Finding Aid for The Interviews: An Oral History of Television
Summary Information
Title: The Interviews: An Oral History of Television
Creator: The Television Academy Foundation’s The Interviews
Date Range: 1996-[ongoing]
Extent: 931 interviews (557 standard definition, 374 high definition); approximately 3,700 hours of video footage; 88 TB of data
Language: The material is in English.
Repository Code: CaNhAAT
Repository:
The Interviews: An Oral History of Television
The Television Academy Foundation
5220 Lankershim Blvd.
North Hollywood, CA 91601
818-509-2260
TelevisionAcademy.com/Interviews
youtube.com/FoundationInterviews
Abstract: Founded in 1997, with its first interviews recorded in 1996, the Television Academy Foundation’s The Interviews: An Oral History of Television (previously the Archive of American Television) consists of over 900 videotaped oral history interviews with the legends of television, including Milton Berle, Carol Burnett, Walter Cronkite, Norman Lear, Mary Tyler Moore, Betty White, and many others. Interviewees hail from professions across the television industry, from actors and writers to executives, editors, publicists, composers, and more. Major topics discussed in interviews include Advice to Aspiring Professionals, TV’s Golden Age, Censorship, and Technological Innovation, as well as important events in American and television history, such as the Hollywood Blacklist, the Quiz Show Scandals, 9/11, and the Kennedy Assassination. The Interviews conducts up to twenty-five new interviews each year. The vast majority of the collection is available to the public through the Interviews' website (full versions) and YouTube (shorter clips). Excerpts may be available for licensing.
Controlled Access Terms:
Personal Names:
Berle, Milton
Burnett, Carol
Burrows, James, 1940-
Caesar, Sid, 1922-2014
Cronkite, Walter
Eisner, Michael, 1942-
Farnsworth, Philo Taylor, 1906-1971
Fox, Michael J., 1961-
Goldenson, Leonard H.
Hamm, Jon, 1971-
Howard, Ron, 1954-
Jones, Quincy, 1933-
Lear, Norman
Leonard, Sheldon, 1907-1997
Louis-Dreyfus, Julia
Moore, Mary Tyler, 1936-2017
Sarnoff, Tom
Smith, Dick, 1922-2014
Tinker, Grant
Van Dyke, Dick
Wayans, Keenen Ivory
White, Betty, 1922-
Winant, Ethel
Wolper, David L.
Corporate Names:
ABC Television Network
Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation
Archive of American Television
CBS Television Network
Du Mont Broadcasting Corporation
NBC Television Network
Subjects:
Advertising—Television programs
African Americans in television broadcasting
African Americans on television
Animators
Biographical television programs
Broadcast journalism
Broadcasting
Civil rights movement
Detective and mystery television programs
Emmy Awards
Executives
Historical television programs
History on television
Hollywood blacklist
Journalists
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963—Assassination
Mass media
Morning news talk shows
New York World’s Fair (1939-1940 : New York, N.Y.)
Olympics
Oral history
Presidents—Election
Presidents—United States—Election
Producers and directors
Reality television programs
September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001
Situation comedies (Television programs)
Super Bowl
Television
Television acting
Television actors and actresses
Television adaptations
Television advertising
Television broadcasting
Television—Censorship
Television commercials
Television composers
Television and culture
Television directors
Television—History
Television and history
Television journalists
Television mini-series
Television and politics
Television in politics
Television and popular culture
Television—Production and direction
Television programs
Television quiz shows
Television series
Television soap operas
Television talk show hosts
Television talk shows
Television—Technological innovations
Television writers
Variety shows (Television programs)
Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Voice actors and actresses
Western television programs
World series (Baseball)
Administrative Information
Accruals: The Interviews conducts up to twenty-five new interviews each year, which are then digitized, cataloged, and made available to the public through the Interviews' website.
Administrative History: The Television Academy Foundation was founded in 1959 as the charitable arm of the Television Academy with the goal of shaping the art of creating television by engaging and educating the next generation of television professionals. Today, the Foundation pursues this goal through scholarships, internships, career development programs, outreach to university faculty, and the in-depth oral history of television housed in The Interviews.
The Archive of American Television (rebranded in 2017 as The Interviews: An Oral History of Television) was first conceived of by television executive Dean Valentine in 1996. Inspired by Steven Spielberg's Shoah Foundation, which documents stories of the Holocaust through oral history interviews, Valentine set out to establish a similar project for television. Mr. Valentine was soon joined by Thomas W. Sarnoff, Chairman of the Television Academy Foundation for 17 years, Producer David Wolper and Executive Grant Tinker. The result was the Archive of American Television, established under the aegis of the Television Academy Foundation with the mission to preserve, celebrate, and share the history of the Television industry. The first interviews conducted for the Archive were with Leonard H. Goldenson (founder of ABC Television), Dick Smith (television’s first makeup artist), Milton Berle (comedian and performer known as “Mr Television”), Elma Farnsworth (widow of Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of electronic television), Sheldon Leonard (producer), and Ethel Winant (casting director). Since then, the Interviews has recorded over 900 interviews, and, since 2008, has made its interviews available for viewing to the public through its website.
Conditions Governing Access: The vast majority of the Interviews' holdings have been digitized and are available to the public for viewing through the Interviews' website (full) and on YouTube (shorter clips).
Conditions Governing Reproduction and Use: The Interviews' footage is available to all film, television, broadband and documentary producers, and has been digitized for easy access and delivery. Licensing fees apply, but vary depending on the usage rights and territory required. Transcripts for research purposes only are available for a fee.
Copyright Status: The Interviews owns copyright on all of its interviews, with the exception of special cases where the copyright or permission to rebroadcast must be obtained from the interviewee or their estate. The Interviews may then make this request on the researcher’s behalf.
