SH Spotlight Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass Whipped Cream Video 1966: See the old Charlie Chaplin Studios

Thanks for sharing.

The Chaplinites are included in this video as well @ 1m30sc into the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqwVAV1GDmo&feature=related

 

Great stuff! I actually have that entire first TV special of Herb on VHS. I also have my own VHS footage of the A&M/CHAPLIN buildings that I shot way back when my wife and I visted the area around 1982 or '83. In my video, one of the buildings has the same A&M record logo wall, that was featured on the front cover of Herb's, "Rise" LP. I also shot the CBS TELEVISION CITY building, which is not far from the CHAPLIN STUDIOS.

A few years ago, my wife and I ventured back to that same area and I can't believe how much it's changed and sadly, a bit too dirty and rundown.

edit: I forgot to add that it's just plain weird to now see Kermit The Frog, where the glorious A&M trumpet logo used to spin and spin.

I also have, on one of my huge CHAPLIN DVD sets on Warner Brothers, the actual footage that Charlie shot himself of the building of the Chaplin Studios, from start to finish, which is really cool to watch.

Chris C

 

The Jim Henson Company now owns the Chaplin property and have maintained it quite nicely...there's a big Kermit dressed as The Tramp standing over the front gates now.

 

Thanks for sharing that, Steve. I was -4 in 1966 (), and I had never seen that video before. That was a cool video, and Herb Alpert was quite the entertainer. That was well done.

By the way, I love that rotating A&M sign at the start of the video.

 

Excellent video indeed, Steve. Thank you for sharing the link and your memories of the place with us.

Dan

 

That's cool. I just found it on Google Maps. It's neat to see the same building today as in the '66 Herb Alpert video.

 

Great video

 

+1

 

Very nice!

 

Think Brian Henson (son of Jim, co-chairman and co-CEO of JHC w/sis Lisa Henson) has made some comments appreciative of the history there, so as the Little Tramp costume Kermit's sporting suggests, they value it very much indeed. Oh if only Brian Henson could have been producing something there with Gigi Edgley as Chiana (of Henson Co's Farscape) - that would have been some really delightful historical symmetry, to me. I like Edna... and Gigi... Gigi and Brian Henson have creative elements in common with Chaplin and silent film. Somebody grab his ear and suggest it. Ah well...


(Gigi Edgley in Chaplin inspired photo)

And speaking of (small world ain't it?) - you can see the place yourself! As part of the Farscape convention this year, the convention outfit arranged tours of the Chaplin / A&M / Henson studios. It's open to the public as a separate ticket, so you don't have to nerd out at the convention at all. They say:

But the tour is Nov 6th so very soon here and it'll run ya $300. So I'll not be there!

For more: http://www.creationent.com/cal/farscape.htm if you're interested, scroll about half way down that page, you'll see a pic of the studios; note please nobody at SH Forums including myself are endorsing this or the organizers etc and so forth whatsoever: it just seems relevant to this thread in case anyone is interested in doing that.

 

In 1991, A&M put out a career-spanning (at that time) video of Herb Alpert including the Tijuana Brass stuff up through "Rise" and the song he did with Janet Jackson ("Diamonds"), using portions of old TV specials and actual music videos from the later years.

That video was only released in Japan and Great Britain; this particular "Whipped Cream" segment is on it; and the Japanese put it on a LaserDisc in NTSC video. I'm fortunate enough to have found one and have preserved it at least as a DVD-R.

The "Whipped Cream" segment is a treasure - that's for sure, and thanks Steve for adding your perspective to this little video.

Oh, and one little minor correction - the first TV special for Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass aired originally on CBS - and later that year was repeated on NBC.

Harry

 

Here are some screen shots of the VHS video that I mentioned in post #3 of this thread, that I filmed myself back in the 80's, of the A&M/CHAPLIN STUDIOS...

The last picture is also from the same video and I figured that some of you may get a kick out of it? My wife and I found this quiet road, which eventually leads up and looks down, right onto the backlot of UNIVERSAL STUDIOS. Threw the fence, see if you can recognize the "PSYCHO" house and BATES MOTEL, as they stood in the mid '80's? You can also see, behind the "PSYCHO" house, what was used as the ocean, in JAWS III. Pretty cool, that Hollywood stuff!

