Oldest known surviving color “Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” (Aug. 24, 1964) found, restored.

I've always wondered if some of the Star actors contracts are what is preventing release of these shows. In a star actors contract , a good lawyer would make provisions for actor royalties in mediums "now or to be invented" for their clients. While the show was on the air, the network wouldnt care too much, as they were making money. But 30 years later, maybe the terms are too onerous. Just a guess.

 

I think Dan C is correct - the lighting was low and they had the gain way up on that camera, so lots of extra noise for that particular shot.

 

Watching that clip reminded me of Letterman's show on NBC. Much more laid back than it became.

 

amazing...Steve "Sherlock Holmes" Hoffman!

 

You might like to check out this episode of The Oddity Archive that covers pre-VHS/Pre-Betamax video formats:

 

I recovered Game 5 of the 1973 NBA Finals on Catrivision and sold it a few years ago to MSG network.

 

Yes, I know this story. Dick Clark, the supposed "genius" didn't save any Bandstands himself pre-1976 and the only ones had came from this source. That was why all of his anniversary shows used clips either from the Beechnut show or from other shows.

 

Here's another NY Tonight Show (1971):



Woody Allen hosts, Bob Hope the first guest. Allen has long acknowledged basing his act on Hope. Both are in fine form here, broken up when an extremely annoying James Coco appears as the second guest.

PQ not great, and there is a watermark that comes and goes. Original commercials touting the nutritional value of hostess cupcakes and the merits of various aspirin compounds.

 

Watched this 3 days ago. I knew that Woody worshipped Bob, and based a large portion of his persona on him, but I didn't know how much Bob was into Woody. This was a nice lovefest, crashed by Coco's hostile vibe. Interesting that Woody didn't get to do an opening monologue. Also interesting was his comment that 17 or 18 was a "good age" for women.

 

Carson mentions it's Friday, but 8-24-64 was a Monday. And TV Guides list of guests indicate that until about 1967, the
Tonight Show aired on a one-day delay. NBC-Burbank was the origination point for the west coast affiliates. To avoid broadcasting a tape of a tape that came over 3,000 miles of coaxial cable AND had telephone quality audio, it's likely that the same pre-recorded 2-inch quad tape that was fed to the Central and Eastern time zones at 11:30 ET was then shipped by air to Burbank to be aired at 11:30 pm PT the next night --- and freeing up a VTR (and 1 or 2 staff) from 8:30 to 10 pm just to make a time zone delay recording of Carson when the studio was especially busy -- for example, the Andy Williams Show had studio 4 reserved Fridays from 7:30 to 10 pm for many years.

But the intercarrier buzz in the audio is proof that this was recorded from an over-the-air broadcast, there are local LA commercials, but the clear 15 Khz audio means the originating source was not recorded off the coax network feed. I don't see any other possible explanation other than air shipping the tape made in NYC

 

This might be off topic, but the high pitched feedback that occurs every so often has me wondering how the sound was amplified for the studio audiences during this time.

 

I'd think it would have had to have been the originating station itself making a recording (of the tape playback) from its own precision demodulator - perhaps for some testing purpose or quality check of the actual transmission path. I suppose another station/facility with a VTR could have recorded it off-air, but would a tuner/demod have been available that would have been suitable as a stable source for a VTR?

 

This is the second time in a week where something I've read has prompted me to recollect processes or procedures from early on in my career. These 2 examples crossed paths in my world over 30 years ago (gasp). My first job in television involved broadcast video duplication. One of our major accounts was with Lionheart Video, the folks who were responsible for distribution of Dr.Who in the states.
We provided these dupes to the various TV stations throughout North America. In a nutshell, we were provided 2" NTSC copies of these programs, of which we made 1" dub masters to make other copies from (usually more 2"). One aspect of the tech specs we adhered to was the elimination or disabling of the colorburst on the B&W episodes when making this 1" copy. (This was easily achieved by the flip of a dip switch on the AVR-2). I forget the specific explanation given, other than it being B&W, it should not contain any colorburst. I suspect a more detailed explanation would be along the lines of what Vidiot has described above.
As for editing the quads, there was a period where we were re-tagging these 2"elements (couldn't call them masters) with an updated logo at the end of the program, but that was all done electronically.

As a side note, did no one on that Carson show production team notice the shadow that he kept stepping into? Were these truly live?, with no ability to make a lighting tweak?

 

Not just for Steve, but for whomever in the know...I wonder how common this might have been, a high-roller with some clout, laying some green around in the control room, and asking if they can walk away with the tape when the show's done...? Could you see Walter Mondale's people, or Frank Sinatra Jr, or Sandra Dee, or, I dunno, anybody for whom an appearance on the couch may have meant more to them than just a routine press junket...?

 

Living in NY my whole life, I never knew about this until someone told me a few years ago.

 

Hefner had his own 2-inch tape machines going back to the early 60s and he recorded anything off TV which was Playboy related. What else he recorded is anyone's guess.

 

Two questions

1. Did NBC play Tonight Show reruns back then ?
2. If so, could this had been a NY taped episode that made its way to LA for whatever reason?

 

I hope RF got Dick Clark to pay a pretty penny to get those back.

 

They did an entire article about this in a 1970-1971 issue of Audio magazine, showing Hefner's audio/video system, which was very advanced for that era. Hef had a full-time employee just to record shows off the air and would then play them back to a specific bedroom of his Chicago mansion at a certain time. It was all off-air stuff, so it ranged from anything including variety shows to talk shows to news events to movies to whatever. I think he started off with a couple of industrial Ampex machines, but finally opted for actual 2" quad color. Many wealthy celebrities invested in 3/4" cassette when those were released around 1972-1973 or so, because it was a lot simpler, smaller, and more convenient.

 

I still hold out hope that somewhere the 1974 Raiders-Dolphins playoff game, the greatest game I've ever seen, will surface.

 

Agreed. That was an amazing game.

 

Fascinating pieces of history there. I love watching stuff like this on YouTube.

 

I've been sitting on an unreleased Charles Bukowski interview for about thirty years.
The guy who owns the rights is terrified it will be bootlegged.
The interview only aired one time back in 1979 on Santa Monica Public Access cable and has not been seen since. Also sitting on another unreleased film with Henry Rollins, which also probably won't ever see the light of day, circa 1988 or thereabouts.
Who knows, maybe after we're all long dead and gone one of our descendants will put these out there.
Both shows are in pristine digital and backed up to modern digital file formats, and to disc and DV tape so it is likely they will outlive everyone in my vacuum tube generation.

 

Its funny, the guys that are terrified of things they own being bootlegged generally think that what they have is worth millions of $$$.
Except it never works out that way.