40's TV: DuMont Television Set commercial from 1949

[SUPERDAVIDLEVINE]

very interesting I saw my First it ,47 age 3 we bught our first set may 51 an aderiam 17th very good apop set after 10yearsa new set was in order time for color prces went down it was asears I am nt sure who made it, it had a27 vac tube verticol chassie toook over 400 whats,oh the cat loved for it was so worm that was I believe 50 years ago tothis day seven years later it was replaced by a better sears, the cat did not love that mutch it was wood let themrest in peace

[dog1929s]

wow wally cox einen frühesten, die ich je von ihm gesehen haben, danke

[thegreatsolar]

dumont buh dumont uhhh duh duh duhhh pioneered

[SeberHusky]

DuMont...isn't that the same company that sells paint now?

[joesphx19]

I am feeling old now, my family owned a Dumont set and I remember going with them to the TV store to buy it.

[ShitFromShinolla]

Well that certainly is very sensational!

[mulroon02]

Do you have any clips of the DuMont show The Plainclothesman (1949-54) starring Ken Lynch?

[MattTheSaiyan]

@mulroon02 Sadly I don't have clips of "The Plainclothesman". It's a show I really want to see alot, but the 4 surviving episodes don't seem to circulate online much....

[toasterslinger]

Notice Arnold Stang at 1:30 of this piece. I would love to see this entire show.

Arnold Stang and Wally Cox on the same show. Cool.

[Zantor135]

Dumont Failed because they could not get a low channel VHF spot. In addition AT&T controlled the limited Cable runs needed to get the live shows to the networks and they allotted the least amount of cable time to Dumont.

Basically the limitations at the time only left room for three networks and Dumont had the losing straw.

[Frankcoins]

Emerson bought the DuMont TV and radio business in 1958

[pgh45rpms]

Wally Cox needed to brush up on his lines. About 3 years before he became famous in the sit-com, "Mister Peepes". Later known as a celebrity panelist on "Hollywood Squares"; a very funny man.

[copyhut]

What a nerd...

[TheMaxx111]

God aweful acting

[frednora]

This tele-vision box won't catch on. Nothing will replace vaudeville.

[fantom58]

I wonder how much this thing cost--in 1949 dollars no less?

[TheWhatsinaname]

Is that guy in the glasses Fargo from SyFy's "Eureka"? After all he did go back in time to 1947 in the first episode of the 4th season last week.

[hebneh]

That really IS a "giant" screen for a TV in 1949. My first thought was that this commercial must be from the '50s, because that TV's screen was so big.

It's sort of painful to listen to Wally Cox (also known later as "Mr. Peepers") struggling ineptly through his lines here.

[RatPfink66]

@hebneh No cue cards then. a) lights were too bright; b) no one had thought of it.

[DocWyoming]

I lost count of how many flubbed lines there are.....

[bigred997]

ah, good old" underdog" wally cox forgetting his lines. well, it was live and you couldn't use a script as you could on radio.

[DocWyoming]

wow, the "smart guy" actor was pretty horrible.

[MattTheSaiyan]

@DocWyoming It's live TV, and he's forgetting his lines. His work elsewhere is much better.

[musicom67]

@MattTheSaiyan Like on the "Hollywood Squares"

[ericinwisconsin]

@MattTheSaiyan Yep, it's the wonderful Wally Cox, later the voice of Underdog.

[fran9860]

@DocWyoming that guy you are referring to is wally cox; the voice of UNDERDOG:)!

[sergioalpert66]

@DocWyoming

That's comedian Wally Cox.."Mr. Peepers." Voice of "Underdog." Did lots of "Hollywood Squares" episodes. Died of a heart attack in 1973. Best friends with Marlon Brando.

[DocWyoming]

@sergioalpert66 I know it's Underdog/Mr. Peepers. 

[eyeh8nbc]

Who owns the DuMont name right now? I always thought someone should bring back the DuMont network, and put an emphasis on quality programming with NO on-screen crap during shows and less than 10 minutes of commercial time per hour!

[MattTheSaiyan]

@eyeh8nbc I think the trouble is that DuMont was split with the TV-set making part going to one company, and the broadcasting division being spun-off a new company (what's left of the DuMont broadcasting division is now owned by News Corp. Not sure who owns what's left of the TV set division). I do agree though, a revivial of the old-style of TV network would be cool.

[kdegru]

@MattTheSaiyan I have recently discovered some new direct over the air TV channels that are being piggybacked on the main digital tv frequency. If you are in NY try receiving ch 11-3 and 11-4 to see "This TV" and "Antenna TV" They are showing older movies and classic TV shows which I like much better than the current fair on TV.

[tomservo56954]

@MattTheSaiyan After the Dumont network shut down in 1956, John Kluge bought the five stations the company owned, and used it form the Metromedia Group, producing shows for its own stations and syndicated to others (WONDERAMA, TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, THE MERV GRIFFIN SHOW). Three decades later, Kluge sold his stations to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. becoming the foundation of the Fox network. (look for part II)

[tomservo56954]

@MattTheSaiyan (part II) In the late 40's, when CBS began to challenge NBC for supremacy, it decided it wanted to have its own connected line of TVs, as NBC did with RCA Victor. A deal was bruted about where CBS would buy Dumont's set-making division. The price would have been somewhere between 10 and 20 million dollars. CBS passed on it, because Dumont wanted a cash payment.

