CBS Television City TK41's and others
 

Here's another Life picture archive series. This one is huge and shows numerous behind the scenes photos of CBS Television City in Hollywood. Included are several rare shots of their TK41 camera. One shows what looks like a couple of calibration rigs that are lit and cameras pointing at them. Another looks like a TK40 next to a TK41.

Some of these photos were printed in the magazine and/or have already made it around. But, some haven't. Keep scrolling as there's a lot of pictures, probably over 1,000!

http://images.google.com/hosted/life...466a547f3.html


http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/391...a547f3_landing
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/22b...61def8_landing
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/f89...dda964_landing
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/918...3f9e96_landing
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/afe...f9535d_landing
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/d3e...8c2ae1_landing
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/374...aace11_landing

Here's some more:
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/e3b...42d1f2_landing
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/3bd...18c708_landing
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/2a9...4cc076_landing
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/6b5...3aa09e_landing
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/062...ad7960_landing
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/2e5...20cc8b_landing
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/11e...21cbdb_landing

awesome

John,

Great sequence of early CBS TK-40/41 color studio photos. Thanks for sharing. I am posting another version, in color, of the "CBS Color Girl" as the engineers set up the color cameras.

-Steve D.

I'm sure Robb appreciates the compliment.

Geesh!

John,

With all apologies,

-Steve D.

No problem :thmbsp:

Red Skelton liked to see his shows broadcast in color.

Was a date given?
Researching the bumper set up on the Dodge, I came up with 57 or 58.
Phil

I'd LOVE to have a TK-41... Dunno whatheheck I'd DO with it, I have the technical skills of a turtle, precious little extra room, I think my wife would FINALLY put her foot down-No, she'd put it UP my Heinie-If I drug one of THOSE beasts home..

Fascinating series of photos when working in television was a lot more fun and creative than it is now. A lot of people were required to put on those programs back in the day. But the shows were much more creative and enjoyable and most of all, the bean counters had not taken over yet! I've seen some of these pictures before, and I believe I read somewhere that the pictures of all the Mopar cars in the studio was the Chrysler "Shower of Stars" program.

Gilbert

Looks like a variant of the TM-15 in the first group. Pic #4. Square screw-on bezel and a different knob pattern. Then again it is CBS.

I saw Nanette Fabray and Johnny Ray in some of the pics, so I researched it. There was an every so often show that ran on CBS called Shower of Stars, and the November 1, 1956 episode starred Nanette Fabray, Johnny Ray, Jack Benny, and Bill Lundigan, Rory Calhoun, and Bob Crosby. Lundigan was known as the voice of Chrysler in the mid 50's and they sponsored it.

Funny thing is nothing on IMDB or anywhere else says it was done in color. But, the kinescope of that show is on youtube and Lundigan says at the beginning, "Live and in full color." I haven't watched it yet, but here's a link to it: http://youtu.be/szptfW5QKbI


Edit: After watching a little I realize the announcer in the opening isn't Lundigan. I think it was Art Gilmore, who was the other voice of Chrysler until the late 60's.

I bought a DVD set a few years ago at Big Lots that included a bunch of early kinescopes including the Cavalcade of Stars depicted here. I watched it a couple of times. I was particularly amused by Bill Lundigan's flub live during the commercial for Chrysler's "New Look for 1957" when the cars were for the next model year. He apologizes at the end of the show!

John's 2nd posted photo of The Bob Crosby Show on CBS. I found this L.A.TV Guide listing from Dec. 1954. This may be the color telecast depicted in the photo which shows a TK-40 color camera. CBS rotated their live color broadcasts to include several shows as they gained experience in color tv.
The Crosby show originated from CBS TV City in Hollywood. Color shows were in short supply in those days. TV Guide had started using the "COLOR" icon earlier in 1954.

-Steve D.

I also found this Dec. 1954 L.A.TV Guide listing for Shower of Stars. While the ad states, in small print, that the show is in B&W & color, the listings don't contain the "COLOR" icon. CBS telecast Shower of Stars live in the east & midwest in color, but the delayed prime time broadcast was via B&W kinescope in the west. CBS didn't use color kinescope for time delay. NBC did use color kinescope for some west coast prime time color shows. The quality of the color kine was questionable. Film shows could be broadcast in color in prime time in all time zones.

-Steve D.

Interesting Steve! So which CBS stations in the US could transmit in color?

By late 1954 many CBS affiliates could transmit network color broadcasts to their local markets. There was some cost incurred to modify the transmitters and install color monitoring equipment. Locally originated color via film/slide or live color equipment was rare at most stations. High cost, minuscule % of color sets and sponsor reluctance to pay additional costs of producing local commercials/programs in color dictated affiliates to hold off on other than network originated color broadcasts for quite some time.

-Steve D.

Nice 15GP22 monitor in that one picture. I wonder how long such monitors were kept in service in commercial/broadcast use? The answer might be related to that one known "made in 1959" 15GP22 CRT.

Why did channels 4 & 5 in LA have adjacent spectrum assignments in same city?

Same situation as in N.Y.C. There were 7 channels in Los Angeles after about 1949. I guess the FCC figured that there would be no cross interference with the closest meto area. There is/was no channel 4 or 5 for hundreds of miles from L.A. I can't speak for New York City.

-Steve D.

Remember there is a 4 mHz gap between 4 and 5, so they aren't really adjacent.

The Eyes of a Generation Facebook page a few days ago posted the photo below from the Life series and I pasted the info from the post. By the way, if you want to follow their Facebook page, the link is here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Eyes-...768249?fref=nf

http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/22b...61def8_landing

"Backtracking...With The Help Of Tom Kennedy!

Earlier in the week, I posted this photo with video of 'The Bob Crosby Show'. Since then, I have heard from one of the people in this photo...legendary game show host, Tom Kennedy, and he had three surprise comments on this picture that I'll share.

The first surprise is that the floor director (with headphones) is none other than Dave Powers who went on to direct 'The Carol Burnett Show'.

The second surprise is that this is not Tom Kennedy...yet. The man with the cake on his plate is Jim Narz who is doing a one week fill in for his brother Jack Narz. Early in their careers, the two brothers were in demand in Hollywood, but being brothers with similar names caused some confusion. Out of respect to his older brother, Jim Narz took his now famous stage name...Tom Kennedy. He is also the brother-in-law to Bill Cullen.

The third surprise came seconds after this rehearsal photo was taken. In order to help "sell" the commercial for Betty Crocker cake mix, Jim took a bite. Turns out, the cake was made of putty! Bob Crosby and everyone on the set almost died laughing!

Many thanks to Tom, and to our friend David Schwartz at the Game Show Network for putting us in touch. Enjoy and share."

Love every moment of it-Wasn't that Red Skelton in the center of the audience

The thought had occurred to me: "How is all that chocolate icing not melting under the crazy bright studio lamps necessary for early color cameras to produce decent picture?" I'll think twice before comparing terrible frosting-in-a-can to fluffy plaster in the future.


I can tell I'm up past my normal bedtime now. I just spent about 15 seconds chuckling about "So Jim, just how delicious was that cake? Well Bob, I gotta tell you, it was pretty fake!"