Television Obscurities » Editorial

View Scenes from Earliest Existing Television Footage

RGJ — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 01:24:29 +0000

I cannot believe I did not know about this until today. In August, The Paley Center for Media posted a short clip from a very old television play titled “The Streets of New York” and Ron Simon, the Center’s Television and Radio curator, has written a wonderful discussion about both the program and the clip itself. Why am I mentally kicking myself for not having seeing it earlier? Because “The Streets of New York” was broadcast on Thursday, August 31st, 1939 and is the earliest television footage known to exist.

According to Simon, the silent footage was uncovered by the American Film Institute at an estate sale some years back. It made its way to the Paley Center and Simon was able to identify it (which is an incredible achievement when you think about it) and now roughly one minute has been posted at the Center’s website. A total of eleven minutes exist. Here’s the entry from the Center’s database:

This home-made kinescope (without sound) shows fragments of one of the Thursday Night Programs broadcast by the predecessor of WNBC-TV, the experimental NBC station W2XBS. The melodrama, about a family’s descent into poverty, is presented as a play within the program. Also shown are shots of patrons entering the Lester Wallace Theatre to watch the show, cards that direct theater patrons in proper behavior, and a “dramatis personae.” Fragmentary scenes include Badger (played by Norman Lloyd) and Bloodgood (played by George Coulouris) plotting together and Bloodgood setting a house on fire.

Yes, that’s producer/actor/director Norman Lloyd (here’s his IMDb page) who appeared in a variety of early W2XBS broadcasts. I cannot see identify him in the footage available at the Paley Center’s website but he may not be in that scene. I was aware that the Center had this footage for quite some time — it is available for viewing in its entirety by visitors at the New York City and Los Angeles locations — but never thought it would be made available online. I implore everyone to take a minute to watch the footage here.

Incredible.

David Lloyd (1934-2009)

RGJ — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:18:54 +0000

Scriptwriter David Lloyd, who won an Emmy in 1976 for writing “Chuckles Bites the Dust” for The Mary Tyler Moore Show, has died at the age of 75. According to his IMDb page he started writing for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in the early 1960s and also wrote for The Dick Cavett Show and Jack Paar Tonite before moving entirely to sitcoms. In addition to The Mary Tyler Moore (he won another Emmy award for co-writing the final episode and a third in 1998 for Frasier), he wrote episodes of Rhoda, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Taxi, The Associates, Amen, Cheers, Wings and Frasier. He also created Brothers and served as executive script consultant on Cheers, Wings and Frasier.

An obituary is available at The Los Angeles Times; here’s the post at Deadline Hollywood Daily where I first learned about Lloyd’s passing.

Update:

Ken Levine has posted a wonderful tribute to David Lloyd at his blog.

DVD On-Demand or Internet Streaming the Answer for Obscure Television?

RGJ — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:35:02 +0000

All of the obscure television programs I’ve written about here at Television Obscurities have their fans ready and willing to purchase DVD sets. But the likelihood of any of them coming to DVD is slim. There is simply not enough widespread consumer demand. However, the recent introduction of so-called “manufacture-on-demand” DVDs offers, at least in theory, a way for some of these shows to find their way to DVD. Warner Brothers has released the first pilot telefilm to NBC’s Man from Atlantis on DVD as well as two of Gene Rodddenberry’s unsold 1970s pilot telefilms through the Warner Archive website. I think it is safe to say none of these would have seen the light of day through the traditional DVD route.

How many people would happily pay to get even a few episodes of The New People, The Young Rebels, SEARCH or It’s a Man’s World through a manufacture-on-demand program like the Warner Archive? I know I would, even if the price was a little extravagant. There are some drawbacks to manufacture-on-demand; the discs are DVD-Rs, the quality of the transfers may not be all that great, and there likely won’t be fancy cover art. But if these shows are never going to be available in any other way and a small but vocal group of fans will pay a premium it might just be an avenue that should be explored.

