"The Russ Butler Show"
Sunday Nights (1954-1955)
on WTAO-TV Channel 56
On top of Zion Mountain in Woburn, Massachusetts, there was a tower and transmitter building with WXHR-FM/96.9 Mc/s (now today’s WTKK) broadcasts classical music and Boston’s first UHF television station, WTAO-TV that began programming on Channel 56 on September 27, 1953.
The Russ Butler Show was the first, live variety programming on Channel 56, a 30-minute program on Sunday nights from 1954 to 1955. It was black and white television, with one industrial camera, a zoom lens, a boom and a stand microphone. The lights were hot in the narrow garage studio, and so was the resident musical trio! The regular vocalist was Betty Allen from Belmont, whose Father owned the Radax Recording Studio. Each week, various performers came up the hill to be on television, just for the fun of it. On one program, the viewers were entertained by a demonstration of a new, state-of-the-industry… PHOTOCOPYING MACHINE, of course with live background music by the show’s talented musical trio.
On one show, Boston artist Snowy Connolly’s 10-year old son, George, did an imitation of “the one….the only” Groucho Marx and “Cry” singer Johnny Ray with his pal, Arthur Landers, both from Cub Scout Pack #8. Barbershop quartets, magicians, lip-sync singers, instrumentalists, a comedian, Irish step dancers, a sketch artist and musicians performed over the months, giving "Community Auditions" (on Boston Channel 4, WBZ-TV) some competition!
There was a sponsor, Dini’s Seafood Restaurant on Tremont Street – they had customers from an ad-lib commercial with the zoom lens focusing on their menu cover.
Remember the UHF converter? The only way to receive WTAO-TV was to connect one and put it on the top of your TV set with the rabbit ears. The program did have a UHF audience who wrote letters and called the transmitter telephone number, which the TV engineers (Ed and Joe) didn’t appreciate, but they DID like the weekly Zion Hill visitors because we brought them food!
Editor- Russ Butler is actively retired from a 40+ year career in broadcasting and does an Internet, nostalgia music radio show now at http://www.BostonPete.com/broadcast. If you know where any of these people from this vintage live TV show are, today, or if you watched the show in 1954-55, please e-mail Russ at oldradio@earthlink.net. Thanks!
WTAO-TV history written by Russ Butler
(Editor: Today, this station is WLVI-TV ("WB56"). It is the same
license, dating back to 1953. For present-day profile of WLVI-TV,
please visit the "Boston Radio Archives".)