The KoKo The Clown TV Cartoon Show 1916

Tom_mkfty · 06-21-2005, 01:09 AM

That is listed in, www.tv.com

Probably considered the first TV show. Premiered January 1, 1916.

I didn't think there WAS such a thing as TV back then.

I might buy a cheap public domain DVD on this.

Tory · 06-21-2005, 02:02 AM

My guess is that this was like The Bugs Bunny Tweety Show, showng old cartoons. It is the Out of the Inkwell Series by Max Fleischer. Ray Pointer's Inkwell Images Ink has a nice collection of these on DVD which can be bought off of amazon or www.inkwellimagesink.com

Joe Lugoff · 06-21-2005, 10:29 AM

Quote:

Probably considered the first TV show. Premiered January 1, 1916.

Yes, that's a silly comment to find on tv.com.

I was shocked enough when I first learned that people (very rich people) had television back in the 1920s -- but it can't be pushed all the way back to 1916.

As Tory suggested, the show just showed old (very old) cartoons that were shown in theaters originally (or maybe nickelodeons!)

Joseph DeMartino · 06-21-2005, 07:34 PM

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I was shocked enough when I first learned that people (very rich people) had television back in the 1920s

Nobody, rich or poor, had anything identifiable as television in the 1920s. What work there was in the area of transmitting moving images over the air (mostly electromechanical systems) at that time consisted of laboratory experiments. Nobody had a receiver in their home and no one was broadcasting anything the could be called programming. That had to wait until the 1930s. The first real TV programming service was the BBC's, which started broadcasting in the late 1930s, amid the gathering clouds of war. Service was suspended when WWII officially began in September 1939 and didn't resume until after the fighting ended. TV was similarly more of a curiosity than anything else in the U.S. until after the war.

Regards,

Joe

Tom_mkfty · 06-21-2005, 10:24 PM

What defines a TV show.

Old movies originally made for the big screen, have only been seen on television on "The Late Show" and such, for generations.

To some, old movies are TV shows.

I have only seen, the Little Rascals, Three Stooges, and the cliff hanger serials on television, but they were originally made movie theatres. So were Betty Boop and Popeye.

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Tom_mkfty · 06-21-2005, 10:26 PM

I wonder when the commercials began.

Now the big screen has commercials.

Joe Lugoff · 06-21-2005, 10:50 PM

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Nobody, rich or poor, had anything identifiable as television in the 1920s.

Then I better throw away my "History of Television" book, which I thought was good.

Googling has told me that the first TV images were transmitted to a receiver in 1929.

At this stage, I don't know any more what's right or what's wrong, so I'm going to go watch some DVDs.

Joseph DeMartino · 06-21-2005, 10:50 PM

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To some, old movies are TV shows.

And we call those people, "wrong".

A TV "show" (as commonly understood) is a series of one kind or another. Most series are explictly made for televison. Others, like The ABC Sunday Night Movie, are regularly scheduled shows that get their content elsewhere. So that show was a series, but the movies it showed weren't.

What defines a dramatic work is the medium it was made for and first presented in. Citizen Kane is not a "TV show" just because it has been shown on television, nor is it a "video" because it has been released on VHS, laserdisc and DVD. It doesn't matter what it "is" to some people. As the late, great Pat Moynihan was fond of saying, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion. But not his own facts." Or, I would add, his own reality.

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I wonder when the commercials began.

It depends. Strictly speaking commercials (and ratings to measure the audience and set ad rates) go back to radio - television really began as radio with pictures, rather than movies delivered electronically. That origin in the pre-existing broadcasting system shaped early television decisively. Early TV in America grew out of the broadcast powerhouses of New York. The Hollywood studios wouldn't become involved (reluctantly) until the foundations had been laid. (NBC and CBS had started as national radio networks. NBC had two of them, the Red and Blue networks. When anti-trust decisions forced them to unload one of them, ABC was born.)

So in the U.S., where radio had always been commercial and privately funded, TV just transferred the radio model wholesale to the new medium. (Including series like Gunsmoke and personalities like Jack Benny.) In the U.K., where radio started as a government monopoly, the BBC television service began as a non-commercial, tax-supported system.

In short in the U.S. commercials were part of television from the beginning and ultimately trace their origins to advertisements sold in newspapers and magazines, which established the "so many bucks for so many eyeballs" formula later adopted by radio.

Regards,

Joe

Tom_mkfty · 06-22-2005, 02:05 AM

Could the Little Rascals and Three Stooges be considered TV show? They are series.

Bob-R · 06-22-2005, 02:27 AM

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Could the Little Rascals and Three Stooges be considered TV show? They are series.

Those were originally shown theatrically, they are not TV shows, both are a series of short films, the same also applies to Laurel & Hardy, Tom & Jerry, Looney Tunes...and that's just a short list.

MarcoBiscotti · 06-22-2005, 10:20 AM

Koko The Clown was NOT a TV character, he was a character from Max & Dave Fleischer's "Out Of The Inkwell" films animated theatrical series from 1927/28 and some extremely thoughtful and excellently produced DVD's can be found through Mr. Ray Pointer's website - www.inkwellimagesink.com - collecting the films and putting them into historical context via some wonderful features. Ray Pointer is an animator, film historian, and expert on the subject of early animated silent films and Fleischers library in general. I strongly reccommend his dvd series which collects the best available prints of these films in circulation. Check out his website and support these incredible releases!

Jeffrey Nelson · 06-23-2005, 12:01 AM

Quote:

Koko The Clown was NOT a TV character, he was a character from Max & Dave Fleischer's "Out Of The Inkwell" films animated theatrical series from 1927/28 and some extremely thoughtful and excellently produced DVD's can be found through Mr. Ray Pointer's website - www.inkwellimagesink.com - collecting the films and putting them into historical context via some wonderful features. Ray Pointer is an animator, film historian, and expert on the subject of early animated silent films and Fleischers library in general. I strongly reccommend his dvd series which collects the best available prints of these films in circulation. Check out his website and support these incredible releases!

According to Pointer's site, the Fleischers' "Out Of The Inkwell" series actually ran from 1919 to 1927. Ko-Ko was born and christened in 1923. I picked up a Republic Home Video laserdisc over a decade ago which contains 10 silent Ko-Ko The Clown cartoons that aren't included on Pointer's Ko-Ko DVD. Boy am I glad I held onto that!