[West]

To see how good the TK-41 could look, check out "The Best of The Andy Williams Show" DVD from Image Entertainment. By this time, the TK-41 (the C model, I think, had dichroic prism-blocks instead of front-surface mirrors.

When I was attending Cal Poly, Pomona, in the mid-sixties, someone said you could just walk into NBC Burbank without guards or anyone checking you. Sure enough, I went in one afternoon and found my way into one of the studio camera control areas.

I was able to watch them "shade up" the 41s in preparation for taping "Truth or Consequences" with Bob Barker. The color on the RCA monitors looked beautiful. Of course I wasn't as critical a viewer then, but they did look good.

Later I worked summer relief at NBC Burbank in 1970, developing newsfilm in the basement. During that time I was told that when Shirley Temple taped her shows, she insisted they do it on Ampex equipment. Presumably this was on low-band VR-1000s at the time.

When I got there, the tape area was mostly high-band TR-70s and VR-2000s. I recall there was only one VR-1000 left that was used to dub shows for Hawaii.

Security was beefed up when, the story I heard goes, someone drove away with a just-delivered studio audio recorder from the shipping dock in the back one day.

We were NABET local 53, so the wages were excellent.