Is It True That...?

[The King Bee]

Here's a home for all the one-shot Classic TV questions and answers.

Is it true that...the original animations for the "I Love Lucy" series opens, bumpers and closes as shown on TV Land were the work of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera?

Is it true that...there is a direct lineage between DuMont and Fox Television?

Is it true that...the majority of early (1947-50) TV sign-ons were NBC affiliates because RCA, then the only full-line TV production and transmission equipment manufacturer (and parent of NBC), gave NBC affiliates priority over CBS, ABC, DuMont and independent stations until told to desist by the FCC?

[I know that here in Louisville, WHAS-TV (CBS) was granted a CP in 1947 but didn't get on (with mostly GE and Western Electric gear) until 3/27/50, while WAVE-TV (NBC) got their CP in late 1947 and signed on 11/24/48 with an all-RCA plant.]

 

[LKellerIII]

Interesting question regarding I Love Lucy. I had assumed that the opening credits and bumpers for Lucy that you see on TV Land were not actually the originals, but produced recently for TV Land, purposely done in an old fashioned style. If I remember correctly, the TV Land logo figures prominently in the animation...though I'm sure it's possible to digitize older film, and alter it.

If Hanna/Barbera had anything to do with it, it would have had to have been while they were employed by MGM. Though their collaboration at MGM was semi-independent, and called "HB Enterprises,", they didn't establish Hanna-Barbera Productions until a couple of years after I Love Lucy ended its first run.

I can tell you that the opening sequence we all saw for years (with the heart) had been used at least since the late 50s, when Lucy started reruns on CBS on weekday mornings. I'm too young to have seen Lucy in its original run, but I would guess that the heart opening is the original. Though I could be wrong...



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanna-Barbera

 

[LKellerIII]

Interesting question regarding I Love Lucy. I had assumed that the opening credits and bumpers for Lucy that you see on TV Land were not actually the originals, but produced recently for TV Land, purposely done in an old fashioned style. If I remember correctly, the TV Land logo figures prominently in the animation...though I'm sure it's possible to digitize older film, and alter it.

If Hanna/Barbera had anything to do with it, it would have had to have been while they were employed by MGM. Though their collaboration at MGM was semi-independent, and called "HB Enterprises,", they didn't establish Hanna-Barbera Productions until a couple of years after I Love Lucy ended its first run.

I can tell you that the opening sequence we all saw for years (with the heart) had been used at least since the late 50s, when Lucy started reruns on CBS on weekday mornings. I'm too young to have seen Lucy in its original run, but I would guess that the heart opening is the original. Though I could be wrong...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanna-Barbera

OK - I was wrong...so I'll correct myself before somebody else does. I did less than a minute of "research" (googling) and found that the familiar opening we all know was created for the syndication package


http://www.tvparty.com/unseenlucy.html

 

[KeithE4]

Is it true that...there is a direct lineage between DuMont and Fox Television?

Yes.

After the Dumont network went off the air in 1956, its two remaining stations, WABD (later WNEW-TV, now WNYW) New York and WTTG Washington were spun off to a new company called the Dumont Broadcasting Company. The shareholders didn't want to be associated with the Dumont name (athough Allen B. Dumont himself was a shareholder until 1958), so they changed it to Metropolitan Broadcasting Company in 1957, renamed Metromedia in 1961.

Over the years, they picked up KTTV Los Angeles (from the LA Times), WFLD Chicago (from Field Communications), and others that were later sold. These stations, along with WNEW-TV and WTTG, formed the core of the Fox network when Rupert Murdoch bought Metromedia in 1985.

I believe that Fox's NYC headquarters is still in what used to be called the Dumont Telecenter.

Is it true that...the majority of early (1947-50) TV sign-ons were NBC affiliates because RCA, then the only full-line TV production and transmission equipment manufacturer (and parent of NBC), gave NBC affiliates priority over CBS, ABC, DuMont and independent stations until told to desist by the FCC?

I don't know about that, but until the spring of 1948, only NBC and Dumont existed as TV networks. It's not surprising that NBC would have picked up most of the new stations in that era.

