SWC75
Bored Historian
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In the early days of television, shows from new York were 'kinoscoped' for rebroadcast to the west coast at a later hour. This was done by bolting a film camera head-to-head with a television monitor and photographing the show through the glass. The executives at the networks were not very imaginative and had no idea people would want to see these shows years later so they thought the most economic thing was to melt down the film to collect the silver from it and sell that commodity for a little extra money. Goodson-Todman, the producers of WML, IGAS and TTT, learned that the networks were doing this to the kinoscopes of their shows and in 1953 offered to buy the kinos for their shows from the network so they could use them to syndicate the show to local stations, a procedure that was much more of a goldmine than a silver mine. Unfortunately, many of the early WMLs are lost forever because of what the networks did. Their remains might be in your teeth right now.
The records show several appearances of prominent athletic figures of the time that have been lost because of these "melt-downs": Eddie Arcaro, Yogi Berra, Ty Cobb, Dizzy Dean, Jack Dempsey, Leo Durocher, Bob Feller, Rocky Graziano, Ralph Kiner, Joe Louis, Johnny Mize, Jackie Robinson and Sugar Ray Robinson. You can see what the two most prominent sports were: baseball and boxing. The loss of the Ralph Kiner appearance pains me the most, not simply because I'm a Mets fan. No blindfolds were needed because Ralph appeared wearing a bear suit. They had to guess who the "bear" was. At the end of it, Ralph pulled off his bear head and announced he'd just been traded to the Cubs.
One of the early episodes that does survive is this one featuring Dodger manager Charley Dressen, who has the temerity to dress down Dorothy Kilgallen for somehting she wrote aobut him in her column. This was 9/28/52. Charlie was about to lead the Dodgers into the 1952 World Series vs. the Yankees and vowed that they “weren’t going to blow it this time”. (Charley comes out at the 19 minute mark.)
Note that the show has improved from it's clunky 1950 start. The set is better. Untermeyer and the Hoffmans are gone. Instead we have the charming Arlene Francis and Bennett Cerf, who had joined Kilgallen as regulars. Comedy writer Abe Burrows joins them in what became a rotating spot. John Daly seems more assured in what he's doing and the pace of the show is much better. They would eventually got rid of the pointless walk segment and the wild guesses.
The records show several appearances of prominent athletic figures of the time that have been lost because of these "melt-downs": Eddie Arcaro, Yogi Berra, Ty Cobb, Dizzy Dean, Jack Dempsey, Leo Durocher, Bob Feller, Rocky Graziano, Ralph Kiner, Joe Louis, Johnny Mize, Jackie Robinson and Sugar Ray Robinson. You can see what the two most prominent sports were: baseball and boxing. The loss of the Ralph Kiner appearance pains me the most, not simply because I'm a Mets fan. No blindfolds were needed because Ralph appeared wearing a bear suit. They had to guess who the "bear" was. At the end of it, Ralph pulled off his bear head and announced he'd just been traded to the Cubs.
One of the early episodes that does survive is this one featuring Dodger manager Charley Dressen, who has the temerity to dress down Dorothy Kilgallen for somehting she wrote aobut him in her column. This was 9/28/52. Charlie was about to lead the Dodgers into the 1952 World Series vs. the Yankees and vowed that they “weren’t going to blow it this time”. (Charley comes out at the 19 minute mark.)
Note that the show has improved from it's clunky 1950 start. The set is better. Untermeyer and the Hoffmans are gone. Instead we have the charming Arlene Francis and Bennett Cerf, who had joined Kilgallen as regulars. Comedy writer Abe Burrows joins them in what became a rotating spot. John Daly seems more assured in what he's doing and the pace of the show is much better. They would eventually got rid of the pointless walk segment and the wild guesses.
