Debbie Reynolds first television special.      

September 26, 1960 - December 28, 1962 

Dean Miller interviews veteran actor Charlie Ruggles. The only television interview Ruggles ever did aside from appearing on a This Is Your Life episode. 
Excerpt.

Here's Hollywood (568 broadcasts) aired as a half-hour interview program, weekday afternoons on NBC at 4:30pm. On October 2, 1961 the show was reduced five minutes giving way to a live news broadcast with Sander Vanocur which aired at 4:55pm. 

Here's Hollywood  was the leading daytime show for two years. It was the first TV broadcast of its kind, using two mobile vans equipped with 2" video tape equipment which traveled to the homes of celebrities...two locations each day, one star in the morning and one in the afternoon. Most of the interviews aired were ten minutes in length. Two different interviews comprised the full length of the half hour program. Occasionally, one subject would be interviewed for the complete program. Occasionally programs were produced outside of the United States...Hawaii, Germany, France. Five color broadcasts were attempted and then the concept abandoned, due to the complexity of 2" quadruplex video tape at the time.

Dean Miller conducted interviews from September 26, 1960 to September 29, 1961. He was replaced by Jack Linkletter who conducted interviews from October 2, 1961 to December 28, 1962. Joanne Jordan conducted interviews from September 26, 1960 to June 9, 1961. She was replaced by Helen O'Oconnell who conducted interviews from June 13, 1961 to December 28, 1962.

Note: Only a handful of the 1,100 different interviews survive. Most were erased, discarded, misplaced. NBC Archives have only two surviving kinescopes, one with Joe E. Brown (12-2-61), and one with Linda Darnell (12-4-61). UCLA Film & TV Archive has 46 different subject interview kinescopes on separate negative film and separate optical film. 

Archival Television Audio has 82 broadcasts on audio tape, originally recorded by Phil Gries at the time the broadcasts first aired. Most of them are complete interviews. These television Audio Air Checks represent the greatest number of known surviving HERE'S HOLLYWOOD broadcast episodes. 
UCLA FILM & Television Archives retains, in their vaults, the greatest number of individual original HERE'S HOLLYWOOD separate 16mm Kinescopes and coinciding separate optical and magnetic sound tracks, representing approximately four dozen shows. Almost ALL of these broadcasts remain in analog form, and not view-able as composite video and audio.  
                                                                                                                   

December 8, 1957-June 18, 1961. 
Programs not hosted by Dinah Shore (every 4th week during the season of 1957-58 and 1958-59, more often thereafter until June 1961) were known as "The Chevy Show." 

Presented on "THE CHEVY SHOW." which was also a weekly summer replacement for "The Dinah Shore Chevy Show" in 1958 and 1959. June 22, 1958 to September 27, 1959, with rotating hosts Janet Blair, John Raitt and Edie Adams. The format was a mixed bag of popular and classical music, skits and monologues. During the summer run of 1959 (June 7, 1959 to September 27, 1959), Blair and Raitt returned as co-hosts. Dorothy Kirsten appeared during both seasons.

 Live musical with interesting premise. Seems things are in a miserable state of Earth, so a heavenly messenger is sent down to deliver a "commercial" over a world-wide television network. The angel tells his viewers that their lives can be free from worries about such trivial maters as money and health. He announces he'll prove his point by showing a day in the life of young Kathy Hewitt, assisted by himself as her guardian angel.

Janis Paige sings, "Too Old," and joins Craig Stevens in "Dancing in a Dream." Axel Stordahl conducts the orchestra.                                        

December 8, 1957-June 18, 1961. 
Programs not hosted by Dinah Shore (every 4th week during the season of 1957-58 and 1958-59, more often thereafter until June 1961) were known as "The Chevy Show." 

Presented on "THE CHEVY SHOW." which was also a weekly summer replacement for "The Dinah Shore Chevy Show" in 1958 and 1959. June 22, 1958 to September 27, 1959, with rotating hosts Janet Blair, John Raitt and Edie Adams. The format was a mixed bag of popular and classical music, skits and monologues. During the summer run of 1959 (June 7, 1959 to September 27, 1959), Blair and Raitt returned as co-hosts. Dorothy Kirsten appeared during both seasons.

 Live musical with interesting premise. Seems things are in a miserable state of Earth, so a heavenly messenger is sent down to deliver a "commercial" over a world-wide television network. The angel tells his viewers that their lives can be free from worries about such trivial maters as money and health. He announces he'll prove his point by showing a day in the life of young Kathy Hewitt, assisted by himself as her guardian angel.

Janis Paige sings, "Too Old," and joins Craig Stevens in "Dancing in a Dream." Axel Stordahl conducts the orchestra.                           

Program number 1 of 18 programs. 
Myrna Loy introduces this unique series. Francis X. Bushman hosts a fond and humorous recollection of the little town of Hollywood, California, in the days when comedies were made in the streets, actors rode to work on horseback and orange groves were everywhere. Recalling these pioneer days are Cecil B. DeMille, Harold Lloyd, Nita Naldi, Charlie Ruggles, George K. Arthur, screenwriter Frances Marion, director Eddie Sutherland and historian Leo Rosten. Most of the interviews were originally recorded in 1959 by producers Joan and Robert Franklin.  