Chris C

 

As I also mentioned in my post #3 of this thread, here is the film, shot by Charlie Chaplin himself, that actually shows the building of the infamous CHAPLIN STUDIOS...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpUl_5MBkE4

Chris C

 

Some other images I have of the old studios. The first is from the opening of the VERY BEST OF HERB ALPERT video (I forgot to mention the title).

The second is a recent capture of the site from Google Earth.

The third is an image that used to grace the old official A&M Records website from the PolyGram days, before the Universal takeover.

The fourth is an image from that video of "Whipped Cream" with the dancers all dressed as Chaplin.

The fifth, somewhat unrelated, is the the house the contained the garage in which Herb and Jerry Moss started A&M.

 

I noticed the building with the record motif. That's obviously the backdrop for the cover of Rise. I always wondered where that picture was taken.

 

Brilliant, I'm a HUGE Chaplin fan, am going to re-watch his classic Behind the Screen after watching this.

 

Strange--I get the message "Video not available".

Guess IP addresses in Germany are blocked from viewing.

 

Great read Steve. Thanks for sharing.

I was doing some work w/ DTS in the mid-late 90s and we had an industry demo of the relatively new 5.1 CDs in those studios, which if I remember right was hosted by Elliot Scheiner. Around the set-up process I was able to tour the facilities and it was definitely goose-bump inducing.

Thanks again for the post.

 

Watching that video of Herb walking LaBrea made me laugh. You'd never see that today. The area has gotten a tad (shall we say?) "gritty". However, it is a great place and I have visited it several times when it had been rented out for special events/parties.

 

That always seemed to me to be resembling a Gas Station of the '50's,maybe a Sinclair Station,perhaps,minus the mascot Dinosaur...anyone else here get that feeling,too?

 

Thanks Steve,

I never had any idea of what history was behind that building. I was only there once, to do a few mix minuses of S&C songs for a TV show, and even then I was mesmorized by the history. That said, all I knew about was some of the music that was recorded there.

I used to spend a fair amount of time at Audio Industries which used to be right across the street.

Btw, the mixes I did were in these cute little mix studios they had in there. IIRC they were very small and there were several of them.

 

Thanks for posting this, I love that video. I think I told this story here before but...

My grandmother used to work for A&M Records right from the start. She originally had a window cleaning business and would clean windows on construction sites for Dave Alpert (Herb's brother.) One day he told her his brother was starting this record company and why didn't she come work there, it would be study work and she wouldn't have to worry about finding jobs. She took the job and was a cleaning lady at A&M Records.

I can remember going to work with her a few times as a kid and would help her out, the people around were really nice. I think they all looked out for her, she was an older lady but just felt she needed to be working as long as she still could and the A&M people really liked and cared for her. Herb even gave her a gold record one year for her birthday with its own custom A&M label with her name on it. Karen Carpenter often talked with Grandma too, I can remember getting to watch her rehearse on a soundstage one afternoon, they had a limo with WESING4U I must have been about 10. I also remember one of the recording engineers showing me the control board and what he could do with the sound. Lots of memories and seeing the offices was always cool because she took care of Herb's office and Jerry Moss' as well, I got to meet them and they were very warm and friendly. I also remember seeing lots of references to Chaplin around the place he was revered there, that was cool as my family were big Chaplin fans. A&M was from what I could see a great place to work they were like a big family. Once when I was visiting Grandma, she brought home a stack of Chuck Mangione records and said "he gave these to me to give to you" who I asked, she pointed to the face on the cover, "him." I guess she mentioned here grandkids were visiting and he gave he some records for us.

Every year our family would go to Los Angeles from Phoenix to visit Grandma. On our stay there we usually hit a few of the fun things like Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, Magic Mountain, the beach, even The Pike (which was a bit scary by then) but if you asked me what I most wanted to do on my trip it I'd say,-"go help Grandma at A&M."

I can remember walking around those studios well and thats exactly how they looked so seeing this again has been a great pleasure.