[78-L] Kinescopes (WAS Average Age)

[Jeff Sultanof]

I am actually astonished how many of these kinescopes still exist. When I
was learning about the history of television when I was in my teens, I heard
all sorts of horror stories about such shows having been destroyed. My
father once passed by a dumpster on Columbus Avenue where he saw reels of
16MM film thrown in. He actually tried to grab a few of them for me (I was
about eight at the time), but they were a real mess according to him. It was
many years later that I figured that these were probably TV programs.

We know about Gleason's collection; the Honeymooners segments were
eventually released on home video. The real story was that Milton Berle had
a collection of his Texaco shows that he'd stored (I distinctly remember him
guesting on Tom Snyder's show where he insisted he had none of his own
shows). A pity they aren't available.

BTW, does anyone have the DVD collection of the Goldbergs TV shows? UCLA did
a fabulous job.

Jeff Sultanof

On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 9:24 AM, Robert M. Bratcher Jr. <
rbratcherjr at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Many Kines wound up on the used 16mm film collectors market. I see some on
> Ebay
> from time to time along with all the other TV shows on 16mm film.
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Michael Biel <mbiel at mbiel.com>
> To: 78-L Mail List <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
> Sent: Mon, November 15, 2010 12:50:47 AM
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Kinescopes (WAS Average Age)
>
> Steve --
>
> Once again you are writing about things you know nothing about, and
> consider that if you know nothing about it that means that it doesn't
> exist.  There ARE "organized effort[s] to collect and organize extant
> TV-program "home" recordings".  Some of this was discussed at IASA/AMIA
> in Phila last week.  (And NOBODY here wants you to give your usual sob
> story about not being able to afford bus fare to attend these
> conference, so DON'T MENTION IT.)
>
> Live TV programs were captured on Kinescope Film Recordings routinely in
> 1948 and there were some examples in 1947.  ALL live network TV programs
> were kinescoped by 1949 because there were many stations that were not
> wireline connected to the networks and had to get ALL their network
> programming by kinescope films or regular films for those programs which
> were filmed (like I Love Lucy).  While the majority of these kines have
> been destroyed, perhaps a hundred thousand still exist, and there is the
> possibility of ANY network program from 1948 thru 1956 existing.
>
> Once videotape came in, some programs were not put on kine, and because
> of the lack of interchangability of tapes among machines between 1956
> and 1961, most were erased.  There were people as early as 1962 or 63
> using "home" videotape recorders, and Hugh Hefner's archive of thousands
> of reels hopefully are still being maintained.  (2-inch helical Ampex
> 660.)  RCA had successful videotape experiments back in 1954 and it was
> even used on the air a few times.  (1/2-inch 120 IPS.)  Jack Paar
> jeryrigged a 16mm camera to record home kinescope films in the 1950s.
> Some of his TV retrospectives and DVDs come off of these homemade films.
>
>
> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
>
>
>
>
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