[quote name=\'DrBear\' date=\'Jan 20 2006, 03:07 AM\'] Anybody know anything 'bout this?
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<Cue Randy>
The Peacock Studio / Peacock Theater is the name of Studio 8H at NBC Radio City Studios. NBC Radio City Studios are the studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. "Television" was added to the name in various references to denote that the studios in Radio City were later converted for television. The Peacock Studio aka 8H is presently home to Saturday Night Live. (And it's the studio in which I was just booked to work on a special in April!)
The fancy name for 8H was given to make this large studio sound even grander. When built in the 1930s it was the largest broadcast studio in Manhattan; it still may be. The size and height are pretty immense considering it's on the 8th and 9th floors of a Manhattan skyscraper. Even more amazing is that the studio is isolated from the building structure to prevent noise and subway rumble. It is actually suspended from the building's vertical supports by a network of springs! 8H was built to accommodate Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra back in the radio days when they were a big freakin' deal. How big? NBC even built a private elevator to take the maestro from his dressing room to the studio... only him and the elevator operator, nobody else! Nothing was too good for this international superstar conductor.
Fun info:
Al Howard ("Supermarket Sweep") worked with the NBC Symphony when a student at Julliard. It was decades later that he produced "Sale of the Century" in that same studio.
Gene Rayburn told me how meaningful 8H was for him. He started in the 1930s as a page at NBC, and would often use his break time to listen to and be mesmerized by Toscanini rehearsing the orchestra. Decades later, he's hosting a TV show in the same studio!
Randy
tvrandywest.com
