Looking for NBC peacock video
 

I have been searching without success for quality video of the various NBC peacock video clips that were used as intros before color programs that were broadcast on NBC over the decades.

All that I have been able to find thus far are the crapy compressed ones that appear on Youtube.

I would like to be able to get the various versions of the NBC peacock so that I can place them on a dvd and have the DVD loop continuously as a demo for my restored RCA color sets.

Obviously I have no desire to use the logos for anything but my own personal use, and there is no intent to use them to profit monetarily, so I would assume that there should be no copyright issues.

IS there anyone out there that could help me to obtain what I am searching for?

I did drop an email to one fellow who has a web site but he never answered me back.

Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to give

Bob G.

Good luck! Not only have recordings and films deteriorated over the years, but NBC was incredibly sloppy about any standards for the color consistency of the peacock. I have seen actual film copies that apparently were intended for use on the air that had horrendous exposure, contrast, and color problems. Of course, they were also faded towards pink due to age, but you could tell that they were't good originally. You can see this in some of the videos on the web - the green is practically gray, yellow turning orange or overexposed, and the white part totally burned out while other colors are excessively dark. Every published version in magazines, on other advertising items, even the NBC Peacock board game, had a different version of the colors. It is much easier to make a collection of "all the many (bad) versions of the peacock" than to find even one definitive good copy.
This will give you an idea of what it should look like:
http://www.big13.net/NBC%20Peacock/NBCPeacock1.htm
I have NEVER seen it look like this anywhere else.

If you do find good ones, I'd be happy to go in on the cost of acquisition and cover material costs for a non-profit copy.

I followed a couple of links and found this..

http://www.kingoftheroad.net/colorTV/peacock1.html

I saved it as an AVI file :D

I am aware of kingoftheroad site. That does not help. You can not take a highly compressed video stream from the net and display it on a 21" color tv. There is no where near enough information in that compressed video to display a decent picture on a 21" crt.

I am looking for raw NTSC video.

Thanks for the suggestion anyhow.

Bob G.

Yes I understand I just happened across that link and thought it was kind of cool... no good for quality NTSC video though.

Just a long shot, but you might start looking around and asking around about old VHS tapes that people taped off-the-air. If you're lucky, someone will have taped off a show that included the peacock and the tape of which is still in decent condition. Tricky and/or time-consuming to find, perhaps, but I'm SURE there must be a bunch of them out there, and they should be cheap to buy. Of course, you might have to spend a bit getting a bunch of unwanted ones before you found a good one, and you might have to spend a lot of time playing through them (even on FF) before you find the peacock, but it's a possible way to find one. Since NBC was one of the three big networks for many years, and the peacock came on fairly often for a good number of those years, I think the chances of getting one that way might be worth the effort, if your heart is set on finding this video.

I have a bunch of old VHS tapes, but unfortunately, all of them were made here in Hong Kong, and our channels, not belonging to NBC, almost never showed the peacock, so I don't think I have one.

Just another idea: Did NBC put the peacock before any movies or shows that were put on LaserDisc or DVD? I know I have a bunch of movies that show the MGM lion in the beginning, as that was the movie company. I can't recall one that had the peacock, but there might be some out there, in those formats, with some of the TV shows that have been released that way?

I'm sure one will "materialize" for you. Good luck!

I think it's on one of those Johnny Carson Best of Videos.

Well, as a tiny compromise, I have this as one of my wallpapers....:D

I just thought of something! Check out any of the Laugh-In shows on DVD--they have the bird in the beginning.

I think they were reissued about five years ago by Guthy-Renker.

As you can see, the peacock is my forum avatar :D

A favorite topic as my avatar will show.

The Laramie peacock is on any number of DVDs as previous posters have mentioned: the 1968 Petula Clark special, "Movin' with Nancy" (Sinatra), Hullabaloo, The Andy Williams Show. The original peacock is tougher. It's on the Howdy Doody DVD of the last episode (Clarabell Speaks) but with Howdy Doody music rather than the fanfare. You can also find it on the DVDs of the Tennessee Ernie Ford show put out by his estate (which also have all the bumpers, etc.--great early color stuff) but also without the fanfare. The Ford shows and Petula Clark have been put out on VHS as well.

Another possibility--when NBC was rerunning the Mary Martin Peter Pan in the 1980s it had the original peacock at the front. I have a VHS of that around here somewhere.

As for the quality of it--I've seen enough of these to agree that the quality was very uneven; no two seem to look alike. But if the point is to re-create the original broadcast experience, isn't that part of it?

On a related note--the Universal HD channel is rerunning Hogan's Heroes (annoyingly remastered to 16:9). Many of the episodes start with the CBS color logo.

I worked for Guthy Renker back in the day. I did real time copies of the 1" originals to VHS. They had the bird.

A few years ago I acquired a Guthy-Renker DVD of the October 7, 1968 Laugh-In marked LGDVD001. Screen cap of the bird attached. [apparently not; seems i've maxed out at 3.3 Meg of pix upload; they're kidding, right!]


The consensus is that it was shot with RCA TK-41 cameras.

Can you comment on the color accuracy of the DVD? My interest is in early color programming that can be used as accurate source material for demonstrating the CT-100.


Pete

I am having the same issue with photos Pete. I just started a Photobucket account. You can upload the photos to Photobucket FREE and then cut and paste the link they provide you into your AK posts and they will automatically upload from the photobucket site when someone loads your AK post.

I think the small space AK provides for photos is rather silly. You have to delete the photos from older posts in order to have photos in your recent posts. So when someone looks at an older post that had photos for a demo on how to build something, the photos are no longer there???? Thst is pretty goofy if you ask me.

Bob G.

I hope holmesuser01 can comment based on memory. I think the only other reference would be to any photographs of the set. The only natural color in that program was the talent's faces -everything else is unknown costume and "psychedelic" sets.

Regarding the peacock on these DVDs, its color is lousy but typical of the peacock film clip, apparently. The red and orange are practically identical, the yellow is very orange, and the green is has been turned into a very desaturated and dark cyan.

The video quality itself is decent, no visible tape banding or other defects.