Another avenue is Internet streaming. Based solely on my own experience, the 2006-2007 television season was when the networks began offering unaired episodes of cancelled programs online for fans to watch for free with the occasional advertisement. Today, of course, you can watch new episodes of just about every current television show online, both broadcast and cable. And you can even watch all 31 episodes of My Mother, The Car at Hulu.com. When I wrote about the unexpected availability of the Jerry Van Dyke sitcom in August I opined that in lieu of an actual DVD release, putting episodes online — even if they include advertisements — is at the very least a step in the right direction.

Of course, viewers outside the United States cannot use Hulu.com and that can be frustrating. But then again, there are some shows that have been released in other regions but not in the United States. DVD sets of The Bionic Woman, for example, is available in Region Two (the United Kingdom and Germany, to be specific) but not in the States. Thanks to Hulu, fans can watch all fourteen episodes from the first season.

Is it possible that My Mother, The Car will eventually be released in DVD? Certainly. But like The New People it is incredibly unlikely. For those who don’t mind watching television on their computer the episodes are available right now. And I would even be willing to pay to watch The New People online, although of course I would prefer a DVD set. What if the episodes were available for download through iTunes or Amazon.com? That would be even better.

(As an aside, the Museum of Broadcast Communications has digitized some 7,000 hours of radio and television programs and makes them available, for free, to anyone willing to register. And there are some relatively obscure titles included. You can watch the premiere episode of ABC’s Breakfast Club With Don McNeill from 1948 or an episode of Panhandle Pete and Jennifer thought to be from 1949.

The main sticking point for both manufacture-on-demand and Internet streaming is, of course, the cost of digitizing episodes with legal considerations running a close second. I don’t know the finances involved or how many lawyers it would take to clear any copyright concerns. But if My Mother, The Car can be made available at Hulu.com and two of Gene Roddenberry’s unsold 1970s pilot telefilms at Warner Archives via manufacture-on-demand, there may be hope for dozens of other somewhat obscure television shows.

Soupy Sales (1926-2009)

RGJ — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:31:36 +0000

Comedian Soupy Sales, who according to Variety appeared live on television over 5,000 times during his career, has died at the age of 1983. During the 1950s and 1960s he hosted a children’s show titled Lunch with Soupy Sales; at various times it aired locally and nationally. He was also a regular fixture on game shows like What’s My Line? and The Hollywood Squares. An incident in 1965 in which Sales asked his young audience to send in “green pieces of paper” led to a brief suspension (read about it at Snopes.com). Obituaries can be found at CNN.com, The Los Angeles Times and BBC News.

Vic Mizzy (1922-2009)

RGJ — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:28:47 +0000

He was responsible for the most famous two finger snaps of all time. Songwriter Vic Mizzy, who wrote the theme songs to The Addams Family and Green Acres, passed away on Saturday at the age of 93 according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Los Angeles Times notes that he also wrote the themes to The Pruitts of Southampton, Klondike and scored episodes of Shirley Temple’s Storybook and The Richard Boone Show. Because production company Filmways wouldn’t pay for a singer, Mizzy sang the theme to The Addams Family himself and overdubbed it three times. Additional obituaries can be found at BBC News and The Film Music Society. Thanks to TV Shows on DVD for bringing this to my attention.

Memorial Held for Don Hewitt

RGJ — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:01:33 +0000

A memorial service was held today for 60 Minutes creator Don Hewitt, who died on August 19th at the age of 86. Hewitt directed the very first regularly scheduled television newscast (with Douglas Edwards) in 1948 for CBS News and later directed See It Now with Edward R. Murrow and also produced The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. He also directed the first televised presidential debate. Articles about the memorial can be found at Broadcasting & Cable, WCBS-TV and CBS News. And here’s an article from The New York Times from August 20th, 2004 about Hewitt’s retirement.

I can’t remember the last time I watched 60 Minutes but there’s no denying its incredible impact on the television landscape.

CNN Runs Down One Episode Wonders

RGJ — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:38:43 +0000

Breeanna Hare has written an article for CNN.com titled “Looking back at TV’s one-episode wonders” in which shee recounts a dozen of television’s “one episode wonders,” including old standbys like You’re in the Picture, Co-ed Fever and Turn On along with more recent examples such as Emily’s Reasons Why Not and Quarterlife. So far, the 2009-2010 season has seen only one cancellation, The CW’s Beautiful Life, and it lasted two episodes. And since most of the new fall shows have premiered already, we’ll have to wait until mid-season to see if 2009-2010 will have its own one episode wonder.

