Get $100 or more for your old TV, then watch these shows in color -

I can list these shows that still have surviving color video tapes-
-The Steve Allen Show
-The Ford Show
Other color shows listed here survive as B&W kinescopes
-The Price Is Right
-The Perry Como Show
-The Milton Berle Show
-Truth Or Consequences
-Haggis Baggis
-Hallmark Hall Of Fame
The other color shows as seen here for 2/1959, a few of these
may also exist as well. This would require some research at The Paley Center, The UCLA Film & Television Archive, The Museum Of Broadcast Comminucations and films/video tapes in private collections as well.
These color shows were either live or taped on to 2-inch quad video tape. These are NBC shows as seen by the NBC Peacock on this TV schedule.
This also really indicates our efforts to preserving America's TV heritage as well.

Haggis Baggis what a great name for a show . Never heard of it.

The Fred Astaire special that is listed also survives on 2" color tape, as do some episodes of the Dinah Shore Show.

- Kevin

I have a copy of the Fred Astaire special on DVD, it's called An Evening with Fred Astaire. The show is posted on you tube in 6 parts. It was historic as being the first edited color show broadcast from color video tape. They physically had to cut and splice the tape to edit it. Any other shows broadcast from color tape previous to this show were taped as live. Here is the link to segment 1 of this show. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSSCFuJTX1c A link to a wikipedia article about the show http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_evening_with_fred_astaire

I have a copy of the Fred Astaire special on DVD, it's called An Evening with Fred Astaire. The show is posted on you tube in 6 parts. It was historic as being the first edited color show broadcast from color video tape. They physically had to cut and splice the tape to edit it. Any other shows broadcast from color tape previous to this show were taped as live. Here is the link to segment 1 of this show. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSSCFuJTX1c A link to a wikipedia article about the show http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_evening_with_fred_astaire

Actually, "An Evening with Fred Astaire" was initially broadcast live to the East Coast, and the telecast was replayed via color tape for the West Coast, three hours later. There was no editing to that program.

It is **possible** that parts were pre-taped and then "played-in" to the show during the hour (most likely, the Chrysler/Plymouth commercials), but that hasn't been verified.

The 2nd and 3rd Astaire specials ("Another Evening with Fred Astaire" and "Astaire Time") were pre-taped, however.

- Kevin

Strange that these are from February of '59... Buddy Holly was my hero, so I guess that would have been a pretty dreary time for me. :tears:

Would this have been for Washington, DC? I know of only one Channel 9 that would have had Early Shows and Late Shows, and that would have been what was then WTOP-TV (now WUSA). I presume this means the Channel 4 would've been WRC-TV.

. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSSCFuJTX1c

Maybe this was recorded on an Ampex VR1000 modified for color by RCA engineers?

Probably . . . but then An Evening . . . was produced one year after RCA introduced their own "television tape" recorder, TRT-1A.

Would this have been for Washington, DC? I know of only one Channel 9 that would have had Early Shows and Late Shows, and that would have been what was then WTOP-TV (now WUSA). I presume this means the Channel 4 would've been WRC-TV.

It came from a seller in North Carolina, who did not identify what city it was from. The internet says that Channel 9 (CBS) in DC transmitted tests first of the CBS field sequential system and later of the RCA/NTSC system. However, the only other reference I found is to the start of color newscasts in 1966. So, maybe they had some color film capability in 1959.

Actually, "An Evening with Fred Astaire" was initially broadcast live to the East Coast, and the telecast was replayed via color tape for the West Coast, three hours later. There was no editing to that program.

It is **possible** that parts were pre-taped and then "played-in" to the show during the hour (most likely, the Chrysler/Plymouth commercials), but that hasn't been verified.

The 2nd and 3rd Astaire specials ("Another Evening with Fred Astaire" and "Astaire Time") were pre-taped, however.

- Kevin

That's not what wikipedia says about the show. The original introduction to the show from the 1958 broadcast was edited with clips of the performances of the various guest stars as they were announced as well as segments of the upcoming routines that would be seen later in the show. Also there were edited clips of the previously seen Chrysler commercials that were done during the show inserted into the end credits. This edited intro and ending were removed for subsequent broadcasts. Here is the original intro and ending for the show. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJMKTNYG1wA

The quality of this is amazing.

Many TV shows from the 70's and 80's were videotaped on more modern equipment and they don't look nearly as good, in fact they look awful!

Dancing clips in the intro (to live show?) could have been from rehearsals. That would be clever.

Watch the video in the link above and it will be immediately clear that the wiki article is based on a cleverly edited clip which originally appeared on Kris Trexler's site (http://www.ev1.pair.com/colorTV/NBCcolortape-video.html) before YouTube was even invented. The clip certainly would have make a great intro, but its time had not yet come in 1958.

There's a reason why wiki has dubious reputation of accuracy.

Yeah, I'm afraid that Wikipedia article is inaccurate in more than a few places... it needs a lot of correction.

As for Kris' montage work on the Astaire special and "The Edsel Show", I always thought they were nicely put together, but I **knew** they were ultimately going to cause confusion by being mistaken for the actual program openings. For the record, folks, they're not.

- Kevin

Kris Trexler's site (http://www.ev1.pair.com/colorTV/NBCcolortape-video.html)

Good noise free image--Nice digital processing of orig source material

Just FYI, I've made the necessary changes to the Wikipedia article for "An Evening With Fred Astaire"... doesn't hurt to set the record straight.

- Kevin

Ok...I'm wrong. I can deal with it. It's not the first time I have gotten bad info from Wikipedia. I posted a video on You Tube a couple years ago of the beginning of the telecast of the last event held at the old Boston Garden. A Boston Bruins vs Montreal Canadiens pre-season game. I looked to Wiki to find the exact date only the date provided was off by a couple days. It wasn't until I started getting comments like "my ticket says the date was..." that I started researching and found a close up of the commemorative patch on Cam Neely's uniform as well as a dated New York Times article referring to the event the night before. As far as I know wikipedia is still showing the wrong date on several different pages.