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The Interviews: An Oral History of Television
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Descriptive Summary
  • Accruals
  • Administrative History
  • Conditions Governing Access
  • Conditions Governing Reproduction and Use / Copyright Status
  • Preferred Citation
  • Scope and Content
  • Related Archival Collections
  • Controlled Access Terms
  • Arrangement

  • Descriptive Summary

    Title: The Interviews: An Oral History of Television
    Dates: 1996-2018
    Collection number: 01
    Creator: Archive of American Television
    Extent: 900 interviews (557 standard definition, 343 high definition) approximately 3,700 hours of video footage 88 TB of data
    Languages: Languages represented in the collection: English
    Repository: The Television Academy Foundation The Interviews: An Oral History of Television
    North Hollywood, CA 91601
    Abstract: Founded in 1997, with its first interviews recorded in 1996, The Television Academy Foundation’s The Interviews: An Oral History of Television consists of over 850 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).

    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 850 interviews, and, since 2008, has made its interviews freely available to the public through its website.

    Conditions Governing Access

    The vast majority of the Interviews' holdings have been digitized and are freely available to the public for viewing through the Interviews' website (full) and on YouTube (shorter clips).

    Conditions Governing Reproduction and Use / Copyright Status

    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.
    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 800 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 following archival collections contain related materials:
    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
    https://www.cinema.ucla.edu
    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/

    Controlled Access Terms

    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.
    Jones, Quincy, 1933-
    Lear, Norman
    Leonard, Sheldon, 1907-1997
    Louis-Dreyfus, Julia
    Moore, Mary Tyler, 1936-
    Sarnoff, Tom
    Smith, Dick, 1922-2014
    Tinker, Grant
    Van Dyke, Dick
    Wayans, Keenen Ivory
    White, Betty, 1922-
    Winant, Ethel
    Wolper, David L.
    ABC Television Network
    Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation
    Archive of American Television
    CBS Television Network
    Du Mont Broadcasting Corporation
    NBC Television Network
    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)

    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(c. 1960s)
        • Diversity in Television
          • Disabled
          • Gay/Lesbian
          • Minorities
          • People with Disabilities
          • Women
        • Fall of the Berlin Wall
        • Health and Medicine
        • Iran Hostage Crisis
        • JFK Assassination and Funeral
        • 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
      • Television and the Presidency
    • Professions
      • Animation Professionals
      • Designers
      • Directors
      • Executives
      • Film & Video Post-Production Professionals
      • Film & Video Production Professionals
      • Hosts
      • Journalists & 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