end of May of this year, they would wrap up the hour long live show here and do a season on film (the Classic 39) at Dumont’s Adelphi Theater, but would return after that for another year of the live show at Studio 50.

As you can see, the Norton’s apartment was always nicer than the Cramden’s. Joyce Randolph said that was Jackie’s idea, and although viewers sent hundreds of pairs of curtains for Alice and Ralph’s apartment, he wanted to keep it “lacking”.

The Gleason show started in Studio 50 in September of ’52 and except for a few 15 and 30 minute shows from 50, pretty much had the studio to themselves, which is what William Paley wanted. In 1948, ‘Toast Of The Town, With Ed Sullivan’ had started at the Maxine Elliott Theater, CBS Studio 51, but in early 1954, was moved to Studio 50.

Jackie Gleason’s show was on at 8 on Saturday night and Sullivan followed twenty four hours later on the same stage. Usually by midnight, the stage was ready for Sullivan with only Sunday morning and afternoon to do the camera blocking and rehearsals. That tight schedule continued for Sullivan till Jackie took a break from ’57 till ’62.

When Gleason returned with his ‘American Scene Magazine’ show, video tape was in use, so they rehearsed Wednesdays and did the show live to tape on Thursdays, with no edits.

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Inside Breaking News…Live At CNN For The Challenger Disaster

About a half hour before the Challenger space shuttle was launched on January 28, 1986, a CNN tape crew had come into the main news studio to shoot a feature on how the news is covered. What their camera recorded in Atlanta was the same kind of chaos erupting across the country in other news rooms. Where were you when you heard the news?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TvIKue2NOSo

A crew just happened to be in the CNN Newsroom/ Studio shooting promotional/documentary footage of a random day’s work at the network. This is their montage …

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Letterman School Of Broadcasting…Camera Operation 101

By request, here’s the clip of Dave picking an audience member and putting her to work behind of the their RCA TK44s. Enjoy and share!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wli9BOL6FQ8

David Letterman selects an audience member and she operates a TK-44 on-air.

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The Latest And Greatest In Tape…RCA’s TCR 100, 1970

I think this was one of the first times RCA beat Ampex to the punch in videotape innovations. Here’s a look at the RCA sales demo of their new quad videotape cassette unit, the TCR 100.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM_2upiGUO0

RCA TCR-100 Videotape Cartridge System, Sales Reel

From the original 2″ quad sales reel – converted to PAL, advertising the new RCA TCR-100 cartridge system to networks in Australia.

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360 Degree Panorama Shot…NBC Burbank, Studio 1

This is where Johnny Carson’s ‘Tonight’ show came from. Now, it is the ‘Access Hollywood’ stage, but this is not that set which has four sides. This has only three and you can see the audience seating on the open wall. By the way, you can use your mouse to stop and go back and view this manually by dragging the mouse. Be sure to enlarge the screen to see this at it’s best. Enjoy and share!

http://www.dermandar.com/p/cRYgKD/inside-studio-1-upperDermandar

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360 Degree Panorama Shot…NBC Burbank, Studio 3

Yesterday, the last live NBC feed came from Burbank, but here is a great shot of Studio 3…the whole thing! There’s a lot of history here as this was home to ‘The Dean Martin Show’, ‘The Jerry Lewis Show’ and countless others, including much of ‘Tonight’ with Jay Leno. By the way, you can use your mouse to stop and go back and view this manually by dragging the mouse. Be sure to enlarge the screen to see this at it’s best. Enjoy and share!

http://www.dermandar.com/p/bwWhwM/studio-3Dermandar

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‘The Mickey Mouse Club’…The Whole Inside Story

Since it’s Sunday, and you have some time, here’s piece I have been wanting to repost for a while. I hope you’ll take a look. This is the best retrospective I’ve seen and much of it is told by the Mousketeers themselves. Enjoy and share!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1r-ufjAIfE

56 years ago this week, ABC debuted the original “Mickey Mouse Club” back in 1955 and it will continue until 1959. Over the years, it was syndicated in rerun…

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70 Years Ago Today…Dominick George Pardo Joined NBC Radio

David Schwartz, one of television’s top historians, has put together an exceptional – one of a kind timeline of Dan Pardo’s career at NBC. He was kind enough to share it with us. With thanks to David, here is one of the most impressive collection of memories ever made by an announcer…96 year old Don Pardo. As you read it, I’ll bet you’ll hear his voice in your ear! Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

“On June 15,1944 Don joined NBC as a staff announcer. His first assignment was the network cues during the “Hour of Charm.” He was also heard frequently delivering the NBC newscasts during the 1940’s.”

