" Turn-On " What survives?

Baed on New York five years ago: It's possible you have to give a reason for your visit when entering the building, I don't remember 100% certain, but I think you have to sign in or sign something. It's not free by the way, there is an entrance fee.

Then you get behind a computer with a headphone and use their local "youtube". All well protected against any attempt to copy stuff by the way - I mean, the mind wanders, you now.

But if you're in LA, plenty of rare stuff at the UCLA too!

 

Apparently it's the only place you can see "Enough Rope", the live 1960 drama that marked the debut of a character named Lt. Columbo.

Columbo Poster

 

I maybe signed something in NY, but I don't remember a fee. I feel like it was a suggested donation. If there was a fee, it couldn't have been more than $5.

 

Lol. A year and four pages for a show that lasted just one episode. The mind boggles over what could have been.

 

I initially thought there was a copy at UCLA and was originally planning whether I could see it there (not being a student and all).

It’s ridiculous in 2020 that I need to fly across the Pacific Ocean to a library to see one TV show from
1969. But to upload this stuff to a sever takes man power, money and lawyers to clear the rights.

 

I was right. Here it is...

UCLA Library Catalog Holdings Information

 

UCLA has the best television archive in the country, followed by Library of Congress and then Wisconsin Historical Society. All of those places are not open to the public but only available for researchers, students and industry professionals. Paley Center, which is a bit of a joke among the archive community (don't ask how many donations they've lost or "misplaced), is open to the public. For the general public, they're about as best as you can get, although they have a massive amount of holding which they've never bothered to transfer to screenable formats.

 

Well... You can get in those other places too, it's more difficult, but you can make an appointment for a viewing session if you provide a proper reason.

Some archives have been experimenting with a "virtual viewing" or to put it simpler, you can see your request online for a limited time. And you can't download it, obviously.

But UCLA isn't doing this yet, ah, IF ONLY!

 

The problem is that all of these places have almost all of their holdings on either 16mm, 35mm film or 2-inch videotape and transfer costs and time and available resources are limited. Some day in the not too distant future, there won't be any more working 2-inch machines nor people with the knowledge to run them yet they'll be hundreds of thousands of hours or programming still on that format. Library of Congress for instance, was donated 100,000 kinescopes by NBC in the mid-80s with all but a small percentage on negatives with separate picture and audio track and 35 years later, the amount of that collection that's been transferred is miniscule.

 

So if you do go and see episode 2, let us know what you thought of it? I suppose there's some red tape to go through but you should be allowed to see it there? Right? (I've been to other places but not actually to the UCLA.)

 

This post
Looking for recollections of lost TV appearences
says in 1986 there was a massive discovery of color Tonight Show tapes from 1967 onward.

Could this be connected to the LoC donation?

 

Yup. Could've been better.

 

It's not unusual for TV shows to air in a different order compared to the production sequence.

 

good!

 

Turn on only shown episode:

 

The Marvin James article is on the money. Thats it in a nutshell.

 

Who knows, maybe it was fair to say that. But that's not the point.

 

The first minute of this classic bit of Tonight Show history actually has conversation re: TURN ON.

 

Still sounds better than the abysmal Laugh-In.