History of the DuMont Television Network*

I've heard the same about the dumping from various sources including a PBS interview she did in the 1980s.

I think ABC or a subcontractor to them somehow became custodian of the Dumont materials and during an inventory/move decided it wasn't worth the storage/ maintenance costs.

 

A library that I used to work at had a copy of this book. It was really interesting so if a purchase is not possible see if you can get an interlibrary loan at your local library!

 

Didn't Edie Adams win a lawsuit over this? I thought part of the reason that Jackie Gleason wanted a kinescope of all his live variety shows on CBS was that he learned that DuMont was not saving all of its kinescopes. I don't know how true or accurate that is but it is a miracle that some of the Pert Kelton Honeymooners survive. Too bad there are still so many more missing.

Which reminds me, is Joyce Randolph ("Trixie Norton") the last living person to have appeared as a regular on a DuMont show? I can't think of anyone else off the top of my head.

 

Edie said it was a legal move because if they didn't "have" the films, then they wouldn't have to pay anybody over any contracts, rights, or other issues. The story she told me in 1990 was almost identical to the testimony she gave in this document:

http://www.loc.gov/programs/static/national-film-preservation-board/documents/tvadams.pdf

She was very, very bitter about it, and was still angry about the injustice done to her and her husband's legacy more than two decades earlier.

Gleason did have 16mm copies of the shows, but -- as we saw with the Lost Honeymooners -- the quality wasn't great. Some of them had bad or missing audio, and I think in one case they had to hire actors to re-record their dialogue (including a Gleason impersonator) to salvage the show.

Edie reportedly got about $3M as a settlement, but she told me she would've much rather had the 100+ hours of material that was scrapped.

 

Do you know if Gleason's copies were originals as if he directly arranged his own off-air kinescope, or were they copies from DuMont and/or CBS, or whatever it would be? I bought a few full-show Gleason Cavalcades with Honeymooners segments with Pert Kelton on VHS from an openly advertised source long before the "Lost Honeymooners" from him turned up. Some were out there other than Gleason's set, a few privately and a few museums and archives have a few each. The "Lost Honeymooners", that got released, are all from the CBS show (aren't they?). Did he even have the Cavalcades from DuMont?

 

The most recent "Lost Honeymooners" DVD set has all the extant sketches - Dumont and CBS.

 

Good, I hope so. I have a lot of questions about that set, which I don't have and didn't plan to get (but I'd like to have it). But that would throw this thread off track.

 

I found this video on the history of the DuMont network and thought some people here would find it interesting (I did).:



Someone posted an article on the network years ago in another thread here:

History of the DuMont Television Network*

 

You're going way back now,I remember one of the first networks on TV.

 

For those who would like to know just how the Dumont Electronicam worked, heres a great pictorial for you. You can thank me later:
Chuck Pharis Web Page : The DuMont Electronicam NEW Oct. 12, 2003

 

I think the story was that Gleason got his own copies as part of his contract. What they were made from is a good question. I assume they shot film negative right off the tube, and then struck multiple prints with soundtracks, giving Jackie one of those. It's not going to be gigantically worse than the negative, because the quality was so awful to begin with.

 

Chuck Pharis' site is overflowing with amazing TV history and photos...but holy smokes that thing needs a complete and total redesign. If he started a GoFundMe to contract it out I'd contribute.

dan c

 

Yeah, it looks like it hasn't been touched since about 1996. It's got a very Geocities vibe to it.

 

Danny, I agree!

 

My parent's first TV was a Dumont and the tuner could also pickup AM/FM. It was a piece of furniture and I fondly remember all the great TV shows I watched as a kid on it like Andy's Gang, the Musketeers, etc. etc.

 

I thought you'd like to see this commercial.

 

Chuck is a very retro guy. I visited him a couple of times when he and his collection where here in the LA area, but he moved off to the East coast a few years ago, I think to basically retire and take care of his "museum" of TV technology. On my long list of dream projects I'd love to do "if I won De Lotto," I'd like to have an actual museum with glass cases and exhibits and a theater and a library and all that stuff all about TV (and film) technology, and make it accessible to the public.

 

Really other than the Gleason shows and Kovacs, I can't think of anything that would have been of interest other than of a historical purpose. But its funny in that out of the ashes of Dumont rose the Fox network with many of the same stations.