One of the neat things about attending an event like the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention is that in the vendor room, you can find original magazines useful for a project. TV Guide is particularly well-represented at these kinds of shows. There’s an obvious pop culture value in all those memorable covers, and a time machine value to looking at listings from yesteryear. But what’s so often overlooked is how valuable TV Guide is as a source of information, of interviews and insights in the journalism it presented when it was at its best.
We’ve spent some time here of late looking at some of TV Guide‘s articles about Dave Garroway. Much of it has been based on scans from microfilm held at the University of Georgia’s main library in Athens. It more than fills the bill for the text. But something’s missing when all you have is microfilm. Take the opening of this article, for instance:
It’s like looking at the past through a thick, dark fog. But when you can see the real thing, notice the difference.
The past really comes back to life. I’ll bet you never really knew what the colors were on the original Today set, did you? Most of the re-creations through the years on the retrospective shows used shades of gray. But notice the blue-gray, the earth tones, the contrasts on the big map behind the couch.
The moment that really made me take notice came with this article, which we covered a little while back:
In the muddy high-contrast realm of microfilm, you just imagine Dave’s sitting in a darkened room in the wee small hours. I wasn’t prepared for how much more the original added to the scene:
Notice what you can see now: the hue and pattern of the wall behind him, the potted plant on the table, the chair near the wall, the grapefruit half that in black and white could be mistaken for a bowl. So much subtlety that you miss if you don’t see the original, and so much that reminds me how good it is to get hold of the genuine articles (pardon the expression) whenever I can.