TFTP's Monochrome Monday: "The Burns and Allen Show" from CBS (Jul. 17, 1952)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Shokus Video'
Length - 29:32

TFTP's Monochrome Monday brings you a classic black & white TV program or clip every Monday morning to kick off the week....

George Burns and Gracie Allen were a comedy team (and a marital team) that lasted for decades through vaudeville, radio, and television. By the time their TV show--a pioneering situation comedy--premiered in 1950, their act and their appeal had been long established. George was the straight man, calm and bemused in the face of ditzy Gracie's hijinx. Although in the episode above George strays further than usual into wackiness, this division of comedic labor held for the most part in "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show", which aired on CBS from 1950-1958.

Like most TV programs from this earliest period, "The Burns and Allen Show" was originally aired live. We see here many of the trappings of that mode of presentation, including an actual curtain that raises at the beginning of the story. Also like most programs from this earliest period, it had a single sponsor, in this case Carnation Evaporated Milk, featured in the opening and closing as well as in an ad at the very end of the program.

The plot in this episode (from July 1952) is a version of one that would become a sitcom staple: mistaken identity. George thinks that everyone else thinks he's a great singer, when they actually think the opposite. This leads to some comic moments throughout the episode, as George and Gracie banter with friends at home and then as they become mistaken for another couple (one with a husband who can sing well) by a record producer.

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Sign-Offs Through the Years - 1971 (WLIW/Long Island, NY)

Posted to YouTube by user 'stevations'
Length - 0:35

Each Friday afternoon, TFTP signs-off for the week with a classic station sign-off sequence for your enjoyment and to bid farewell until Monday...

And throughout 2018, we are featuring "Sign-Offs Through the Years", as we go year-by-year with each successive week.

This first TFTP Friday sign-off of 2018 is also the launch of "Sign-Offs Through the Years", a special feature in which we will go year-by-year with each successive week, starting with today's sign-off from 1971.

There are not a lot of existing copies of full sign-offs from before the late-1970s, and so many of the early sign-offs we'll be posting are either re-creations using original audio or clips with a montage of still images using original audio. In an era before VCRs were widespread, it was relatively easy to record audio (using reel-to-reel or cassette recorders), but very difficult to record video.

This 1971 sign-off is a short one with very poor audio and a montage of still images, from station WLIW/Long Island, NY. WLIW had launched only a couple of years before this in 1969, serving (then, as now) as the public TV station for the Long Island region of New York state, including parts of the New York City metro area. The sign-off audio consists only of the ownership/technical voiceover.

TFTP Flow: Commercial Break from ABC Thursday Night Movie (Jul. 21, 1983)

Posted to YouTube by user 'The Museum of Classic Chicago Television'
Length - 3:45

Television "flow"  =  an unbroken, as-aired sequence of elements such as program segments, news breaks, commercials, program promos, station IDs, and bumpers, which can be analyzed to understand what viewers of the past experienced when watching TV.

This flow sequence is from the ABC Thursday Night Movie, which on this particular Thursday night in July 1983 featured the animated version of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Return of the King". The sequence begins with the teaser for the movie before continuing with a commercial break. The ads in the break are a group of summer-appropriate ones: for toilet cleaner Sani-Flush (set in a summer camp), "Jaws 3-D" (in movie theatres at the time as a summer blockbuster wanna-be), Hallmark Cards (for the summer wedding anniversary season), and Wendy's Restaurant (emphasizing drive-thru service). The flow then returns to the Thursday Night Movie for the first thirty seconds or so of the movie (including an "Edited for Television" tag).

TFTP On This Day: "The Dinah Shore Show" from NBC (Jan. 10, 1952)

Posted to YouTube by user 'balsamwoods'
Length - 14:50

It Was 66 Years Ago Today: This episode of "The Dinah Shore Show", originally aired 66 years ago today, is a good example of two different things: first, of the early career of Dinah Shore, a television icon who had a broadcasting career (in radio and TV) that spanned forty years from the early-1940s until about 1980; and secondly, of the type of fifteen-minute music program that was common in the earliest period of TV from the late-1940s through the 1950s.

Dinah Shore had a singing career that went back even earlier than her broadcasting career, and in the early years her TV programs, including the one featured here, consisted mostly of music. By the mid-1950s, her show (now expanded to sixty minutes) had become a full-fledged variety show. At the beginning of the 1970s, she shifted mostly away from music to daytime talk-show hosting.