“In the 70 years of his association with NBC, Don’s voice has been heard on hundreds of episodes of shows. This is a listing I have been able to compile.” -David Schwartz

Radio
The Three Suns (band remote)-1944
Let’s Go Nightclubbing-1946
The Catholic Hour-1947
Mindy Carson Show-1949
Friday is a Big Day 12/13/50 special
The Magnificent Montague-1950-51
Barrie Craig, Private Investigator 1951-52
Just Plain Bill 1955
X Minus One 1955
Pete Kelly’s Blues 2/8/55 special

Television
Experimental Sports Broadcasts 8/10/1946 Red Sox vs. Yankees (with Jack Lightcap)
Colgate Comedy Hour 1950-53 (various episodes)
Jerry Lester Show 1951
Shoppers Showcase (WNBT) 1951
Winner Take All 1952
All Star Revue 1953
Arthur Murray Party 1953-55
Ford 50th Anniversary Special 6/15/1953
Follow Your Heart 1953-54
Three Steps to Heaven 1953-54
Judge for Yourself 1953-54
World of Mr. Sweeney 1954-55
Your Show of Shows 1954
Max Liebman Presents/Various Specials 1954-56
Droodles 1954
Caesars Hour 1954-56
Vaughn Monroe Show 1955
Caesar Presents 1955
Martha Raye Show 1955-56
Choose Up Sides 1956 (Mr. Mischief)
Stanley 1956
Patti Page Show 1956
Saturday Color Carnival 1956
Saturday Spectacular 1956
The Price is Right 1956-63 (daytime and nighttime)
Ruggles of Red Gap 2/3/1957 special
Salute to Baseball 4/13/1957 special
High Low 1957
Standard Oil 75th Anniversary Special 10/13/1957
Emmy Awards 4/15/1958
Concentration substitute announcer 8/14/1960
Jan Murray Show substitute announcer 8/1961
Jeopardy! 1964-75
Eye Guess 1966-69
Three on a Match 1971-74
To Tell the Truth substitute announcer
Jackpot 1974-75
Winning Streak 1974-75
Saturday Night Live 1975-81; 1982-present
Daytime Emmy Awards 6/4/1980 special
WNBC Live at 5 News 1980’s (on camera announcer)
Steve Martin’s Best Show Ever 11/25/1981 special
Those Wonderful TV Game Shows 2/27/1984 special
Wheel of Fortune 1988 remote broadcasts from New York
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade 1994-1999
Various Saturday Night Live specials

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June 15, 1969…;Hee Haw’ Debuts On CBS

This 6 minute news story from Cincinnati’s WKRC from 1979 gives us a very indepth look at how the show was done. It was taped at CBS owned WLAC in Nashville twice a year in six week blocks.

‘Hee Haw’, began as a summer replacement show for ‘The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour’ and lived on for twenty more years. Although CBS dropped the show in it’s famous “rural purge” in 1971, the show went into syndication and much to the chagrin of CBS, was picked up by most of their affiliates.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZEhMcHX1OE

Country classic TV series “Hee Haw”, a look behind scenes with reporter Janet Davies in 1979. George Lindsey who played Goober on Andy Griffith Show makes an…

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Backtracking…With The Help Of Tom Kennedy!

Earlier in the week, I posted this photo with video of ‘The Bob Crosby Show’. Since then, I have heard from one of the people in this photo…legendary game show host, Tom Kennedy, and he had three surprise comments on this picture that I’ll share.

The first surprise is that the floor director (with headphones) is none other than Dave Powers who went on to direct ‘The Carol Burnett Show’.

The second surprise is that this is not Tom Kennedy…yet. The man with the cake on his plate is Jim Narz who is doing a one week fill in for his brother Jack Narz. Early in their careers, the two brothers were in demand in Hollywood, but being brothers with similar names caused some confusion. Out of respect to his older brother, Jim Narz took his now famous stage name…Tom Kennedy. He is also the brother-in-law to Bill Cullen.

The third surprise came seconds after this rehearsal photo was taken. In order to help “sell” the commercial for Betty Crocker cake mix, Jim took a bite. Turns out, the cake was made of putty! Bob Crosby and everyone on the set almost died laughing!

Many thanks to Tom, and to our friend David Schwartz at the Game Show Network for putting us in touch. Enjoy and share.

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Today…NBC’s Last Live Show Airs From Burbank

I got this note last night from our friend Bob Meza, who’s worked for at NBC Burbank for nearly 40 years.

