Although begun in 1990, it started in earnest in 2001 with a collection of about eighty Superman scripts. Looking through the box of dusty, then nearly 50-year old original TV scripts given to me by special effects master Si Simonson, I realized that I was looking at a part of TV’s history that most people never see. Not only was I holding authentic original drafts, but in the margins and over the lines of text were production notes, dialogue changes, and the artist’s comments, many enhanced by personalized doodles, coffee stains, and other signs of use. These were the actual production scripts; in themselves never intended for the public, but vital to what eventually appeared on the screen. Individually and as a collection they were incredible records of the process of creating television. It occurred to me then that these historic documents were valuable not just to me, an inveterate collector, but for the sake of history.
Where was the repository for this material? Hard as it was for me to believe, no existing museum or archive was actively collecting these original scripts. I knew the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had 85,000 film scripts. But radio and television, their influence arguably unparalleled worldwide, have no archive, library or museum dedicated solely to saving their original materials. Well-known institutions such as The Museum of Television and Radio (now The Paley Center) have copies of the final recorded product. But this source material, the written text of the story, which evolves through the production process into that final public version, had not actively been sought and saved. I saw a need and it was then that The American Radio and Television Script Library was conceived.
Up until that time I had been a serious rare book collector and casual collector of pop culture materials, primarily costumes and props and occasional scripts from my favorite TV shows. Realizing there were probably more boxes of forgotten scripts hidden away throughout Los Angeles and New York, I started the process by calling my contacts.
So began this extraordinary journey. Following leads, posting advertisements and attending auctions my determined hunt slowly turned into a driving passion. Ultimately, the script acquisition became a full time job. Many scripts came straight from the hands of writers, producers, directors and actors; many directly from the estates of the artists that used them. Regardless of how they were uncovered, it became clear that without this collection these scripts and all of the unique and interesting material they held in time would be lost forever.
During the process of building this collection I have come to see the TV and radio scriptwriter’s art in a different light. The fixed time strictures of weekly broadcast programs demand a facility with the language and a quick imagination not required in other media. Regardless of the content, creating a radio or television script requires great storytelling skills expressed using a challenging economy of words. As is often the case with playwrights, the real gift of the scriptwriter is most appreciated when his words are read. Larry Hagman, Alan Alda, Carroll O’Connor and Julie Kavner are the faces and voices of some of TV's favorite characters. But J.R. Ewing, Hawkeye Pierce, Archie Bunker and Marj Simpson – their characters, their words and their antics – were first envisioned, developed and polished by the shows’ writers.
Twenty-five years after it was begun, the collection has grown to over 125,000. We proudly preserve original scripts and holographic materials from show producers and creators such as Jess Oppenheimer (I Love Lucy); Paul Henning (The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, Green Acres), Leonard Stern (The Honeymooners, Get Smart, McMillan & Wife), Sol Saks (Bewitched), Sherwood Schwartz (Gilligan’s Island, The Brady Bunch); John Aylesworth (Hee Haw). There are papers from gifted writers such as Al Schwartz (head writer The Bob Hope Show, NBC radio and television); Paul Savage (Gunsmoke); Snag Werris (writer for Jackie Gleason from the early Cavalcade of Stars days through the last incarnation of The Jackie Gleason Show); Ray Singer, George Foster, George Kirgo, Arnie Kogen, Barry Blitzer, Jack Mendelsohn, Rick Mittleman, Jerry Mayer, Burt Prelutsky, and John Rappaport (M.A.S.H.). TV pioneers like Barney McNulty (the inventor of the cue-card); radio pioneers such as Everett George Opie (the first announcer for NBC in Chicago with scripts dating to the 1920’s); Barry Shear (an early director at DuMont); and icons such as Johnny Carson, Captain Kangaroo, Eddie Fisher, Ed Wynn, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Eddie Cantor, among many others.
As the collection developed, with it came a vision for a library and research center dedicated to the study of the broadcast arts. From the outset the intention has been to preserve these scripts in order to make them available to scholars, writers, students and the interested public. How could that happen without a supporting facility? My dream has always been for The ARTS Library to become the core of a larger institution, a radio and television education and cultural center, where the historic, social and creative aspects of broadcasting are studied. An institution that fully honors both the art and the science of this incredible medium that is so critical to the evolution of the world we know today. This dream is becoming a reality as The TV Hall of Fame.
Television and radio programming have been criticized over the years by some as being insubstantial or sophomoric, viewed as less significant than the more lofty art of film. After reading thousands of scripts covering decades of American broadcast history, the evolution of the form is quite obvious to me. The days of episodic radio programming ended fifty years ago, and in the interim television as a creative art form has grown up. Today, TV directly challenges – and in many cases overshadows – film for content, quality and creativity, with its influence reaching far beyond any other medium. I believe the key to understanding this change, to really see the evolution of the two media of radio and television, it is essential to start at the very beginning: With the written word.
From acquisition to cataloguing to conservation to presentation, the costs of maintaining the library and museum are monumental. Add that to design refinement for the final destination of these TV treasures and one does not have to be the Professor from Gilligan's Island to see that the situation is precarious!
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