The First Color Tape Production, 1958

On January 4, 2015 - TV History

Above is a photo of Fred Astaire and dancer Barrie Chase in dress rehearsal for ‘An Evening With Fred Astaire’ at NBC Burbank on October 17, 1958. Further below is a link to the whole show.

The show was broadcast live in the east, but was recorded on color video tape for playback to the west…this was a first! The year before, CBS had done the same with ‘The Edsel Show’, but that was a black and white videotape performance.

As mentioned in today’s earlier story on the ‘Ford Star Jubilee’, CBS and NBC could broadcast live color from Los Angeles to the east cost, but until now, the west coast playbacks were always via black and white kinescopes. This is one reason that color production in the west, as well as color set sales always lagged the east coast. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

https://vimeo.com/261611927 

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8 Comments

  1. D. Sanders October 4, 2017

    I believe that the major dance routines were pre-taped in color and that Astaire did the wraparounds live, then the whole thing was played back on color tape for the coast. The restoration from UCLA was fantastic and there is an online version which has the original commercials! Here it is:
    http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x357rbb
    I believe that a DVD release is in the works.

  2. William Bermudez January 5, 2015

    Isn’t it amazing that a color copy of something from this era exists, much less an extravaganza of this level?

  3. David Mikelberg January 5, 2015

    Are you sure about the date? Difficult to imagine doing a dress rehearsal on February 7 for a show airing on October 17. Thanks to videotape editor Kris Trexler, we can now see the show as it originally aired. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lghtn6LttCQ

  4. John Butler January 4, 2015

    Arthur Schneider writes in his book that he was involved with NBC’s new process using 16mm kinescopes to edit videotape, and that the process was used to produce the 1958 Fred Astaire special. So, was the entire Fred Astaire special pre-recorded, or just parts of it, that had to be edited in advance?

  5. Robert Barker January 4, 2015

    Lenticular color kinescopes, the holy grail.

  6. James Overman January 4, 2015

    Studio4

  7. David Crosthwait January 4, 2015

    Starting in ’56 IIRC, there was some color time zone delay using Lenticular color film at NBC Burbank. There were two modified RCA TK 26 color film chains setup to play these to air. Color videotape delay started in the spring of ’58.

  8. Robert Howe January 4, 2015

    even during dress rehearsal, Fred is styling!