Zoomar And The Right Wing Conspiracy

On January 30, 2014 - TV History

Zoomar And The Right Wing Conspiracy

As mentioned in the post below, Zoomar lenses were in use at CBS Studio 50 in the 1950s and here is an RCA TK11 fitted with one. As for the “right wing conspiracy”, well…take a look behind Ed. In essence, there was no right wing to this stage as it was very shallow and there was no room to store props there. Sullivan’s long time stage manager Eddie Brinkman, came up with a dual purpose solution. The scaffold you see here doubled as a quick access prop storage platform as well as a camera platform. Out of sight is the third story home of one of the six cameras that were in use on this stage which at the time was also home to ‘The Jackie Gleason Show’ and the Gleason produced ‘Stage Show’ that starred Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey.

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4 Comments

  1. Deirdre Wexler February 4, 2014

    My grandfather, Eddie Brinkmann…

  2. John Maresca January 30, 2014

    The shot from the camera on the third level of the scaffold must have been quite a commanding view. And it must have been hot as the dickens for the cameraman.

  3. Albert J. McGilvray January 30, 2014

    For a second, I thought that round thing behind Ed Sullivan was one of Nipkow’s spinning disks.

  4. Warner W. Johnston January 30, 2014

    And the only novel Ernie Kovacks wrote was titled Zoomar, and was about television.

    I think my job interview was in one of the bars he describes as the network watering hole.

    http://www.librarything.com/work/13288608/book/92114858