News 04-03-10

News, news, exciting news!

A major re-alignment of Tramp Studios online presence is about to occur. First of all, two of the Blogspot blogs will be shut down as well as, in all probability, the Blip TV sites. The reason for shutting down is I have opened a profile on Ustream's website for broadcasting live as well as storing the items as video on demand files.

The profile is named WBKB in honor of WBKB, Chicago's first commercial television station.

Ask any long-time Chicagoan what the Chicago, Granada, Nortown, and Uptown theaters have in common and they'll say Balaban & Katz. B & K didn't just build theaters, they built palaces. It was the 1920s, vaudeville was on the way out but Hollywood was coming up fast. By the 1930s, B & K theaters were packed, thanks to their pioneering efforts in air-conditioning. Balaban & Katz was one of many satellite companies owned or controlled by Paramount Pictures, Inc. Commonplace in the early to mid twentieth century, film production companies controlled the theaters playing their movies, allowing them complete control over the distribution and presentation of their product. Across the country Paramount had more than 1500 theaters plus more in Canada, Europe, and in parts of South America.

There was one more equally significant connection between Paramount and Balaban & Katz the companies were run by brothers. Barney Balaban had been made president of Paramount Pictures Inc. when the company emerged from the bankruptcy of its predecessor company Paramount Publix Corporation in 1935. John Balaban, along with Sam Katz, ran Balaban & Katz Theaters Inc.

In Chicago, Balaban & Katz had more than 100 theaters displaying their name. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had a similar set-up with its Loew's Theater circuit. However, these monopolistic practices caught the attention of the U.S. Justice Department and in the end Paramount (as well as MGM and others) were ordered to decide which business they wanted to be in film producing or theater ownership. Paramount chose to stay in the picture producing business. Because of this, in 1950, a new corporation was formed United Paramount Theaters Inc., presided over by Leonard H. Goldenson.

But back in 1939, John Balaban convinced Leonard H. Goldenson, then a on-the-rise Paramount corporate lawyer, to acquire an experimental television license that would become W9XBK. The second electronic station on the air (the first was W9XZV, Zenith Radio Corporation's experimental outlet on Channel 1), W9XBK transmitted at 60 66 megacycles, then television's Channel 2. Balaban & Katz also held the experimental television licenses for W9XBT, W9XBB, and W9XPR. When the VHF frequencies were changed by the FCC, W9XBK found itself transmitting at 66 72 megacycles, the current Channel 4. W9XZV ended up on Channel 2. Late in 1943, the station would become the first commercial station in Chicago, WBKB. Around the same time Paramount would launch a second television station, KTLA in Los Angeles.

Neither Paramount or B& K had any idea what to do with a television station. John Balaban decided to hire Bill Eddy who had been working for NBC. Eddy was given $60,000 to start up W9XBK. Eddy quickly assembled his staff. As chief engineer was Arch Brolly, who Eddy knew from his days with Philo Farnsworth; Reinald Werrenrath, who worked with Eddy at NBC; and from Chicago, Bill Kusack and Dick Shapiro, TV repairmen who worked for RCA Victor; and Stan Osterlund.

Rigging a small truck they nicknamed "Mobile Unit Number One," Eddy and Werrenrath drove around the outskirts of the city checking the signal strength of the transmitter. Cameras had to be homemade including the mounts which Eddy fashioned from old barbers' chairs which had been rigged with small motors to raise and lower the camera. While still working for Farnsworth, Eddy was given the task of dealing with the lighting problems that were common to early television. He later honed his talents at NBC. By the time Eddy and his staff would move into the fourth floor of the State-Lake building at 190 N. State St. (now the home to WLS-TV), Eddy's input was the standard of the industry.

Al Rhone was WBKB's film director. He chose the films seen on Channel 4.There were no schedules. Much of what viewers tuned into was man-on-the-street interviews. Because the Chicago Theatre was often packed, there was never a shortage of people to talk to. Performers on stage at the theater would often came over to be on the station. It was all hit or miss.

December 7, 1941, the country would enter the war. Knowing the Navy would need radar (Eddy had developed the Eddy Amplifier, a highly sensitive sonar device) Eddy offered the Navy department his staff and facilities of W9XBK as a training school. Originally estimated to train 135 technicians, the total came closer to 86,000. The school became such a success that similar classes were set up all across the country.

Shortly after the war began, the FCC announced that any experimental stations on the air for at least four hours a week would be able to stay on the air for the duration of the war. Chief engineer Arch Brolly was saddled with the task of replacing the station's original transmitter in time to satisfy the FCC. Although Paramount ordered a new transmitter to be delivered, the order was cancelled when the New York firm that was building the unit was ordered to convert their facilities for the war effort. Brolly and his staff decided to complete the transmitter themselves and after working day and night and using a ten-gallon pickle jar as a water-cooling system, got the station on the air.

In 1943, W9XBK would become WBKB, Chicago's first commercial television station. Programming began to develop. In 1945, veteran newsman Hugh Downs announced a fifteen-minute newscast sweating under the hot studio lights. Mike Wallace auditioned but worried about his skin. Boxing and wrestling became popular because it was cheap to produce, and especially in the case of wrestling, easy to schedule commercials between bouts. It was open audition all the time. If you thought you had talent, you would go over to WBKB and be on television. WBKB would also air "B" and "C" films, usually the old cowboy shoot 'em ups to fill out their air time.

