August 10, 2006

• Amateur Hour (blast from the past)

  This is unbelievable, and  I am so psyched! A little background first. When I was much younger, I realized that  I could entertain people by performing in some fashion. I tried to learn various methods of entertainment, including playing the rhythm bones, a skill my dad had picked up in college and taught me. There is now an international club dedicated to bones playing. Of course I belong.

  
  

  Anyhow, through a set of circumstances I don’t quite remember, I wound up auditioning for Ted Mack and the Original Amateur Hour, a national TV show. The producers wound up incorporating my dad into the act, as a father-and-son performance, in honor of Father’s Day, and we actually appeared on the Amateur Hour, June 7, 1958. This was before the days of VCRs, DVDs, and the other alphabet soup of electronica, so I thought it was a once-and-done thing. Somebody once sold me a record with our performance on it, I did a few shows for some veterans’ hospitals, and that was that, or so I thought.  Joe Bennett told me that all the old kinescope films were stored in the Library of Congress, where they sat, deteriorating, unavailable to the public.  The Sparkletones had appeared on the show, too, and Joe told me that he happened to secure a copy of a recording of their performance, a very rare occurence. I would have loved to get a copy of our appearance, but could not imagine how this could be done.

  
  

   

  
  

  Well, guess what? Albert Fisher, of Fisher Television Productions, Inc.,who was involved in the production of the show, ( he is listed as a writer) has established an account with the Library of Congress, and has access to his archives. I contacted Mr. Fisher, and he does have a listing of our performance and the archive of that performance, and has ordered a copy of that show for me. It is VERY expensive, because of the careful processing and restoration of the fragile film. As a very magnanimous gesture, he is not charging anything for his services, so all charges are based upon the work of the Library of Congress. Considering what is involved, I can understand the high cost, and there is no way I could ever obtain such an item on my own. It should take 8 to 10 weeks. Check out the website on www.originalamateurhour.com.

  • 5:08 am
  • 2 Comments