At the time of this 1952 episode, her show was only fifteen minutes long, and this was a fairly common program-length at the time for music shows that aired on the early fringe of prime-time. These programs often aired twice a week and alternated in the same timeslot with another fifteen-minute program that aired on two other nights of the week. For instance, during the 1953-54 season, Dinah's show aired on NBC from 7:30-7:45 Eastern on Tuesdays and Thursdays and alternated with "Coke Time with Eddie Fisher" that aired at the same time on Wednesdays and Fridays.

This episode, atypically for most of these fifteen-minute programs, actually has a loose storyline in which Dinah is put up for an audition that then leads to a screen test, with the two performances making up the bulk of the episode. At the time of this episode, Dinah's longtime sponsorship by Chevrolet autos (her later variety show was titled "The Dinah Shore Chevy Show") had already begun, and there are opening and closing Chevrolet segments with a mid-show commercial inserted as well.

TFTP Game Shows: "Wheel of Fortune" from NBC (Dec. 4, 1979)

Posted to YouTube by user 'The Fun & Games Channel'
Length - 27:03

"Wheel of Fortune" is a game-show juggernaut that in 2017 celebrated its 35th anniversary as a nightly syndicated program. Many people might be aware that it also existed as a daytime game show in its early years before and after its launch in syndication. What most people probably do not know (or remember) is that its original host (from 1975-1981) in its daytime version was game-show stand-by Chuck Woolery.

In the classic game-show precincts of YouTube, these early, Woolery-hosted episodes are known as "Woolery Wheel", and here we have a 1979 episode of "Woolery Wheel" that also features original letter-turner Susan Stafford. Contestants Susan, Lea, and Ginger face off in a version of the game that seems terribly quaint and retrograde to us today, with letters that actually had to be turned, a returning champion similar to many other game-shows of the era (and thus no bonus round), a wheel with much fewer bells and whistles, and the original bazaar-style shopping segment at the end of each game. Because of the need to physically turn the letters, the show is considerably slower-paced than it is now. But the core of the game is already there--and is one of the things that has made the game so perennial.

This recording includes original commercial breaks, with many interesting late-1970s era ads. These include: Nestle Bowl O' Noodles, Mueller's Spaghetti, a Sears commercial for women's clothing, Purina Moist & Chunky and Gravy Train dog foods, Metamucil, Chiffon margarine, Maxwell House coffee, Sunlite sunflower oil, Rice Krispies cereal, Milk Mate chocolate milk mix, and Cross Your Heart bras. In addition, there is a bumper ad for Ben Franklin Five and Dime stores and a WNBC local program promo for "The Newlywed Game".

Happy New Year from TFTP: Television from the Past!

Posted to YouTube by user 'The Museum of Classic Chicago Television'
Length - 1:50

Television from the Past wishes you a very Happy New Year, as we begin the year 2018!

For your classic TV enjoyment in kicking off the New Year, here's a short flow clip from ON-TV, a subscription television service that lasted for several years in the late-1970s and early-1980s. There were a number of such over-the-air pay-TV services in this era, after HBO and Showtime had launched and cable TV in general was growing quickly, but before these other, more familiar services had really entrenched themselves in American homes.

The clip above--from New Year's Day 1982--begins with the last few seconds of the end credits of the concert film "No One Gets Out of Here Alive" with The Doors. This is followed by a "Happy New Year" network ID for ON-TV and the opening bumper for an "ON-TV Subscription Television Special". The special, the first minute or so of which follows, is the legendary "Elephant Parts" by Monkees member Michael Nesmith. This hour-long program was a pioneering work of music video, cited as one of the influences on MTV when it premiered the previous year and winner of the first-ever Grammy for music video.

Merry Christmas from TFTP: Television from the Past!

Posted to YouTube by user 'Greg Rempe'
Length - 1:59:47

Some TV stations back in the day would pre-empt regular programming on Christmas Day and show an image of a yule log burning in a fireplace for several hours, usually (as in this recording that aired sometime in the 1980s on New York station WPIX) with holiday music playing.

And so here at Television from the Past, we offer this yule log as season's greetings, and we would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

This Christmas Day post will be the last for a couple of weeks as TFTP goes on a holiday hiatus until the New Year. Our next post will be on Monday, January 8.

Christmas at TFTP (Sign-Off Edition): Station Sign-Off from WTTW/Chicago (Dec. 25, 1978)

Posted to YouTube by user 'The Museum of Classic Chicago Television'
Length - 4:30

Each Friday afternoon, TFTP signs-off for the week with a classic station sign-off segment for your enjoyment and to bid farewell until Monday...