Preferred Citation: Quoting from the interviews is allowed, but please contact the Interviews for exact phrasing and credit.
Scope and Content: The Interviews: An Oral History of Television contains over 900 videotaped oral history interviews with television industry professionals, chronicling the birth and growth of television from its earliest days in the Farnsworth labs to current stars and visionaries. The first interviews were taped in 1996, and since then up to twenty-five new interviews have been recorded each year. The interviews are available online.
Interviewees are professionals who work in front of the camera, including actors, comedians, hosts, journalists, meteorologists, and news anchors, as well as behind-the-scenes professionals, including agents, animators, directors, editors, executives, makeup artists, producers, puppeteers, writers, and more. Just a few of the notable names in the collection are: Milton Berle, James Burrows, Carol Burnett, Sid Caesar, Walter Cronkite, Michael Eisner, Michael J. Fox, Jon Hamm, Ron Howard, Quincy Jones, Norman Lear, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Mary Tyler Moore, Dick Van Dyke, Keenen Ivory Wayans, and Betty White.
Each interview follows a life-history format, starting with the interviewee’s childhood and early influences, then moving on to major television work and concluding with advice to aspiring professionals. The interviews range in length from one-hour to up to eight-hours and touch on a multitude of topics, many of historical significance, including the Quiz Show Scandals, the Hollywood Blacklist, the Kennedy Assassination, the Civil Rights Movement, and 9/11. The range of time periods discussed by interviewees stretch from the time of television’s invention in the 1920s to the present day. The Interviews contains transcripts of each interview.
The Interviews also contains two additional oral history collections: The Living Television Collection and the Jeff Kisseloff Audio Interview Collection. Living Television was a special initiative of the Archive of American Television, which collaborated with broadcast organizations, colleges, and universities across the country to videotape in-depth interviews of local television pioneers. The Living Television Collection is partially digitized, and a few of the interviews have been absorbed into The Interviews. Journalist Jeff Kisseloff conducted over 300 interviews with people involved in all aspects of early television as research for his book, The Box: An Oral History of Television, 1929-1961. These audio taped interviews are housed in The Interviews' collection and are not digitized.
The Interviews does not contain episodes of television shows or television ephemera.
Related Archival Collections:
The Academy Oral History Projects
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Oral History Collections
Margaret Herrick Library
Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study
333 S. La Cienega Boulevard
Beverly Hills, CA 90211
http://www.oscars.org/oral-history
The American Comedy Archives at Emerson College
Iwasaki Library
120 Boylston Street
Boston, MA 02116
http://www.emerson.edu/library/archives/american-comedy-archives
Directors Guild of America Visual History Program
7920 Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90046
http://www.dga.org/Craft/VisualHistory.aspx
UCLA Film and Television Archive
Archive Research and Study Center
Powell Library (Room 46)
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1517
The Writer Speaks: Oral Histories of Film and Television Writers
Writers Guild Foundation
7000 West Third Street
Los Angeles, CA 90048
https://www.wgfoundation.org/programs/the-writer-speaks/
Arrangement
The Interviews' website is searchable by keyword, phrase, post type, and category (genre, television show, topic, personal name, profession). Each interview that is available on the website has been cataloged and time-stamped, allowing users to access specific sections of interviews without scrolling through hours of tape. Additionally, the interviews are indexed within the following categories, providing multiple time-based access points:
Topics
Bloopers
Creative Influences and Inspiration
Emmy Awards
Historic Events and Social Change
1939-40 World’s Fair
9/11
Civil Rights Movement
Diversity in Television
LGBTQ
People with Disabilities
Underrepresented Voices
Women
Fall of the Berlin Wall
Health and Medicine
Iran Hostage Crisis
JFK Assassination and Funeral
Kennedy-Nixon Debates
MeToo Movement
Moon Landing
Natural Disasters
Queen Elizabeth Coronation
War
Cold War
Gulf War
Iraq War
Korean Conflict
Vietnam War
War on Terror
World War II
Memorable Moments on Television
We Celebrated
We Considered
We Cried
We Laughed
Pivotal Career Moments
First Break
Overcoming Adversity
Pop Culture
Celebrities in the News
Characters & Catchphrases
Classic TV Series Episodes
Fame and Celebrity
Rock’n’Roll on TV (1950s & ‘60s)
TV Theme Songs
Sports
Coverage
Olympic Games
Super Bowl
World Series
TV’s Golden Age (1940s & ‘50s)
Technological Innovation
Television Industry
Advertising and Sponsorship
Advice
Censorship/Standards & Practices
Criticism of TV
‘The Idiot Box’
Media Bias
Sex & Violence
Trash TV
Fame & Celebrity
Industry Crossroads
Hollywood Blacklist (ca. 1950s)
Industry Strikes
Quiz Show Scandals
Runaway Productions
Interactive Technology
Media Consolidation
Network Creation
New Media
Public Television
Studio Management
Television and the Presidency
Professions
Animation Professionals
Designers
Directors
Executives
Film & Video Post-Production Professionals
Film & Video Production Professionals
Hosts
Journalist & News Producers
Music Professionals
Objects
On-Set/Location Personnel
Performers
Producers
Representatives
Sound Professionals
Stylists
Talent Professionals
Technology Innovators
Writers & Show Creators
Genre
Adventure/Espionage Series
Animation
Awards Shows
Children’s Programming
Classic Anthology Series
Comedy Series
Commercials
Cop/Detective/Mystery Series
Daytime/Primetime Serials
Drama Series
Game Shows
Late Night
Legal Dramas
Medical Dramas
Music Shows & Variety Shows/Specials
News and Documentary
Reality TV
Religious Programming
Sci-Fi/Supernatural Series
Service Shows
Sports
Talk Shows
TV Movies/Miniseries/Dramatic Specials
Western Series