(look for part III)

[tomservo56954]

@MattTheSaiyan (part III) CBS eventually acquired another TV/electronics maker, Hytron for around $18 million--paid in CBS stock. It turned into a fiasco of multi-million dollar losses (and similar stock value gains for the former owners) that went unnoticed by the public (not deliberately quashed, just buried under all the profits the TV network was earning). For the full story, read CBS: REFLECTIONS IN A BLOODSHOT EYE by Robert Metz.

[retrotvluver]

Allen B. DuMont is something of a hero to me, as he was an early champion for equality between VHF and UHF. He offered the FCC a channel allocation plan that would have made some TV markets all VHF and others all UHF, which would have been great for the industry as a whole, but the FCC turned it down and stupidly intermixed V's and U's, so UHF tuners had to wait till 1964 to become standard equipment, and some smaller cities had to wait till the 70s or later to get an ABC affiliate.

[mcadoorugs]

@retrotvluver - Thank you for your kind words. Allen B. DuMont was my grandfather.

[rolex452]

I was born in 1952, and my folks already had a Dumont TV set for a couple of years. It was a big wood console set with an AM/FM radio, and a 12 inch screen. The thing lasted into the middle sixties.

[50zcarsman]

The FM that was broadcast before WWII used the so-called "Armstrong FM" band -- an entirely different set of frequencies than later became the FM standard. Col. Armstrong, one of the technical pioneers of FM, sank his fortune into making FM receivers, broadcast equpt., the works. The War intervened. When, after the War, the FCC committed itself to the current standard instead of Armstrong's, he was ruined and threw himself out a high window a few years later.

[Pino4649]

"Giant 20 inch" Wow. A 20 inch today looks like nothing. TV has come a long way,

[palsee]

He flubbed up big time u would never get on TV if I pulled that crap

[MattTheSaiyan]

It is feom 1949..A lot of actors weren't used to doing live commercials on the air, even for though those who had been on radio, it was still very much a trial-and-error medium at such an early point in its history

[Philflash]

The guy was forgetting his lines!

[MattTheSaiyan]

That's what made live TV so much fun!

[rturnerful]

You said it !! I was a kid of the mid 50s here in South Carolina and I can vividly remember when our little friends would sit on the area rug in front the tv watching Sunday's Ted Mack Amatuer Hour and Ed Sullivan.. What a treat and I suppose I'm lucky I grew up then?

[TVonthePorch]

Du Mont made some television consoles in the late 1940s that truly were beautiful pieces of furniture...but THAT monstrosity isn't one of them!

[drmorose]

You've got to love live TV.

It's pretty obvious that poor Wally Cox has forgotten his lines. He's seriously fumbling.

I have always believed that all comercials should be broadcast live. They'd be much more interesting.

[hotsickle]

My grandma owned a DuMont tv. Once, when I was little, I pulled the on button off its stem and threw it in the street-never to be found again...

[78th78th]

I like the 90's myself!

Born 1980!

[fromthesidelines]

In the '60s, Delmar and Cox provided cartoon voices for TTV/Leonardo's series, "KING LEONARDO AND HIS SHORT SUBJECTS", "TENNESSEE TUXEDO AND HIS TALES" and "THE UNDERDOG SHOW" [Wally was "Underdog"; Delmar was, at times, a narrator, "The Hunter", "Commander McBragg", "Colonel Kit Coyote", "Savoir Faire", etc.].

[fromthesidelines]

This is from an early DuMont series, "SCHOOL HOUSE", a Tuesday night [9pm(et)] comedy/variety showcase featuring "new talent" [including Wally Cox] that aired from January through April 1949, sponsored by DuMont Labs- when it ended, they sustained "THE MOREY AMSTERDAM SHOW" on Thursdays until October 1950. Kenny Delmar, who apperared as "Senator Claghorn" on Fred Allen's radio show at the time (as well as his announcer), was the "Teacher" {host}.

[DocWyoming]

@fromthesidelines thanks for this info

[oliva77]

Arnold Stang too?!? Well sonofableep- let's go! I've been looking up early tv recently, back when the content counted for more than the picture quality. Is the man playing schoolmaster the same guy who hosted The Name's the Same? Or maybe he was a guest I saw. Or was he the host of that Old Gold quiz show?

[oliva77]

I'm not calling anyone a SOB. That's just an exclamation like an extreme wow, or god-damn.  I wasn't expecting to see Wally Cox, thinking there were few if any clips of him on TV, and I said out loud "Son of a bitch! It's Wally Cox". I couldn't think of a more polite way to express my surprise. On reflection, I never refer to a person as a SOB.

And this is a great video, btw.

[MattTheSaiyan]

Ok, that's cool. Would you like me to upload more clips of Wally Cox from the same program? The program was called "School House" and aired for 13 weeks during 1949. It also featured Arnold Stang.

[ranchai100]

quetion matt,he mentioned fm radio in the commercial,I thought that fm radio didnt come out until the late 60s early 70s.

[visaman]

FM radio was invented in 1931,  but not authorized until 1941. Stereo FM did not develop until 1958, perhaps that is what you were referring to?

[ranchai100]

I guess,its just when I was a kid in the 60s all we had to listen to was am radio.

[Nokorola]

FM Radio was developed in the mid 1930s.

[ranchai100]

I wasnt aware of that.back when I was a child I dont remember fm radios being sold here in toronto.I listened to am

[oliva77]

Well sonofabitch- Wally Cox! So big then, so unknown now; he was a serious actor, too. And how about that one-take, probably live commercial? Next time write the ad copy on your cuff Wal.

[MattTheSaiyan]

Why are you calling me a son of a bitch?