Long time NBC News anchors: Chet Huntley and David Brinkley – October 29, 1956 – July 31, 1970 - the opening - signature tune was Beethoven Sym #9 - Mvmt #2 or 3 (can't recall right now). Five nights a week for 14 years. (Channel 4 in NYC)
Well sure (how old are you?!) - All the broadcasters had in-house Symphony Orchestras - CBS, NBC at least - NY Metropolitan Opera Saturday matinee was broadcast on radio every week for decades - hours of it, ad free - "brought to you by Texaco" - WOR (am, even) in NYC. Imagine listening to Flying Dutchman for 4+ hours of a Saturday afternoon! - very amusing "Opera Quiz Show" was a long time intermission feature.
It isn't just that. We have a treasury of great American musicals which have either never been filmed, never been filmed properly, or are overdue for remakes. There are exceptions. The Music Man, as portrayed by Robert Preston, can't be matched. ( Didn't some network do a version of The Music Man with Matthew Broderick a few years ago? I'd never have watched it. ) And I always hated West Side Story, so I had zero interest in the recent Spielberg movie.
This is a corollary to my complaint that the broadcast networks, especially NBC and CBS, have hundreds of hours of great early television in their vaults. It's amazing that any of it is on YouTube. But why no Bell Telephone Hour or Hallmark Hall of Fame from NBC? Why no Playhouse 90 from CBS? Or any of the other many hours of live ( on tape or kinescope ) theater on TV?
Maybe these things are available to subscribers, and I don't know about them.
So true! Such a great point, there’s treasure in those archives. I heard Mark Steyn talking about that once as regards the BBC, apparently they have a ton of fantastic programming from the old days that they’re not letting see the light of day.
Apparently, it's true that the BBC will never again broadcast Monty Python's Flying Circus because it's dreadfully unWoke. I think I've read the same about Fawlty Towers.
But yes, those American network vaults, and the treasures they contain! The Bell Telephone Hour was the classiest music show in the history of television. Hallmark Hall of Fame presented great plays acted in by classical actors.
And most of this was live!
One scholar of the American musical says there may have been up to 100 musicals which were written specifically for American television in the first fifteen or so years of the medium. I'm a confirmed Beatles fan, but their draw of 73 million people to watch their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show is thirty million people short of the audience which tuned in to see the musical of Cinderella which Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote for Julie Andrews in 1957. ( There used to be a less than wonderful quality kinescope of this great entertainment event on YouTube, and it wouldn't shock me if it's still available. Julie Andrews' talent and persona were strong enough to overcome the technological limitations of sixty - four years ago, and it's Rodgers and Hammerstein you get, as well. )
All this treasure in the vaults. What can the networks possibly have in mind by not making it available? I'm doubtful of the power of first rate, even noble, entertainment to influence the minds of the young for good, whether aesthetically or morally, but it's some sort of cultural crime the networks are committing by just sitting on this material.
Long time NBC News anchors: Chet Huntley and David Brinkley – October 29, 1956 – July 31, 1970 - the opening - signature tune was Beethoven Sym #9 - Mvmt #2 or 3 (can't recall right now). Five nights a week for 14 years. (Channel 4 in NYC)
(Just here from El Gato!)
Thank you! Yeah, I think there used to be a whole NBC symphony orchestra that would put on weekly concerts on TV. Different world!
Well sure (how old are you?!) - All the broadcasters had in-house Symphony Orchestras - CBS, NBC at least - NY Metropolitan Opera Saturday matinee was broadcast on radio every week for decades - hours of it, ad free - "brought to you by Texaco" - WOR (am, even) in NYC. Imagine listening to Flying Dutchman for 4+ hours of a Saturday afternoon! - very amusing "Opera Quiz Show" was a long time intermission feature.
Oh my! Thank you!
It isn't just that. We have a treasury of great American musicals which have either never been filmed, never been filmed properly, or are overdue for remakes. There are exceptions. The Music Man, as portrayed by Robert Preston, can't be matched. ( Didn't some network do a version of The Music Man with Matthew Broderick a few years ago? I'd never have watched it. ) And I always hated West Side Story, so I had zero interest in the recent Spielberg movie.
This is a corollary to my complaint that the broadcast networks, especially NBC and CBS, have hundreds of hours of great early television in their vaults. It's amazing that any of it is on YouTube. But why no Bell Telephone Hour or Hallmark Hall of Fame from NBC? Why no Playhouse 90 from CBS? Or any of the other many hours of live ( on tape or kinescope ) theater on TV?
Maybe these things are available to subscribers, and I don't know about them.
So true! Such a great point, there’s treasure in those archives. I heard Mark Steyn talking about that once as regards the BBC, apparently they have a ton of fantastic programming from the old days that they’re not letting see the light of day.
Apparently, it's true that the BBC will never again broadcast Monty Python's Flying Circus because it's dreadfully unWoke. I think I've read the same about Fawlty Towers.
But yes, those American network vaults, and the treasures they contain! The Bell Telephone Hour was the classiest music show in the history of television. Hallmark Hall of Fame presented great plays acted in by classical actors.
And most of this was live!
One scholar of the American musical says there may have been up to 100 musicals which were written specifically for American television in the first fifteen or so years of the medium. I'm a confirmed Beatles fan, but their draw of 73 million people to watch their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show is thirty million people short of the audience which tuned in to see the musical of Cinderella which Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote for Julie Andrews in 1957. ( There used to be a less than wonderful quality kinescope of this great entertainment event on YouTube, and it wouldn't shock me if it's still available. Julie Andrews' talent and persona were strong enough to overcome the technological limitations of sixty - four years ago, and it's Rodgers and Hammerstein you get, as well. )
All this treasure in the vaults. What can the networks possibly have in mind by not making it available? I'm doubtful of the power of first rate, even noble, entertainment to influence the minds of the young for good, whether aesthetically or morally, but it's some sort of cultural crime the networks are committing by just sitting on this material.