Keniscope?

[Woolworth27]

When you look at the lost eps they are Keniscope filmes, but then the c39 where filmed on a new develpment at a time called electrocam, witch Jackie Gleason used the same camera technech that Dezi Arniz used on I Love Lucy and the shows picture quality was much better. What puzzle me is why when Jackie Gleason switched back to his varitey format during the 56-57 season did he go back to the old Keniscope technech?

[VIDEOWACK]

Originally Posted by Woolworth27

When you look at the lost eps they are Keniscope filmes, but then the c39 where filmed on a new develpment at a time called electrocam, witch Jackie Gleason used the same camera technech that Dezi Arniz used on I Love Lucy and the shows picture quality was much better. What puzzle me is why when Jackie Gleason switched back to his varitey format during the 56-57 season did he go back to the old Keniscope technech?

The lost episodes are on kinescope film because that is the way live TV shows were preserved in the pre-videotape days. Gleason filmed the Classic 39 on 35mm film using 3 cameras similar to the way I Love Lucy and other shows were filmed. The technique used by DuMont (the Electronicam) system was actually used before Desi Arnaz ever thought of using 3 cameras....they are not identical as to how a TV show was filmed, although they are similar. Electronicam was quite a complex innovation and there is much more to it than we know. The cameras doubled as both a "live" TV camera and a "film" camera, and the cuts were made electronically on the film as the show was being recorded so the film editor would know precisely where to cut. The director would "call the shots" just as he would during a live TV broadcast, and as he did the cut to the other camera would create an incision on the actual film in the camera, thus allowing it to be known where the final edit (or cut) would be made in the final editing process. As far as Gleason's 56-57 season is concerned, he reverted back to a live format, just as he had been doing from 1952-55, before switching to the filmed Honeymooners.

[Woolworth27]

Thanks for the info.

[W.B.]

And even after his return to Saturday night television in 1962 with what was first called Jackie Gleason and His American Scene Magazine, kinescopes of his shows continued to be made for those areas that were not equipped with videotape facilities (i.e. in very small markets). This, despite the fact that his post-1962 shows, pre-recorded as they were, were all on videotape and of course, after 1966 (as re-re-renamed The Jackie Gleason Show), in color. If you've frequented the Museum of Television & Radio, either in New York and L.A., you'll find that the 1962-1970 Gleason output, with very few exceptions, is represented via B&W kinescopes. (One exception: his March 29, 1969 episode with guests Jack Benny, Alan King, Robert Goulet and Jack Haley, which the Museum has in color videotape form.) So it took GoodLife/AmericanLife's airings of The Color Honeymooners to see those episodes in color for the first time. And it took TV Land's airing, some years ago, of the 1966 version of "The Adoption" (to tie in to their Inside TV Land: The Honeymooners documentary), for me to see that in videotape form for the first time.

[TV Knowledge Fan]

I believe that Gleason's partner [and Executive Producer] Jack Philbin still controls the rights to all of Gleason's kinescopes and videotapes, and continues to store them in that Florida vault....you can bet that those color videotapes of "THE JACKIE GLEASON SHOW" produced between 1966 and 1970 are there as well (if Jackie saved the hour-long "Honeymooners" segments on color tape, why NOT the others?). Gleason talked about releasing most of his archive to TV before his death..but not until the "right time", as he put it once. If he hadn't saved most of his '50s variety shows and virtually all of his '60s material, WHO WOULD HAVE?



When "THE HONEYMOONERS" was discontinued as a half-hour series in 1956, Jackie went back to his live variety format...and that meant preserving them on kinescope film again. "Electronicam" was a process where one could film a TV show and see the images on LIVE TV monitors at the same time (a combination of live and film lenses on the camera), and that's how the "classic 39" episodes of "THE HONEYMOONERS" was produced. Unfortunately, "Electronicam" flopped because Gleason was the ONLY TV producer in New York to use the process- no one else would. That's why the system has been dormant now for 50 years.....

[W.B.]

Originally Posted by TV Knowledge Fan

I believe that Gleason's partner [and Executive Producer] Jack Philbin still controls the rights to all of Gleason's kinescopes and videotapes, and continues to store them in that Florida vault....you can bet that those color videotapes of "THE JACKIE GLEASON SHOW" produced between 1966 and 1970 are there as well (if Jackie saved the hour-long "Honeymooners" segments on color tape, why NOT the others?). Gleason talked about releasing most of his archive to TV before his death..but not until the "right time", as he put it once. If he hadn't saved most of his '50s variety shows and virtually all of his '60s material, WHO WOULD HAVE?

When "THE HONEYMOONERS" was discontinued as a half-hour series in 1956, Jackie went back to his live variety format...and that meant preserving them on kinescope film again. "Electronicam" was a process where one could film a TV show and see the images on LIVE TV monitors at the same time (a combination of live and film lenses on the camera), and that's how the "classic 39" episodes of "THE HONEYMOONERS" was produced. Unfortunately, "Electronicam" flopped because Gleason was the ONLY TV producer in New York to use the process- no one else would. That's why the system has been dormant now for 50 years.....

I do remember reading somewhere - from a British TV cameraman named Dicky Howett - that one or two British TV productions might have used Electronicam, but that was pretty much it. And it wasn't just because Gleason was the only TV producer in New York to use Electronicam why it ended up flopping - the advent of videotape also combined to make Electronicam obsolete.

And bet on it that all of Gleason's regular variety shows post-1966 are on color videotape. We know this from the A&E Biography on Gleason when they showed a clip from Feb. 22, 1969 with Milton Berle dressed in "far-out" hippie garb. And the clip from the "Reggie and the Red Baron" episode. And the short shot of Jackie and Uncle Miltie from Feb. 14, 1970 (the last weekly variety show Gleason did, as opposed to the two "Honeymooners" installments which followed). And the color excerpts from the 1988 Jackie Gleason: The Great One special. And for that matter, his 1962-66 American Scene Magazine shows (B&W) all being on videotape.

[VIDEOWACK]

Originally Posted by TV Knowledge Fan

I believe that Gleason's partner [and Executive Producer] Jack Philbin still controls the rights to all of Gleason's kinescopes and videotapes, and continues to store them in that Florida vault....you can bet that those color videotapes of "THE JACKIE GLEASON SHOW" produced between 1966 and 1970 are there as well (if Jackie saved the hour-long "Honeymooners" segments on color tape, why NOT the others?). Gleason talked about releasing most of his archive to TV before his death..but not until the "right time", as he put it once. If he hadn't saved most of his '50s variety shows and virtually all of his '60s material, WHO WOULD HAVE?



When "THE HONEYMOONERS" was discontinued as a half-hour series in 1956, Jackie went back to his live variety format...and that meant preserving them on kinescope film again. "Electronicam" was a process where one could film a TV show and see the images on LIVE TV monitors at the same time (a combination of live and film lenses on the camera), and that's how the "classic 39" episodes of "THE HONEYMOONERS" was produced. Unfortunately, "Electronicam" flopped because Gleason was the ONLY TV producer in New York to use the process- no one else would. That's why the system has been dormant now for 50 years.....

Actually, Electronicam WAS used by other DuMont owned programs, but Gleason brought it into the public eye with The Honeymooners. The system went out because DuMont became defunct, and with the advent of videotape, the process was like comparing it between Beta, VHS and DVD....TV simply started to grow up.