NOTE: Robert  C. Franklin (1920-1980), inspired by a 1958 newspaper story he read about Columbia University's POPULAR ARTS ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, approached Dr. Louis Starr, then director of the oral-history collection, with a proposal to interview and tape record, on to 1/4" reel to reel audio tapes, movie people as they passed through New York. The objective would be to document, through personal recollections, the era of the silent era in films, the impact of sound, the triumphs and inequities of the major studios, and life in the glittering film capital...a firsthand account revelation of how silent movies were actually made.  

Robert  and his wife, Joan Franklin went on to record 200 reels of audio tape, recording celebrities mostly in New York City hotel rooms in 1958 and 1959. Transcripts of interviews were made available at the time to students and researchers. 

In 1961 excerpts/highlights from these audio tapes were edited into a 16 part  radio series titled, MEMOIRS OF THE MOVIES. Myrna Loy provided a standard opening. A different celebrity host/hostess was employed to introduce each episode. All of the 90 celebrities interviewed have since passed away with the exception of Joanne Woodward. Two additional episodes were later produced, "Style of the 70's," and "Rush To Reality," both hosted by Ben Gazzara and added, subsequently, to  re-issues of the series which were syndicated in the 1960's and 1970's airing  in New York (WINS), Boston (WBZ), Philadelphia (KYW), Baltimore (WJZ), Fort Wayne (WOWO), Chicago (WIND), San Francisco (KPIX), and Los Angeles (KFWB).  

The original 200 unedited reels of 1/4" audio tape interviews recorded by Joan and Robert Franklin are no longer known to exist. However, audio cassette transfers from these original tapes were donated by Joan Franklin many decades ago to Columbia University's Oral History Research Office where they exist  today.
Confirmed during a 2009 phone conversation with Mary Marshal Clark, archivist at Columbia at that time, who stated that the first on file communication from Robert  Franklin to Columbia University related to his  proposal to do an oral history audio recorded project is dated, July 31, 1958.
                                                         

September 25, 1962-June 23, 1970. One of television's most inventive and popular comedians, Red Skelton hosted his own series for twenty years, seven of them in a one-hour format, "The Red Skelton Hour" on CBS. Skelton began his television career on NBC September 30, 1951 with a half-hour filmed variety series lasting until June 21, 1953. He then began his CBS affiliation, and began hosting "The Red Skelton Show," a half-hour variety show broadcast live until October 18, 1960, and subsequently on videotape. This series aired from October 13, 1953, continuing until June 26, 1962. From July 21, 1954 through September 8, 1954, "The Red Skelton Revue" was broadcast live on CBS in a one-hour format. Red Skelton returned to NBC in a half-hour taped format for his final series. "Red" as the show was known, premiered September 14, 1970. The first four broadcasts included introductions by Vice President Spiro T. Agnew (September 14, 1970), Dean Martin (September 21, 1970), Jack Benny (September 28, 1970), and Johnny Carson (October 5, 1970) who got his big break writing for Skelton in the early 1950's. Red Skelton's last first-run regularly scheduled television program aired on March 15, 1971. 



                                                              

Re-run of Program 3 of 18 episodes in the series with real humor and affection Joe E. Brown hosts as master of humor who brings back the days when movie comedy was seen, but not heard. 

Comments from Eddie Sutherland, Charlie Ruggles, Moe Howard, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd. A feature presentation of the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company in collaboration with the Oral History Research Project of Columbia University. Produced by Joan Franklin and Robert Franklin. 

   NOTE: Robert  C. Franklin (1920-1980), inspired by a 1958 newspaper story he read about Columbia University's POPULAR ARTS ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, approached Dr. Louis Starr, then director of the oral-history collection, with a proposal to interview and tape record, on to 1/4" reel to reel audio tapes, movie people as they passed through New York. The objective would be to document, through personal recollections, the era of the silent era in films, the impact of sound, the triumphs and inequities of the major studios, and life in the glittering film capital...a firsthand account revelation of how silent movies were actually made.  

Robert  and his wife, Joan Franklin went on to record 200 reels of audio tape, recording celebrities mostly in New York City hotel rooms in 1958 and 1959. Transcripts of interviews were made available at the time to students and researchers. 

In 1961 excerpts/highlights from these audio tapes were edited into a 16 part  radio series titled, MEMOIRS OF THE MOVIES. Myrna Loy provided a standard opening. A different celebrity host/hostess was employed to introduce each episode. All of the 90 celebrities interviewed have since passed away with the exception of Joanne Woodward. Two additional episodes were later produced, "Style of the 70's," and "Rush To Reality," both hosted by Ben Gazzara and added, subsequently, to  re-issues of the series which were syndicated in the 1960's and 1970's airing  in New York (WINS), Boston (WBZ), Philadelphia (KYW), Baltimore (WJZ), Fort Wayne (WOWO), Chicago (WIND), San Francisco (KPIX), and Los Angeles (KFWB).  

The original 200 unedited reels of 1/4" audio tape interviews recorded by Joan and Robert Franklin are no longer known to exist. However, audio cassette transfers from these original tapes were donated by Joan Franklin many decades ago to Columbia University's Oral History Research Office where they exist  today.
Confirmed during a 2009 phone conversation with Mary Marshal Clark, archivist at Columbia at that time, who stated that the first on file communication from Robert  Franklin to Columbia University related to his  proposal to do an oral history audio recorded project is dated, July 31, 1958.