I’m a fan of old TV. I get TV Land and some network TV, and they, along with some of the cable-/satellite-only superstations, will play reruns that are genuinely worth watching. I’ve noticed that one specific show is conspicuous in its absence: The classic series ‘Playhouse 90’. Amid all the acclaim heaped upon that show by every retrospective of Golden Age TV, it simply never appears in any rerun listing I’ve ever seen.
I’ll admit that I’m not watching every station all the time, nor do I have anything like TiVO to watch for me. If I’m wrong, point me in the direction of the eps and I’ll thank you gratefully. But I don’t think I am, and I’d like to know why.
This is only a guess on my part but I think the reason why you (or anyone else) has seen any “Playhouse 90” reruns from the 50’s is because they mostly don’t exist anymore. “Playhouse 90” was originally aired live and–since this was before video tape–filmed on kinescope for its showing in the Pacific Time Zone and one repeat later in the season. One would think these kinescopes would be around but, unfortunately, the industry considered most TV programs to be like kleenex–use them once or twice and then throw them away. As a result, most programs recorded on kinescopes (and early video tapes) from the 50’s and early 60’s have vanished into the ether. “Playhouse 90” is just one of many legendary shows that have apparently suffered this fate. For example, even thought they were recorded on video tape, the first Super Bowl broadcast and most “Tonight” show episodes through about 1970 have likely disappeared because short-sighted network executives decided to either tape over them or simply dump them in a landfill instead of keeping them in storage. (Johnny Carson, I believe, has offered a considerable amount of money for anyone who has a copy of his first “Tonight” show in 1962 or his broadcasts from New York through about 1967.)
Anyway, getting back to “Playhouse 90”, about 20 years ago, PBS ran some of the kinescopes of the some of the more noteworthy broadcasts from the 50’s like “Marty” and “Requiem for a Heavyweight”. However, I don’t think there are enough surviving shows left in the series for TV Land or another network to run on a regular basis.
I’ve always wondered why they don’t rerun the news. A half-hour broadcast of either a network or local nightly news program, beginning to end, from, say, Oct. 1, 1975; April 6, 1953; Jan. 3, 1960; would be fascinating.
NDP: If the episodes are gone, that’s really, really sad. I think most people who know the history of television know that ‘Playhouse 90’ was one of the best shows of the age.
‘Playhouse 90’ was shot on videotape. Would that have been preserved, and would it still be usable if it had been? It had high enough production values that I can’t see any cost-conscious suit throwing old episodes away.
When videotape first came into use, it was quite expensive to use. As a result, it was common practice until the late 60’s for networks to use the same tape over and over. That’s why it’s so difficult–if not impossible–to find videotapes of many “Playhouse 90” broadcasts, the early “Tonight” show, and sports programming like the World Series or Super Bowl I (which, by the way, has apparently been lost despite being broadcast on both CBS and NBC). In many ways, it would’ve been better if some episodes of “Playhouse 90” had been on kinescope rather than videotape because there would’ve been a better chance it would be in existence now.
As for news broadcasts from the 50’s and 60’s, the same is also true. Local TV stations had even more limited budgets (and storage space) than the networks do, so they too kept recycling videotapes of their programs. That’s why (unless it’s an obviously historical event like the JFK assassination) you can’t find many copies of these broadcasts today.
Incidentally, do not underestimate the short-sightedness of many of the men who ran TV and motion pictures in the early days. As I said earlier, these people regarded their product like Kleenex–something to be thrown away after being used. With the exception of people like Walt Disney, hardly anybody thought anyone would be interested in watching a movie or TV show that was more than a few years old. That’s why the film studios unloaded their archives to TV packagers like MCA during the 50’s and the networks neglected their programming archives. All that film and videotape was just taking up space and space was money. Thus, it made sense to simply scrap all of it for a few cents.
There isn’t a whole lot left around. All nightly news broadcasts from 1967 onward survive at Vanderbilt, but virtually no nightly news broadcast from before that time do. There are only a few of the newscasts of John Cameron Swayze surviving at the NBC News Archive, for example.
A number of eps are available from various video sources. Don’t know how many–or how many still survive that have never been released, but here are some more things to consider:
a) According to some, B&W doesn’t have broad appeal. Several years ago, when TNT was airing “The Wild Wild West,” they didn’t have the first (B&W) season in the regular rotation. They’d throw in one once a week, but that was it. Their reason: B&W didn’t test well in their focus groups!
b) Playhouse 90 was 90 minutes long. Minus commercials, that was probably about 78 minutes. The standard now is about 44 minutes of programming time per hour. To fit it into a 60-minute slot, you’d have to trim about 34 minutes! Uncut, it would take almost two hours.
c) Half-hour shows are a lot easier to sell and schedule than hour-long shows. That’s why you see so many of those on TVLand, and not so many “classic” hour-long programs. So, combining something with low audience appeal (B&W) and a long run time (at least an hour), it’s not likely to ever see the light of day on any regular basis.
Something like half of Nick at Nite’s/TV Land’s nightly programming is B&W. Leave it to Beaver, Andy Griffith, early Bewitched, Addams Family, Munsters, I Love Lucy, etc. So this part of the theory doesn’t hold up. People tuning in to a network specifically to watch old TV shows are likely to have a higher tolerance for B&W programming.
Although the original performances are lost, the scripts survived and some were later remade with new casts. Requiem for a Heavyweight with Anthony Quinn instead of Jack Palance is an example.
Well, a cursory glance at Nick at Nite’s current schedule doesn’t seem to indicate any B&W programming.
TVLand, however is a little more generous, with potentially 8 programming hours out of 24 with B&W.
“I Dream of Jeannie” 1 of 5 B&W season
“Bewitched” 2 of 8 B&W seasons
“Gunsmoke” 11(!) of 20 B&W seasons
“Mr. Ed” all B&W
“I Love Lucy” all B&W
“The Munsters” all B&W
“Dick Van Dyke” all B&W
“Andy Griffith” 5 of 8 B&W seasons
“Leave it to Beaver” all B&W
However, TVLand doesn’t show the *B&W “Gunsmoke” eps, only a selected group of color ones, so scratch that one. That leaves us with only 3 hours of B&W-only programming. Well, most of the “Andy Griffith” eps were B&W, so let’s say 4 hours. The other 3 hours are mostly-color programs with a limited number of B&W eps. So, on any given night you might average 5 hours of B&W programming. Not too shabby, but notice that none of them are 60 minutes long. For some reason, Hallmark and GLTV don’t mind showing 60-minute B&W programs like “Rawhide” and “77 Sunset Strip,” respectively. Maybe it’s because those programs are cheap to air, and they’re not going after the same demographics as TVLand?
*Although they have shown some of them on special “Gunsmoke” marathons.