50 Years of The Twilight Zone

RGJ — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 01:30:19 +0000

Fifty years ago today, on another Friday evening in early October, a new half-hour television program had its debut on CBS at 10:00PM. It was called The Twilight Zone and was created, hosted and written (in large part) by one man: Rod Serling. Already famous for penning several award-winning television dramas, The Twilight Zone would make Serling a television icon, both for his work in front of and behind the camera. The distinct vocal inflection, the twist endings, the ever-present cigarette. Serling and The Twilight Zone are forever intertwined.

The premiere episode was titled “Where is Everybody?” and starred Earl Holliman as a man who awakens to find himself alone in an abandoned town. It was the first of 156 episodes, 92 of which were written by Serling. Following the 1961-1962 season (its third) The Twilight Zone was expanded to an hour and held until mid-season. It returned to its original length in the fall of 1963; the final first-run episode aired on June 19th, 1964.

I’m not going to even try to somehow connect The Twilight Zone to obscure television. There’s nothing remotely obscure about it. A feature film version was released in 1983, it’s been revived on television twice, and it continues to air regularly on television. It even has its own postage stamp. And the third Rod Serling Conference at Ithaca College, “Celebrating 50 Years of The Twilight Zone,” is being held this weekend.

My personal favorite episode is Season Three’s “The Midnight Sun” starring the late Lois Nettleton. I was fortunate enough to meet Ms. Nettleton at the 2006 Twilight Zone Convention and spoke briefly with her about the episode (I also got her autograph, one of the few I own). I’ve probably seen the episode seven or eight times. What’s your favorite episode?

Gunsmoke, Rawhide and Have Gun, Will Travel Coming to Encore Westerns in 2010

RGJ — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:30:44 +0000

Premium cable channel Encore Westerns will begin airing Gunsmoke in January of 2010 according to The Hollywood Reporter. The show has previously aired on Encore Westerns but hasn’t been seen in four years. Rawhide and Have Gun, Will Travel, also from CBS TV Distribution, will debut sometime in 2010. Encore Westerns is one of seven Encore channels owned by Starz Entertainment, it seems, none of which I have ever seen.

The article quotes Nancy Silverstone, vice president of program acquisitions for Starz Entertainment as saying “our Westerns viewers are made up of true and diehard fans of the genre. They were devastated when ‘Gunsmoke’ went off the channel four long years ago. The series is still relevant today as it was over 50 years ago. We have no doubt that our fans will also be excited by the addition of the classic series ‘Have Gun Will Travel’ and ‘Rawhide.’”

Let’s Predict the First Cancellation of the 2009-2010 Season

RGJ — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:30:36 +0000

The 2009-2010 television season officially begins tonight. Over the next few weeks the networks will roll out more than 20 new shows (a few have already premiered and a handful won’t premiere until October or November). And FOX has given the first full-season order to one of its new shows, Glee. But what will be the first cancellation of the season? And how many of these new shows will be forgotten by mid-season 2010?

New obscurities are born each and every season. Television isn’t a medium that looks back very often, it’s all about moving forward and discovering the next big hit. Consider the 2008-2009 season. How many people remember Do Not Disturb, The Unusuals or Eleventh Hour? Think back to the 2007-2008 season (all of two years ago). Do Life Is Wild, K-Ville or Journeyman ring a bell? On the other hand, most one season wonders are released on DVD these days and, starting with the 2005-2006 season, the networks have streamed unaired episodes of cancelled shows online for hardcore fans to watch.

What’s your pick for the new season’s first cancellation? Three Rivers on CBS, any of ABC’s new Wednesday programs — Hank, The Middle, Modern Family, Cougar Town and Eastwick — or perhaps FOX’s Brothers, the only new show airing on Fridays? If I were FOX, I’d have the pink slip ready for Brothers…