Movies for TV - Early Television Foundation

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THE PROGRAM ANGLE
write under water and cigarette lighters. Probably the classic ex-
ample of the live commercial which misfired literally was for
a certain cigarette lighter. The slogan being demonstrated was,
"A click and it's lit" ; unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond
the control of the demonstrator, there were more clicks than one
before it lit. And the viewers were treated to the view of a frenzied
man trying to ignite a lighter! After this all the commercials for
this product were made on film and there has never been a failure
since.
It stands to reason that only film can produce such absolute
certainty of exact performance. For no matter how many times
the show is rehearsed there is always the knowledge that until the
air show is over, it will not be known whether it will operate
the action
properly. During the time that a film is being produced
is rehearsed over and over again until the equipment functions
exactly as wanted. Then there is no possibility of there being a
failure on the air. A few examples are given in the following paragraphs
of commercials which failed to connect during live shows.
A well-known cake mix company had a program on the air
and was using its favorite woman demonstrator to show how easy
it is to make biscuits with their product. Unfortunately, the cook
was accustomed to a gas cooker and since the demonstration was
coming from the studio, an electric range had to be substituted.
All went well until the time came to take the biscuits out of the
oven. Then the door was opened, the camera trained on the opening
to bring the first view of the sizzling, tempting hot biscuits to
the viewers, with the object of sending them out to buy a package
of mix for themselves. The tray was gently withdrawn and a view
of the sorriest mass of soggy mix ever seen was flashed to thou-
sands of viewers. Due to her inexperience with this particular type
of stove, the poor demonstrator had the wrong temperature and
the biscuits were ruined. After that film was used for all commer-
cials.
A very humorous failure occurred during a nationally known
vacuum demonstration. This one had been running for quite some
time without any troubles and with good viewer response. On the