According to this story, Tribune Studios — more commonly known as "The KTLA lot" — is on the auction block. This is the former movie studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, bordered by Van Ness and Bronson. It was originally built by Warner Brothers in 1919 and they made most of their early pictures there, including The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson. Leon Schlesinger's cartoon studio, the birthplace of Bugs Bunny and his amigos, was on that lot.
After Warners built a bigger lot in Burbank, the Hollywood lot was sold to Paramount, which housed its local TV station (KTLA, Channel 5) there and used some of the soundstages for filmed TV shows. (Gunsmoke shot there for a time.) Gene Autry purchased KTLA and the lot in 1964 and thereafter, it was a studio that housed a TV station but primarily rented space to other producers. I wrote a lot of shows for Sid and Marty Krofft that taped there. The first season of WKRP in Cincinnati was taped there. Dinah Shore did her talk show there. Hundreds of game shows taped there. Solid Gold taped there. Donny and Marie taped there. And so on. In 1985, Tribune Entertainment bought KTLA and a few years later, they bought the studio, too.
Someone in the above-linked article predicts that the new buyer, whoever it is, will upgrade the property and keep it functioning as a TV production facility. I'll be delightfully surprised if this happens but it feels like another of those "mixed-use" developments with some production facilities but also condos and retail outlets. In terms of history, I'd like to see it remain a big TV studio but geographically, it's probably more suited nowadays for a big mall anchored by a business not unlike Wal-Mart. KTTV/Metromedia, which had a similar history and which used to be across the street, is no longer across the street. There's a new school building going up on that property...but the point is that the owners of that facility didn't try to keep TV production going there. I have no idea who'll buy KTLA but I'd bet they won't, either.
There's no shortage on the web today of articles and weblog postings about the stupidity, hypocrisy and general sickness of Larry Craig. But this piece by William Saletan makes a simple, pungent point. It's that Craig has been a fierce supporter of military policies that would cause a soldier to be kicked out of the service for doing what Craig admitted to doing. One hopes that people will realize that it's not just Craig who's in the wrong on this. It's the policy.
Tonight, Charlie Rose spends the full hour chatting with Don Rickles.
By the way: Not only are dozens of full episodes of The Charlie Rose Show now available on YouTube and Google Video but there are many excerpts that are viewable over at the Charlie Rose Show website. So if you like the way the man interviews — and I do — there's plenty on the 'net to enjoy...and the shows usually work as pure audio. So I can start one running, minimize the window on my computer, and then listen to it as I work. Very nice.
August 31, 2007
