Saturday, June 24, 2017

#1 Ed Sullivan

While with Polack Bros. Circus we made regular appearances on the Sullivan Show, a policy established long before us by Peggy and Mack MacDonald and the wonderful elephant "Opal"

5 comments:

Chic Silber said...


"Toast Of The Town"

Every Sunday night

on CBS TV (Columbia

Broadcasting System)

Chic Silber said...


The Ed Sullivan Theater

at 53rd Street & Broadway

was built in the mid 20s

It went by several names

before it became CBS Studio 50

It was their 1st color facility

Renamed for Sullivan late 60s

Chic Silber said...


I just recalled that it was

CBS Studio 72 at 81st Street

& Broadway that was the 1st

CBS color facility & not 50

I worked at 72 a few times

as a sub electrician during

my Stagehand apprenticeship

on "The Edge Of Night"

4pawfan said...

I think these photos came from LA West. Sullivan's last black and white show was the Beatles in August 1965 and the show went out west that fall to do the show in color. They remodeled the New York facility ( studio 50? ) during the time the show was out west? There was not any CBS FCC approved color equipment in New York until they did the remodel in the fall of 1965? Beatles were going to come back to his show in 1966 and do it in color, but it never happened.
CBS had developed color tv back in the 50's but their equipment couldn't be used for some reason by the FCC. Sulluvan did some one time color specials using CBS's color equipment in the 1950's at studio 72 which came down in the 1986?
Only RCA made FCC color equipment at the time and CBS wouldn't have them. They had to wait for the Norelco (Philips) pc-60 color cameras to come out.

p.j.

4pawfan said...

RCA's "Compatible Color" system had won over the CBS "Mechanical Color" system with the FCC.
NBC's Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color (1961-1969) was shot in color with the RCA cameras and taking more and more viewers from the other networks.

The Norelco (Philips) PC-60 ( Philips color - 60 = 1960 year it was invented) helped CBS go to color without using RCA equipment.

Philips could not use their name in the states because of a lawsuit with the Philco company in 1940 as the names were too close to being the same. I think Philips purchased Philco after Ford spun Ford Aerospace from it in the early 1980's. Ford later sold the Ford Aerospace unit as well.
p.j.