The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: Matt Ottinger on June 04, 2012, 03:03:10 PM
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OK, maybe this is reasonably well-known and I just never learned it, or maybe I've found a nifty little piece of history. A friend of mine sent me a scanned page from Variety magazine. On it, there's a brief article announcing that a network had begun "the first prerecording-by-tape of a regular series". It appears they mean it's the first series of any kind to be prerecorded this way, but it happens to be a game show. I'll open it up for guesses as to which show it was, unless of course someone quickly tells me that this isn't as obscure a fact as I think it is.
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I've come to find that it's fairly easy to look up.
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In case other people might want to play along...
Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge?
(Didn't look it up, curious whether my Media Studies professor was accurate on the one day we talked about game shows. And/or if I remember accurately what he said that day.)
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I didn't look it up, so I don't know if I'm right ... but I'm gonna call Concentration.
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Daytime Price?
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Truth or Consequences?
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Truth or Consequences?
Winner!
Now for the bonus question. There was a surprisingly specific reason why they decided to tape Truth or Consequences. Why?
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In case a stunt went wrong, Ralph didn't want injuries being played out live? I'm thinking either that or in case a reunion got a little TOO emotional?
/I've got nothing
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(Didn't look it up, curious whether my Media Studies professor was accurate on the one day we talked about game shows. And/or if I remember accurately what he said that day.)
Giving your prof the benefit of the doubt, it's possible Kay Kyser's show was filmed in advance, which would be a different animal altogether. Groucho's show was filmed, of course, as was Pantomime Quiz and probably a few others.
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Giving your prof the benefit of the doubt, it's possible Kay Kyser's show was filmed in advance, which would be a different animal altogether. Groucho's show was filmed, of course, as was Pantomime Quiz and probably a few others.
Ah, taped as opposed to filmed, gotcha. Didn't make the distinction.
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Now for the bonus question. There was a surprisingly specific reason why they decided to tape Truth or Consequences. Why?
Just a wild guess, but so they didn't have to start so early in the morning on the west coast? I remember an interview with Bob Barker (PBS Pioneers of Television) where he said that the show went on live at 7:30am in order to be seen at 10:30am on the East Coast.
(In the interview, Barker mentions that they had to offer free donuts in order to entice people into the studio audience at 7 in the morning--and to hear him tell it, the donuts got top billing.)
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Now for the bonus question. There was a surprisingly specific reason why they decided to tape Truth or Consequences. Why?
Just a wild guess, but so they didn't have to start so early in the morning on the west coast? I remember an interview with Bob Barker (PBS Pioneers of Television) where he said that the show went on live at 7:30am in order to be seen at 10:30am on the East Coast.
(In the interview, Barker mentions that they had to offer free donuts in order to entice people into the studio audience at 7 in the morning--and to hear him tell it, the donuts got top billing.)
Bonus question winner! (The judges are OK with the times being a little off.) Here's the text of the article:
NBC-TV began the first prerecording-by-tape of a regular series last week when it began taping the "Truth or Consequences" daytimer a day in advance of airdate. The prerecording started last Thursday (24) for the Friday show and continues indefinitely. Web is using its recently acquired Ampex facilities.
"Truth" airs at 11:30 a.m. in the east, which is 8:30 on the Coast where the show originates. Web has found it tough to round up studio audiences at that early hour, let alone get them to go for zany stunts. Nonetheless, from Dec. 28, when the show hit the air, till last Friday, the show was originating live. Henceforth, however, the series will be produced a day in advance on tape, in the afternoon or evening.
The article is from Wednesday, January 30, 1957, so the show was live for only a month before going to the prerecorded system.
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Slightly on-topic (and Bill Cullen-related too!): The Eye Guess episode that aired on GSN a while back and that's available on YouTube has Bill having fun with a contestant who had pretty obviously taped the previous day's episode just a few minutes ago.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcUCHWmhTqM[/media]
This show was done in the mid '60s but it seemed that taping shows in advance was still made to seem like a novelty.
I remember Bob Stewart saying (Archive of American Television interview) that he had a hard time convincing Bill Cullen to tape more than one show in a day. Do you know if Eye Guess was done live and then transitioned to pre-taped shows, or was Bob referring to pre-taping Price is Right?
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Great trivia find, Matt!
Do you know if Eye Guess was done live and then transitioned to pre-taped shows, or was Bob referring to pre-taping Price is Right?
Bob Stewart was referring to "Price." I'm old enough to have lied about my age to sit in the audience for "Eye Guess" tapings. That was way after "Price" transitioned to tape.
From "Johnny Olson: A Voice in Time"
Experiences at The Price is Right and Play Your Hunch were typical of the transition to tape. NBC came to Goodson-Todman producers, Bob Stewart and Ira Skutch respectively, with requests to change production schedules from the live broadcast of one show each day, to producing two episodes each day in the studio. Skutch reported that he reluctantly started the transition with Merv Griffin and Johnny broadcasting live, Monday through Wednesday, but performing two shows on Thursdays, the first live and the second taped to air on Friday.
Stewart recalled that his host, Bill Cullen, was resistant at first, as were many staffers, who were required to prepare two entire shows’ prizes, scripts, and contestants for each day in the studio; it seemed like double work. Stewart delayed NBC for as long as possible, but within a few weeks, he reluctantly retooled for the new scheduling. Soon after, the production company from Bill Cullen and Bob Stewart on down enjoyed working half as many days.
Cullen reportedly loved the use of videotape so much that he was among those soon advocating for the production of an entire week’s worth of programs in two days. Completing two episodes on one day, and then three on the next became the norm for the Goodson-Todman shows on which Johnny worked in the mid 1960s. By the end of the decade, producers and networks were confident enough to begin taping five episodes during a single day in the studio. For the first time ever, production costs were slashed by stockpiling episodes. Furthermore, people associated with an on-going hit program enjoyed the luxury of vacations.
Randy
tvrandywest.com
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The article is from Wednesday, January 30, 1957, so the show was live for only a month before going to the prerecorded system.
Wow, I was two days old when that article hit the streets. Didn't realize that my debut was so close to that of TorC.
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In his book Gil Fates mentions something about doing one WML? live and taping a second show immediately afterwards. I don't know when this practice began.
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In his book Gil Fates mentions something about doing one WML? live and taping a second show immediately afterwards. I don't know when this practice began.
I've Got a Secret was doing it from the time that Steve Allen took over in the fall of 1964, and possibly earlier. A news report at the time said that they changed to the one-live-one-taped schedule as a convenience to Steve, who lived on the west coast.
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Another little snippet that I just noticed was on the same page as the Truth or Consequences article:
Sale of radio station WGMA in Hollywood, Fla., for $65,000 to a company headed by NBC-TV emcee Jack Barry ("Twenty-One" and "Tic-Tac-Dough") was okayed last week by the FCC.
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$65,000? If the year was 1956, that's about $550,000 in 2012 dollars. That seems awfully cheap, even considering FM had barely come into existence in those days.
http://radiopages.net/radio/mikewgma.html
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Not really. Look at the market size, station power, signal contour, etc. and who actually had an FM radio in 1956.
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Not really. Look at the market size, station power, signal contour, etc. and who actually had an FM radio in 1956.
Well, yeah. I see it was a 1 kW daytimer.