‘Peter Pan’, One Of The First NBC Color Spectaculars
‘Peter Pan’, One Of The First NBC Color Spectaculars
The first president of NBC Television was Pat Weaver. He came from NBC radio and was the man that created ‘Today’, ‘Tonight’, ‘Monitor’ on NBC radio, and “spectaculars”. Many of the spectaculars were done by Fred Coe under ‘The Producers Showcase’ umbrella and were all in color to help promote RCA’s line of color sets. ‘Peter Pan’ had been a Broadway show starring Mary Martin and when it was learned that the show was ending, Weaver decided to do a television version with the same cast. After several months of preparation, ‘Peter Pan’ was presented by ‘The Producers Showcase’ live from NBC’s Brooklyn Studios on March 7, 1955. The show was in color and used 6 RCA TK41s and both studios. Studio 1 was home to interior sets and Studio 2 was where the external scenes were done. The two hour production garnered 65 million viewers, but very few color sets were in use then. Unfortunately, video tape had not been invented yet and there was only a black and white kinescope of the show. The ratings were so good that NBC decided did the whole show again live on January 9, 1956. Again, a huge audience but no color capture of the show for rebroadcast was possible yet. Interest from the public and sponsors to broadcast the show again the next year was there, but without a way to capture it in color, NBC balked. By 1960, color video tape was reliable enough to handle the task, so on December 8 of that year, ‘Peter Pan’ starring Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard was produced live in Brooklyn for the third time in five years. The video tape with only a few slight edits was re broadcast in 1963, 66, 73, 89 and 1990. Disney now owns the master tape. Thanks to John Bolin for the reminder to cover this ground.
Too bad this isn’t available on DVD; if it were, I think much fairer comparisons would’ve/could’ve been made between this and the recent “live for TV” version of “THE SOUND OF MUSIC.”
My dad, Don Mulvaney, did all 3 productions that NBC did of Peter Pan.
I remember seeing this show on TV for the first time in the 50s. If memory serves me right, it was part of a series on fairytales with Shirley Temple as hostess.
I saw this in 1960 on a CTC-7 that my grandparents owned. It’s probably why I went into TV.
I remember being mesmerized by the production as a child.
Mary Martin was appearing in the Broadway version of “The Sound of Music” evenings while taping “Peter Pan” during the day at NBC Brooklyn.
Here is the link to the entire show on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJFtCfHDFfw It is available on DVD, I saw several copies on eBay for sale around $15. According to Wikipedia the production was not live, but on color tape in 1960. So, we may need some clarification on that point. In the aftermath of “Sound of Music Live’ NBC is now thinking of doing Peter Pan in the same style sometime next year. With over 18 million viewers tuned in for SOML, and all those Wal-Mart commercials, it is probably going to happen. Hopefully Peter Pan will be more faithful to the Broadway production with a director that understands real live TV, may be Louis Horvitz.
He also gave birth to a daughter, talented actress Sigourney Weaver.
Great memory. Magic.
I remember seeing it in 73. Even as an 8 year old I could not believe that and “old” show like this was taped in color and looked so good. I did QC even as a kid!
Look. Its J R Ewings mom.
Not in color either!
The photo is not from 1960 (not the same actors). It’s the same set though.
Watched it in 1960, of course…I was 7 years old…it was cool!