NBC TV BURBANK STUDIOS

[Rob Jason]

Surfing around the other day, I came across a YouTube clip of Gary Puckett & the Union Gap:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSMmSuxUgK8.

It was a segment on The Andy Williams Show on 11/8/69 (according to http://members.tripod.com/retrolisa/andywilliams.html#guide.

Watching it, it has the same "look" as The Tonight Show, when it was taped in Burbank just a few years later. By that, I mean the lighting is similar, and so is the sound quality. This could easily have been done on what would become the Tonight Show stage. Is this too much of a stretch?

It got me to wondering -- who can provide info on what NBC shows were taped in which studios at Burbank? I know there were four studios -- and when Carson moved out west in 1972, one of the four permanently became the Tonight Show studio (it was also used for Bob Hope specials, according to our tour guide in late 1978), but a google search doesn't bring up much of anything.

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

It can be really hard to tell things like that on TV. I had a tour of the Burbank studios in December, 2003. The tour guide showed us the studio that Johnny Carson had used. At that time, it looked pretty bare as though not much was done there then. The guide pointed out the the studio Carson used had a separation of him from the studio audience. He noted that Carson was more of a radio veteran who was more shy and preferred that distance. He further pointed out that Jay Leno wanted to be closer to his audience and his studio was set up for that. As Leno was there at that time (his 1955 Buick was parked next to the building), it wasn't possible to see his studio as he apparently was rehearsing.