As part of a staggering 60-hour collection of "in-line" recordings of live televisions broadcasts from the mid-1950's that were recently acquired, which includes excellent recordings of "The George Gobel Show" "The Lawrence Welk Show", "The Steve Allen Show" "The Ed Sullivan Show" and many many others, I'm pleased to be able to tell the IJBFC that the main portion of the live Sept. 1956 episode featuring George Burns and Spike Jones has now been recovered. The episode is missing the soundtrack of the opening and closing credits, (as tape was very evidently precious to the original owner) but the rest of the show is there, and in wonderful full-fidelity sound.
A synopsis of the show is available elsewhere-- briefly, it's a fictional re-telling of the events leading up to Jack's famous Carnegie Hall solo concert, starring George as the Devil ("Just call me Dev."), and Spike Jones as... well, Spike Jones (or "Mr. Martindale", if you ask the doorman at Carnegie Hall).
Anyhow, the gods were with us on this one, as the original recordist might just as easily have captured a filmed show instead of this, but I thought this would be the place to spread the good news on this find.
Now if somebody could come up with the video portion, we'd be all set...!!
Anyhow, more goodies as they get discovered!
-Kevin Segura
rerunmedia