One of the tragedies of the early years of television is that comparatively little of it remains. There were technical reasons – in the days before videotape, the only real way to preserve a show was through kinescopes, which looked crude by comparison and took a lot of effort to make1, often done mainly at the behest of program sponsors – and, honestly, there was a belief that once something aired, there wasn’t much value in holding on to it. The idea of television programs as something worth saving wasn’t a thing in a lot of circles then. Once it was done, it was gone. It’s understandable (think, for instance, of the logistical nightmare it would have been to preserve every single Today program that ever aired), but it means a lot of things are lost forever.2
That means when there is a new discovery, it’s a treat. And courtesy of my trusty associate Brandon, who found this recently and shared the good news with me, I’m happy to bring you another rare-as-hen’s-teeth segment of Wide Wide World, from June 9, 1957. There’s so much to enjoy here, including correspondent Charles Van Doren interviewing the great John Houseman, and a look at the efforts to put a satellite into orbit.
More rare footage will come next week! In the meantime, please watch, and enjoy.
- A kinescope is essentially a movie of the picture off a television monitor. You can usually tell a kinescope recording because it looks a little cruder, the shadows and highlights seem a little exaggerated, the corners of the picture may appear distorted due to the curvature of the monitor screen, and other little things. There’s also the difference that comes from a 30-frames-per-second television picture being captured by a 24-frames-per-second film process, and that’s why kinescopes lack the “immediacy” you see in videotaped programs. There are some very talented and dedicated folks who use modern computer processes to restore kinescoped programs, and they use interpolation techniques to simulate the 30-frame look. Here is an example that uses perhaps my very favorite live drama episode of all time. The process isn’t perfect – it’s limited by the source material – but it’s awfully darn good.
- In the case of kinescopes, it’s preserving a lot of film reels – not only bulky, but over time you have to transfer the film onto videotape, and that’s time-consuming, Plus, over time, film can deteriorate, as anyone knows who’s opened a film can and met with the smell of vinegar. Vintage videotape is very rare, as it was routinely “wiped” so the expensive tapes could be reused – and even when you do find it now, there’s the challenge of finding working equipment that can play it.