In anticipation of Christmas Day on Monday, here's a 1978 Christmas Day station sign-off from WTTW/Chicago, "public television for Chicago" (as stated in the station voiceover). The clip begins with the last few seconds and the end credits of a Christmas concert program called "Sing We Noel". This is followed by the sweet 1970s PBS network ID with its bouncy musical cue. Then a program promo for the upcoming "New Years at Pops" program precedes a PSA with Phil Donahue for a local social services organization called Yule Connection.

Announcer Marty Robinson does the ownership/technical voiceover on a slide of a birds-eye view of the loop in downtown Chicago (the photo for which was probably taken from the top of the Sears Tower). This is followed by (and the sequence is concluded with) a national anthem film (which was not always included in public TV sign-offs) that features scenes in and around Chicago.

Christmas at TFTP (On This Day Edition): "The Dean Martin Christmas Show" from NBC (Dec. 21, 1967)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Deano Martin'
Length - 51:29

It Was 50 Years Ago Today: Dean Martin had one of the top variety shows on TV for a whole decade from the mid-1960s straight into the mid-1970s. This gave him a whole career on his own after he broke up with comedy partner Jerry Lewis in which Martin became one of America's top singers. This Christmas special, aired on this day in 1967, fifty years ago today, represents Martin at the peak of his popularity as a singer and as a television star.

Martin was also famous, of course, as a member of the 1960s "rat pack" that included his pal Frank Sinatra. This yuletide episode of Martin's show is a holiday merger of the Martin and Sinatra families, as both men include their entire, rather large, families in a program that is packed full of songs, holiday and non-holiday in nature, sung by various combinations of the members of the two families.

Included are Nancy Sinatra singing a Christmas-themed version of her 1966 hit "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'"; Nancy and Dean's daughter Gail Martin singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town"; a group song by Dean and Frank along with Nancy and Gail; another group song by Dean and Frank along with Dean Jr. and Frank Jr.; a version of "Do Re Mi" (from "The Sound of Music") with Dean and Frank along with their other daughters Deana Martin and Tina Sinatra; a long medley by Dean and Frank of many of their collective hits; and another long show-closing medley of Christmas songs by different members of the combined brood that included "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays", "Let It Snow", "The Christmas Song", "White Christmas", "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", "Deck the Halls", "Joy to the World", and "Silent Night".

Christmas at TFTP (On This Day Edition): "The Bob Hope Special" from NBC (Dec. 19, 1968)

Posted to YouTube by user '20th Century Vision'
Length - 1:01:08

It Was 49 Years Ago Today: Bob Hope did dozens of specials on NBC over the course of several decades between the 1950s and the 1980s. This is one that is not so much a Christmas special as one that happened to air during the Christmas season--forty-nine years ago today on December 19, 1968.

Unlike many of Hope's specials over the years, this special consists of one long sketch, a parody of the secret agent show "Mission: Impossible". The Hope version is called "Mission: Ridiculous", and he plays a secret agent fighting an outfit called "B.R.O.A.D.S." made up of all women. (The initials were a take-off of the tendency of these spy shows to fight an enemy with similar names.) The women (played by Janet Leigh, Carol Lawrence, and Nancy Ames) have kidnapped Santa Claus for offenses (not made entirely clear) against women. Hope goes through several vignettes--including visiting the North Pole where Leigh poses as Mrs. Claus, flying on a Cuban airline with a Fidel Castro lookalike, and appearing in a Hong Kong nightclub where all of the characters are horrible Asian stereotypes (and Hope's accent is completely offensive).

A couple of musical performances are worked into this hackneyed story: one number sung by Ames in character as a spy posing as a flight attendant on the Cuban airline, and another by Glen Campbell, who is Hope's cellmate in a Cuban jail. Jerry Colonna pops up as a judge in the Cuban jail scene, while Santa--imprisoned at B.R.O.A.D.S headquarters--turns out to be Wally Cox.

The topical jokes in Hope's opening monologue seem like they would have been groaners to contemporary audiences in 1968, and they are completely impenetrable and unfunny now. Bob Hope was never on the cutting edge of comedy, not even in his 1940s heyday as a movie star, and the shoddy quality of this program shows just how sloppy he was as a comedic craftsman despite the fact he was beloved by mainstream audiences. This special is a shining example of how NBC by this point would put on the air literally anything that Hope put together.