Lansing State Journal du lieu suivant : Lansing, Michigan • Page 60

-ADVERTISEMENT- THE STATE JOITIXAL Sept. 22. 1979 Quonset hut studios seemed palatial TVUUeeEt Listings, movies, radio news and much more on Saturday mornings The Ml 4: -wJounml now work from the quonsets. The big conference room enjoyed in 1954 is now several offices. The spacious master control room has filled with electronic equipment.

The back hall has been divided and subdivided into production and tape room facilities. The wood shop has been moved. The old cafeteria was a fortunate choice for a studio; it has absorbed the growth of 25 years of television. ongratulations We've watched you grow. Our best wishes for the next 25.

A The left-over World War II quonset huts near the comer of Kalamazoo Street and Harrison Road may not look like a dazzling television complex today especially when contrasted with the plans for the new Communication Arts Building under construction across the campus. But in 1954 those buildings were "state of the art." "We were really considered very fat cats here at Michigan State," station manager Bob Page recalls. "We had these great big buildings being used for nothing but television, when in most places television departments had a couple of rooms in the basement, trying to make them look like television studios." WHEN THE station first went on the air the quonset huts were almost, but not totally, dedicated to television. The buildings had been the cafeteria for the war-time student housing in the huts along Harrison Street. For the first few months after the television studio moved in, the back half of the big buildings were still the kitchen for the not-yet-completed Brody complex across Harrison Road from where Kellogg Center now stands.

"The meals were cooked here, and then shipped down the street to be served" Page says. "The TV staff could even go back and get a handout of a little food from time to time. And the odor of cooking would drift through the studios while we were working." WHILE DORMITORY dinners cooked in the back half of the building, a lot of television production cooked in the front half. There was no interconnection line between producing studios in those days, no network providing programming and no Public Broadcasting Service to seek and create shows for local air. "Whatever we put on the air we either produced ourselves or had on film," programming manager Kay Ingram recalls.

The first day's broadcasting from the big new studios sounds like a memory of all early "educational Noon: Test pattern; 1 p.m. News and weather; 1:05: Program Vignette; 1:15: Symphony Notebook; 1:30: Let's Visit School; 1:45: Curtain Going Up and so on throughout the day in 15 minute segments. SINCE THOSE early days everything about television has expanded except the external dimensions of the quonsets. The equipment required for making television pictures, recording them and transmitting them is much more complicated and elaborate for color television than for the early black and white transmissions. Videotape has been invented since then, and although it records in color and is fast and convenient, it takes more space.

Scenery has been constructed over the years; draperies and backdrops have accumulated for reuse and have to be stored. Production requirements have expanded and people have to be housed. Both instructional and broadcast television are part of the same department now, and the administrative staff that services both have been expanded and 0 JEWELRY LEON H. GUDELSKY, Owner 337-1314 319 E. GRAND RIVER, EAST LANSING Huge open space of quonset building was fine for television studio use in 1 954 (above) and still is today WKAK ON 25 YEARS OFPUBUCTV Sunset HiDs andFosOj DEVELOPER WHERE HOMES ARE STILL PRICED FROM THE FORTIES MAPIPY MMTTIHIIIDAY While we salute all our colleagues past and present at WKAR-TV, we offer a special birthday toast to the Fine Arts production team, Don Pash, Tom Turk, their fine directors and outstanding crews.

It is through their personal efforts and dedication to quality that WKAR-TV is known world-wide as a fine production center for the showcasing of rising young Stars, as well as those artists already in the firmament. It is no wonder that our popular CHAMBER MUSIC AT FAIRCHILD THEATRE continues S.R.O. each season. Our audience was carefully developed by the pioneers at Chanel 23. And it gives us special pleasure to present in person a long list of WKAR-TV alumni: YEHUDl MENUHIN, YO YO MA, BENITA VALENTE, EUGENE ORMANDY.

VLADIMIR VIARDO, MURRAY PERAHIA, CHISTOPHER PARKENING, SAMUEL SANDERS and PAUL ZUKOFSKY among them. Thanks and best wishes. Here's to the next 25! -The Folks at Where House take their hats off to you for excellence in broadcasting for the past 25 years. A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO EARLE ROBINSON Congratulations W1KAIHI-W 25 Years Community Service Department of Theatre MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY WHERE LECTURE ERIE at michigan state university HOUSE 6046 S. CEDAR LANSING PH.

394-4745 220 A C. EAST LANSING PH. 332-3525 RECORDS.