 

[Corky Marlowe]

Interesting question regarding I Love Lucy. I had assumed that the opening credits and bumpers for Lucy that you see on TV Land were not actually the originals, but produced recently for TV Land, purposely done in an old fashioned style. If I remember correctly, the TV Land logo figures prominently in the animation...though I'm sure it's possible to digitize older film, and alter it.
From what I understand, the current "ILL" opening titles on TV Land are the originals, and the reason they couldn't be used for so many years was because where it now says "TV Land Presents", it originally read "Phillip Morris Presents", and there was no way to remove that back in the late 50's when the show first became widely syndicated.

 

[BRNout]

From what I understand, the current "ILL" opening titles on TV Land are the originals, and the reason they couldn't be used for so many years was because where it now says "TV Land Presents", it originally read "Phillip Morris Presents", and there was no way to remove that back in the late 50's when the show first became widely syndicated.

Yes, absolutely correct.

I believe that there are some original opening titles on You Tube and the billboard takes the form of a pack of Philip Morris cigarettes. The show would start with an endorsement for Philip Morris, usually including the page's "Call for Philip Morris..." Creepy to watch, even for someone who is NOT an anti-smoking nazi!

TV Land/Viacom managed to dig up the originals and remastered them to change the opening and to clean up the prints. When they premiered I Love Lucy with that opening, it was the first time in some 40 years that anyone had seen them on TV. Or so they said at the time.

Which ties in nicely with another active thread here about sponsors.

 

[mleach]

Interesting question regarding I Love Lucy. I had assumed that the opening credits and bumpers for Lucy that you see on TV Land were not actually the originals, but produced recently for TV Land, purposely done in an old fashioned style. If I remember correctly, the TV Land logo figures prominently in the animation...though I'm sure it's possible to digitize older film, and alter it.
From what I understand, the current "ILL" opening titles on TV Land are the originals, and the reason they couldn't be used for so many years was because where it now says "TV Land Presents", it originally read "Phillip Morris Presents", and there was no way to remove that back in the late 50's when the show first became widely syndicated.

True but keep in mind that Phillip Morris only sponsored I Love Lucy the first 5 years or so. In 1956 I believe Phillip Morris actually dropped I Love Lucy ( the cigarette marker was taking a severe beating from Winston ) and Lilt Hair Products became the sponsor of I Love Lucy and yes it became "Lilt presents..".

Back in 2000 a group of us went to the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz days in Jamestown, New York. The folks who ran the festival somehow got an actual print of I Love Lucy ffrom some TV station in Mississippi that had been in their archives for decades. The print came from CBS. I still remember seeing the faces of the people in the audience expecting to see Phillip Morris but saw Lilt instead. The episode was the one where Lucy and Ricky moved in with the Metrzes just before the left the city for the country.

 

[The King Bee]

Is it true that network feeds of TV shows are still "double rolled" (identical program materials locked together via time code on separate servers or VTRs) for safety in case one source degrades or dies?

I know the nets did this with film and VTR sources for years, sometimes from different ops locations, e.g. New York and Burbank for NBC programming.

 

[Markxxx]

CBS was more interested in getting color TV on the air and believed it could do so, it is in that respect why CBS was a bit late getting to the TV gate, even behind ABC.

It is ironic that in this era both CBS and NBC showed their strengths.

When CBS raided NBC's radio talent the attitude of NBC was, it was NBC which built the shows not the stars, and they could easily replace them with other people. After all NBC made them stars and they'd simply make other stars. This attitude of NBC allowed CBS to push past them and dominate the ratings for the next two decades.

CBS on the other hand was weak in the technology field. They worked to develop a color system, but NBC with RCA as a parent, NBC managed to successfully press it's case for it's color system which, unlike the CBS mechanical system, was compatible with B&W TV.

CBS was assuming it's color TV system would push TV to the UHF portion of the dial. When this did not happen CBS was left scrambling to buy TV stations in Chicago and Los Angeles, and eventually in St Louis, Philadelphia.

So CBS wasn't as concerend with getting TV stations on air because they assumed all the current stations would be pushed to UHF

 

[oldiesfan6479]

Is it true that network feeds of TV shows are still "double rolled"...for safety...?
I know the nets did this with film and VTR sources for years, sometimes from different ops locations, e.g. New York and Burbank for NBC programming.

I've also heard that Burbank was a backup originating point to 30 Rock
for the New York feed, although I wonder how fast AT&T could reverse
the entire network.

As for CBS, both NYC and TV City (for the left coast feed) each rolled
two VTRs for a tape show. For a film show, each rolled a 35mm primary
and 16mm backup. By the mid-70s CBS had begun transferring all shows
to tape--complete with the spots/promos/etc.--for air.