Eddy approached his friend, puppeteer Burr Tillstrom, with an offer to develop a children's program. It was Eddy who suggested Fran Allison who Tillstrom had worked with before. Beulah Zachery, after whom Beulah Witch is named, was the producer and Lew Gomavitz was the director. Kukla, Fran, & Ollie appealed to children and adults alike. In fact, it was believed early on that its audience was primarily adults. Now there was television programming that could appeal to the whole family. A much better reason to fork out the big bucks for a set. WBKB would continue to develop programming to appeal to a wider audience. They would hire Lincoln Park Zoo director Marlin Perkins (later to star for years on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom) to host a show called Zoo Parade. Years later, a similar program would appear as a segment of Ray Rayner & Friends on WGN-TV with Dr. Lester Fisher of the Lincoln Park Zoo. It would all begin at WBKB.

But all of this was expensive and Paramount, who had by now spent millions of dollars on WBKB (as well as its sister station in Los Angeles KTLA) was growing tired of television. Unlike his brother John, Barney Balaban did not believe in pouring money into television. This philosophy was made even more clear by the stormy relationship between Paramount and The Allen B. DuMont Laboratories. They also felt that Eddy was costing them too much money. Eddy, however, cared little for the bean counters at B & K or Paramount. Capt. Bill Eddy was let go.

By the early 1950s, WBKB was able to boast a bevy of firsts...

* First baseball game broadcast from Wrigley Field
* First interstate telecast of boxing matches live ringside at Michigan City Indiana
* First television remote- the Shriner's parade in front of the Sheraton Hotel
* First intercity relay golf tournament from Tam O'Shanter Country Club in Niles
* First football game relayed from Dyche Stadium in Evanston
* First interstate relay from South Bend Indiana of Notre Dame football
* First full-length drama ever to be telecast in its entirety
* First telecast of the midnight Mass at Holy Name Cathedral
* First Easter Sunrise service telecast from Cook County Hospital
* First concert to be televised from the Grant Park band shell

WBKB Channel 4 became CBS-owned and operated WBBM-TV on Channel 2, part of the home made "tornado alert" system. (If I think about it long enough, hard enough, I can probably remember what we did. It was something to do with Channel 2 and Channel 13The newly formed American Broadcasting-Paramount Theaters Inc. dropped the WENR-TV calls on Channel 7 and became WBKB. WBBM-TV would soon move to Channel 2 in response to the FCC's action to clean up the VHF assignment mess. Channel 4 would be reallocated to Milwaukee Wisconsin and WTMJ-TV. Channel 2 in Chicago, long held by Zenith and the experimental W9XZV, the city's first electronic television station (beating out W9XBK by a year) and (as KS2XBS), the station that broadcast Phonevision, the ill-fated pay television experiment in 1951, was forced to go dark. The station's transmitter would later be donated to Chicago's first educational station WTTW.

Not many remember a station on Channel 4 in Chicago. The names Capt. Bill Eddy, Arch Brolly, Bill Kusack, and the others at WBKB are well-respected among their industry peers but virtually unknown to the public. Yet we have these men to thank for being there and the pioneering efforts despite overwhelming odds. (Re-printed from Steve Jajkowski's site of Chicago's Television history, http://www.chicagotelevision.com/)

There is still a WBKB TV Channel 11 in Alpena, MI, but we are not in any way affiliated with the commercial WBKB.

Ustream allows its members to broadcast video through a variety of methods. Ustream also allows people to chat while the program is broadcasting. There has been a small set up for this purpose on the Screen Scream website, the difference is that Ustream uses real streaming technology. If you enter the profile 30 minutes late, you miss the first thirty minutes of the program.

The main profile was named wbkb in honor of Chicago's (my hometown) first commercial television station. This internet station is currently running two shows. Movie Madness/Scream Screen and Tramp Studios Presents!

Movie Madness has, of course, finished it's first season. I am currently re-formatting the show for its second season. The characters will be different looking, the backgrounds will be re-drawn and the show is probably going to be re-named from Movie Madness to Scream Screen. The jokes, rest assured, will be as bad as ever. During the hiatus, reruns of the Movie Madness will be shown every other Saturday night at 10:00 P.M.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/scream-screen

The other show, Tramp Studios Presents! Will premiere on May 18th, 2010 with a program called "A Man Named Charlie." Tramp Studios is named in honor of Charlie Chaplin and his character, the Tramp. Therefore, to premiere the show, I think its only natural that I broadcast a program of my favorite Chaplin short two reel films. Which films specifically, I haven't decided. I'm still researching. In the weeks following the Chaplin program, I will be running both Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: The Saga of World of II and Please Stand By: The Invention of Television in their entirety. Which one will I broadcast first? I'll give you a hint: What famous event occurred in the first few days of June?

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/tramp-studios-presents

This is an exciting turn of events! I hope you will join us to celebrate!