“Bobby: Just so you know, tomorrow, June 14, NBC Burbank will broadcast it’s last live show. Telemundo will move over to Universal starting Sunday. Days Of Our Lives is still on the lot, but it is not an NBC owned show. Access Hollywood will also remain on the lot in Studio 1 probably for another year. We will be pulling equipment out next week. Bob”

The complex is now known as The Burbank Studios and below is an aerial view of the famous 35 acre property with landmark tags.

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‘All In The Family’…Some Interesting History

Well, these pictures of the cast arriving at Television City settles one thing…it was definitely after September of 1973 when the set moved to Metro Media Studios. I can’t find a firm date, but I think the show moved at the end of the 1975 season.

I understand the reason for the move was that Norman Lear had so many shows in production at NBC, CBS and ABC, that shuttling between the shows was driving him crazy. Metro Media heard about this and offered Lear all seven stages of their Metro Media Square facility and he took them up on the offer and moved them all under one roof.

I’m not sure if this is true, but it is widely reported that when the show’s first pilot was done in New York in 1968, it became the first time a sitcom in the US used videotape as a recording device. Most sitcoms were either done on film or were performed live and kinescoped. Videotape editing was still done with a razor blade and Smith Block back then.

Did you know that Harrison Ford was offered the part played by Rob Reiner? Or that Reiner had to audition three times before Lear chose him? By the way…”Meathead” was the name Lear’s father called him when he was upset with him.

When CBS started rerunning the show during the day in 1975, it was edited by three minutes to allow more commercial time. Norman Lear was unhappy with the editing and offered to pay for the commercial time that would have been lost by showing it uncut, but CBS declined his offer. That I know of, this is the first mention of 7 minutes of spots in half hour show. 4 minutes was the prime time rule.

Although Edith Bunker’s singing voice left a lot to be desired, Jean Stapleton’s didn’t. She was classically trained and had many singing parts on Broadway.

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Answer To An Interesting Question…

A while back, someone asked me how the signals from NBC’s many studios around NYC got back to 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Microwave or coaxial cable?

Turns out it was usually coaxial cable. The one exception was NBC’s Uptown Studio at 106th Street. Most of the other theaters, like the Hudson and Ziegfeld were low rise buildings near Broadway and didn’t have clear paths so they were all coax. The Uptown though was 11 stories and did have a clear path.

The Uptown had dual capacity and relied mostly on the coax, but since so much programing was coming from there, the engineers felt that it would be good to have a microwave back up, just in case.

CBS and ABC also used coaxial cable to link their many remote studios back to master control. Thanks to Gady Reinhold at CBS for the answer.

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‘The Honeymooners’…The Classic 39

The first Honeymooners sketch was done live, October 5, 1951 as part of Dumont’s ‘Cavalcade Of Stars’ show which Jackie Gleason had become the host of in June 1950. It was only six minutes long, but started something that lasts till this day.

Gleason’s Dumont show did quite well and CBS noticed! They brought Jackie and company to Studio 50 in July of 1952 and the rating soared on the Saturday night, hour long, live broadcast. As Honeymooners sketches became more popular, they got longer and could run up to 30 or 45 minutes.

In 1955, Gleason told CBS he wanted take a break from the live show, but wanted to continue a half hour version of the Honeymooners. Gleason still had friends at Dumont and they had told him about the new Dumont Labs Electronicam that shot live video and 35 millimeter film simultaneously.

Gleason had been impressed by the way ‘I Love Lucy’ was produced and wanted to do film, but keep the live aspect of the show. The Electronicam was perfect for this. A kinescope recording was made of the live presentation, which was switched like a regular live show, but in editing, if a camera had a better angle on a scene, they were able to use that instead of the original shot.

All 39 episodes of The Honeymooners were filmed at the DuMont Television Network’s Adelphi Theater at 152 West 54th Street in Manhattan, in front of an audience of 1,000. Episodes were never fully rehearsed, as Gleason felt that rehearsals would rob the show of its spontaneity. The shows were shot on Saturday nights at 8 and by 9, Jackie was headed to Toots Shores or 21.

Gleason and company went back to live television in 1956 because Jackie felt the quality of the longer Honeymooners scripts was petering out. The 39th and last original episode aired on September 22, 1956. In explaining his decision to end the show, Gleason said, “the excellence of the material could not be maintained, and I had too much fondness for the show to cheapen it”. One week after The Honeymooners ended, ‘The Jackie Gleason Show’ returned live to Studio 50 on September 29. Soon after, so did The Honeymooners sketches. Enjoy and share.

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