Program material for demos?

[jsowers]

How about the second oldest program recorded on color videotape, An Evening With Fred Astaire? It's from 10-17-58 and may even have the commercials for the new 1959 Chrysler cars on it. I love the opening with announcer Art Gilmore--the best announcer ever. This site has it for sale for $21, but I can't vouch for the quality of the picture because I've only seen bits posted on YouTube. So look that up and see if it suits your needs.

http://www.thefilmcsa.com/an-evening...v-special.html

There are other good color shows on this site too. Hollywood Palace shows would be good. They have lots of TV specials from the 1950s and 60s.

I've only ordered one thing from this site and it came quickly and was on unlabeled DVD-Rs that look home recorded, with a printed-out list of all the shows. I didn't get any color shows, just B&W variety shows. The picture quality is so-so and all mine were originally on film and many of them suffer from poor dubbing to tape. So buy at your own risk.

Someone mentioned The Telephone Hour. There's a great DVD of color Christmas shows from The Bell Telephone Hour. I think they put together three shows from 1959-63. Some of the singing is on the operatic side and some is more popular type music. Florence Henderson is the host for most of it.

http://www.amazon.com/An-Old-Fashion.../dp/B002TZS59C

Another early color show I saw recently was on Public TV. They showed a great excerpt of the Glenn Miller Orchestra with Tex Beneke and the Modernaires, with Ray Eberle. It was in color, from about 1962. They performed many of their hits. The performance was great and the video quality was very good, but you could tell it was early videotape. If your public TV station has a Big Band show with Peter Marshall on, that's it. It's about 20 minutes long, the part I just mentioned. I have it on DVR if you want to PM me.