Back then, TV City had its own booth announcers, so left coast viewers
would usually hear promo tags of "Saturday night at 8 on CBS" instead of
"Saturday night at 8/7 Central on CBS."

 

[LABreeze]

Here's a home for all the one-shot Classic TV questions and answers.

Is it true that...the original animations for the "I Love Lucy" series opens, bumpers and closes as shown on TV Land were the work of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera?

From other sources that I have dug up years ago (about 2001 or 2002), The original animated opens and bumpers were secretly done by Bill & Joe (Hanna-Barbera) and their crew while at MGM. However, at that time, the head of MGM would not have anything to do with special animation for television or anything else for television, period (that changed drastically by the late 50s and early 60s). Should he have caught them doing that then, they would've been fired and wouldn't work for Roaring Leo again. So Bill, Joe and the animation crew did it anyway as one source says, "for the fear of their jobs."

That, of course is true.

 

[ercjncpr]

Is it true that...there is a direct lineage between DuMont and Fox Television?

Yes.

After the Dumont network went off the air in 1956, its two remaining stations, WABD (later WNEW-TV, now WNYW) New York and WTTG Washington were spun off to a new company called the Dumont Broadcasting Company. The shareholders didn't want to be associated with the Dumont name (athough Allen B. Dumont himself was a shareholder until 1958), so they changed it to Metropolitan Broadcasting Company in 1957, renamed Metromedia in 1961.

Over the years, they picked up KTTV Los Angeles (from the LA Times), WFLD Chicago (from Field Communications), and others that were later sold. These stations, along with WNEW-TV and WTTG, formed the core of the Fox network when Rupert Murdoch bought Metromedia in 1985.

I believe that Fox's NYC headquarters is still in what used to be called the Dumont Telecenter.

Is it true that...the majority of early (1947-50) TV sign-ons were NBC affiliates because RCA, then the only full-line TV production and transmission equipment manufacturer (and parent of NBC), gave NBC affiliates priority over CBS, ABC, DuMont and independent stations until told to desist by the FCC?

I don't know about that, but until the spring of 1948, only NBC and Dumont existed as TV networks. It's not surprising that NBC would have picked up most of the new stations in that era.

CBS actually abandoned is allocated channel 2 license in Los Angeles approx 1946 becausde Bill Paley did not want to go into television yet. They had to buy it back from Don Lee for a few million $ in 1951.

 

[The King Bee]

Is It True That...someone has found a kinescope or videotape of the October 2, 1962 debut of Johnny Carson as host of "The Tonight Show?" (I understand that an audio-only tape has been played for years.)

While I'm on the subject of "Tonight," what Steve Allen-era (1954-56) kinescopes survive? How about the "Tonight" predecessor, "Broadway Open House" from the early 1950's? I understand that NBC-TV's New York flagship station WNBT/WNBC was more consciencious about archive material and saved quite a bit.

 

[Newname]

Is It True That...someone has found a kinescope or videotape of the October 2, 1962 debut of Johnny Carson as host of "The Tonight Show?" (I understand that an audio-only tape has been played for years.)

The first Johnny Carson 'Tonight Show' remains missing(only some still photos, along with the soundtrack, were used for flashbacks on Carson's last show in '92, as well as anniversary shows in prior years.) I believe there was some talk that a 'lost' episode of one of Carson's '50s(pre-NBC, pre-'Tonight') shows had turned up.

 

[Ultimajock]

The first Johnny Carson 'Tonight Show' remains missing(only some still photos, along with the soundtrack, were used for flashbacks on Carson's last show in '92, as well as anniversary shows in prior years.) I believe there was some talk that a 'lost' episode of one of Carson's '50s(pre-NBC, pre-'Tonight') shows had turned up.

...Shout! Factory released a collection of 11 of Carson's 1955-56 CBS shows (ten of the nighttime show, and one of the short-lived daytime show they gave him to burn off the remainder of his contract). An eleventh episode of the nighttime show was issued on a grey-market DVD within two months of Carson's death. Also included on the Shout! Factory set are an installment of Who Do You Trust? (with Bill Nimmo as announcer, before Ed McMahon was hired) and a recently recovered clip of Carson pinch-hitting on The Jack Paar Show, the incarnation of The Tonight Show that aired before Carson was hired for that shift in '62...