TK11s On The Ed Sullivan Show From Television City

Ed Sullivan took his show to Television City for a few weeks in 1954 and we are fortunate to have a recorded memory. Here is a great live spot that shows off both TV City and the Ed's sponsor featuring Julia Meade. In the almost 4 minute video, you can see CBS TK11s at work on one of the huge stages at Television City.

For an excellent look at RCA TK11s at work, check out this 1957 Playhouse 90 presentation of 'The Comedian'. Starring Mickey Rooney and written by Rod Serling, this is a great example of live television at it's best. The first and last 20 minutes or so takes place in a network television studio with a lack of camera action in the middle, but great stuff in the opening and closing scenes. This is the full 90 minute show, (ergo, Playhouse 90) with a few commercials. The camera watching, story and presentation is GREAT! The cast too...Mel Torme plays Rooney's brother and John Frankenheimer is the director. I hope the opening theme song brings back as big a rush of memories for you as it did for me.

This is a fabulous and very rare look at NBC's brand new WRC in Washington, starring two brand new RCA TK41s and narration from David Brinkley. The event took place on May 28, 1958 and is very interesting as it features not only an address from the President and David Sarnoff, but offers quite a few great shots of the TK41s and TK10s and 11s used in this broadcast. This starts in black and white, but during the dedication, changes to color with the push of a ceremonial button by Sarnoff. NBC Burbank was given a live feed to tape for delayed broadcast in the west. Fortunately, the 2 TK41s seen in this video have been preserved by my friend Jay Ballard and will be on display at the Museum Of Broadcast Technology when it opens.

In this great clip from 1978, Lawrence Welk trades his baton for a headset and takes over the camera as Cissy dances with the cameraman, Gorham Aveson, at CBS Television City. Welk's show started locally at KTLA, then in 1955 moved to ABC where they stayed till 1971. When ABC canceled the show, Welk went into syndication till '82. For 23 of those 27 years, the show taped at the Hollywood Palladium except for three occasions. The 1965-66 and 1976-77 shows came from the Hollywood Palace, and from Television City from 1977 till 79. Incidentally, his debut on ABC helped bring an end to Sid Cesar's 'Show OF Shows' on NBC when they went head to head at 8 o'clock Saturday nights. I hope Gorham stayed in behind the camera because in front of it, well...you'll see.

Although I don't like the music track, I love this video. It's about 2:30 of time compressed video taken in Studio 8H of a Saturday Night Live rehearsal. Over half the video is shot from cameras mounted on the famous Chapman Electra crane. If you have not yet seen my one of a kind story on this crane, the studio and the people in it, click here, or please take a look later in the Gallery...it's at the bottom of the page.

In the 1961 Jerry Lewis movie, "The Ladies Man", there are a lot of great shots of KTLA's TK10s mounted on Baughman pedestals. Also a good shot of the early QTV paper roll teleprompters at the start of the second clip. The TV camera shots come about 4 minutes into Part 7 and continue in Part 8. To see Part 8, just watch the screen at the end of 7 and in the "Up Next" prompt, click on Part 8.

This is a promotional film made by CBS Labs describing Color Mobile Units they made for the CBS Network. I would guess this film was made somewhere around 1965. Ironically, this film was made about a color mobile unit and it was done in vivid black & white. Note the Norelco PC 60 at the start. Also, no audio for the first 30 seconds, so don't adjust your speakers. Thanks to Lou Goldberg for sending this.

What secret Philo? That Sarnoff tried to steal all your patents? That's no secret, and this topic is very well covered in the clip just below called 'The Origins of Television', but I digress. This is a fun clip with some interesting information from the real father or electronic TV. I hope you enjoy this 1957 snippet from a classic show. The host is Gary Moore, with Bill Cullen, Jane Meadows, Henry Morgan and Betsy Palmer as the panel members.

This is quite good. Even thought there is a :31 second black out from 6:06 till 6:37, this is still a very good look at early mechanical TV, and then the electronic TV developments by Farnsworth. That segment is followed by Vladimir Zworykin's associate talking about the 'aha' moment when Farnsworth showed the visiting Zworykin all his work and Zworykin instantly knew what to do to fix his problems. A good discussion of the legal battles with RCA ends the 11 minute piece. Watch for the replacement of the orthicon tube in an RCA camera...the camera flips open from the back like an 18 wheel truck cab...wow! More on this just below in the next clip.

I've put this here just to show you 2 things, another look at how the old Orthicon cameras opened up, and how the early cameras used the right pan handle to focus, just like the TK40 and 41s did. All that comes about 1 minute into this short 3 minute clip.

At about the 20:50 mark the TK41s come into play in this interesting, 26 minute film from 1956. David Sarnoff and Vladimir Zworykin start the production with a discussion on technical advancements, but by the end, the discussion moves to color television. A lot of important historical TV firsts have been remembered here, but oddly, not a single Image Orthicon camera is shown, but lots of the old Iconoscope models are, including the A 500 and more.

On May 22, 1992, Johnny Carson said goodbye to late night television after a 30 year run on NBC. The network had asked Carson to do a big primetime special, filled with guest stars and glitter. Carson preferred to end the show right where it started, in it's 11:30PM time slot. It was a quiet and fond look back with Johnny sitting on a stool in front of that familiar colorful curtain. The audience that night was comprised of family, friends, cast, crew and NBC employees.

The Tonight Show never allowed media back stage during tapings, preferring to let the show speak for itself, which it always did. As a tribute to his talented staff and crew, Johnny allowed a camera crew behind the scenes during one of the final shows for one rare backstage look at the program and "The King of Late Night!" Clip used by permission of Carson Productions with special thanks to Jeff Sotzing.

This is an introduction to the Archive of American Television from The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation's. If you want TV history straight from the horse's mouth, this is where to get it. There are well over 2000 half hour interviews at this site, that are truly remarkable. Many actors recall their experiences here, but so do many behind the cameras.

One person in particular was so totally captivating that I watched six of nine half hour videos of him in one sitting. That person is Charles ''Cappy' Cappleman who was at CBS's Television City from around 1955 till 2006. If you love the 'back stories' of television history, I urge you to start with his interviews, but with so many segments from so many of television's greats, choosing who to watch next will be tough.

This vault of memories is truly amazing, so open the site and click on the Interviews tab and be ready to be thrilled by the hundreds of actors, producers and technical people who are there.

This is the behind the scenes story of how the CBS eye came to be. Quite a good and interesting story, elegantly told by CBS Sunday Morning Show host, Charles Osgood.