The Ford Show

[holmesuser01]

In 1976, I worked for an indie station in middle Tennessee. We inherited a semi truck load of video tape and equipment from the previous station that lived in our building... that went off the air in 1973.

There were at least 1000 2" low-band recordings of shows like The Dean Martin Show stored there. The trailer was air conditioned, and all the tapes were in good condition, along with complete sets of 16mm comedy shows from the 1950's, like Topper, and I Married Joan. I was given all the films, and still have many of them today.

The station had nothing that would play low-band 2", so most of them were destroyed. Some, that were saved, were taken to a certain PBS affiliate in the area that DID have a low-band machine, and the shows were copied to high-band. These shows live today. Some of the Martin shows came from a local NBC affiliate, and included network commercials. Ernie Ford, Minnie Pearl, and others, were saved from the dump. I have no idea where these tapes are today, but I do know that they were copied and preserved.

I've got several 3M scotch boxes that will live forever, too.