The UCLA Film & Television Archive will offer a free in person screening of the “14th Primetime Emmy Awards on Saturday, March 19th at 7:30PM PDT/4:30PM EDT to mark the broadcast’s 60th anniversary.
Here’s the description:
Brimming with Kennedy-era New Frontier verve, the 14th Primetime Emmy Awards, presented in 1962, illuminates a still-developing medium of television at the crossroads of mid-century. Broadcast a year after Federal Communication Chairman Newton Minow’s devastating indictment of American TV programming as representing a “vast wasteland,” CBS’ critically-acclaimed series The Defenders earned the most awards of the evening, representing a nod to the past prestige dramas of the golden age of television.
Presented live on NBC from Hollywood, New York, and Washington, D.C., the technically challenging format is propelled by stalwart comedians Bob Newhart and Johnny Carson and esteemed journalist David Brinkley. The Space Age broadcast boasts an array of beloved talent for television aficionados, with future icons Carol Burnett, Peter Falk, and Don Knotts all called to the podium to collect Emmy statues. Featuring a parade of star presenters, ranging from Eartha Kitt to Jack Webb, the broadcast moves at an unexpectedly efficient clip, with most acceptance speeches clocking in at well under a minute. Original commercials star comedienne and producer Edie Adams, mere months after Ernie Kovacs’ untimely death rocked the entertainment industry, and television’s last angry man Rod Serling in an incongruously lighthearted role for Schlitz Beer.
In 1965, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS) and the UCLA Theater Arts Department partnered to create the ATAS/UCLA Television Library, a cornerstone collection of the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Please join us as we celebrate the continued partnership between UCLA and the Television Academy with our special 60th anniversary co-presentation of this rare broadcast time machine.
Screening introduction by comedian, podcaster and writer-producer Louis Virtel.
This is not a virtual event. The screening will take place at the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Registration is required but free. You can register here.
Many different people who I have known have called television a “vast wasteland” over the years. Now I know where it originated. So many people used the exact same phrase. Of course today it gets called a lot worse than that.
I wouldn’t mind watching the 1962 Emmy’s but, alas, I’m not traveling across the country to do so. It would be wonderful if everyone connected with any type of award show could watch this, and learn about giving out (and accepting) statuettes within an event that moves along at an “unexpectedly efficient clip, with most acceptance speeches clocking in at well under a minute.”