Is There Video Footage Of Neville Goddard Research Leads
11 Dec Is There Video Footage of Neville Goddard? The Lost KTTV Broadcasts, Joe Pyne and the Hunt for Video Evidence
Summary:
No known video footage of Neville Goddard exists today. While he recorded a 26-week television series for KTTV in Los Angeles in 1955, the original videotapes were routinely erased and reused due to the high cost of magnetic tape during that era. Currently, only the audio reels and written transcripts of these KTTV broadcasts survive.
TL:DR: Because videotape was expensive, producers taped over “Pyne Show” episodes or cut them into one and two minute strips to use for commercials—the same process that destroyed the first decade of Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show.” As for KTTV possibly the same fate. Neville Goddard had a show on Channel 11 (KTTV) LA Sunday afternoons, there were 26 or more half-hour episodes in the mid 50’s. Looked in the UCLA archives and contacted another TV archive museum, from what I gathered not all the shows on that channel were videotaped and especially not in the 50s. Believe the reason we can’t find the TV show from 1955 (not Pyne) is that they never existed on tape (pre-taping era).
The Story of the Missing Tapes
Neville’s KTTV (Channel 11, Los Angeles) Show
Neville Goddard had a short-lived but impactful TV show on KTTV Channel 11 in Los Angeles during the mid-1950s. Despite reportedly reaching over 300,000 weekly viewers, no known footage of these broadcasts has survived. This article tracks what we know, why the footage is likely lost, and the institutions or individuals connected to its production and potential preservation.
- Channel: KTTV (Channel 11, Los Angeles)
- Air Time: Sundays at 1 PM (according to magazine) 2:00 – 2:30 according to Neville in his lecture (see below)
- Year: 1954–1955
- Format: 26 half-hour lectures, solo format, no direction or production crew
- Style: Seated at a desk, speaking extemporaneously on biblical esotericism
- Reported Audience: Over 300,000 weekly
- Source: Neville’s own comments + TV-Radio Life article from April 16–22, 1955
References
Freedom Barry
Freedom: No. There is no written biography of Neville.
____________: He had a TV show…?
Freedom: He did lectures for twenty six weeks on television
in Los Angeles.
__________: Are there any tapes?
Freedom: They didn’t have tapes in those days. That’s
a technology that’s been developed since…. However, the content of those
meetings, because those were little fifteen minute time slots, the content
of those meetings are on two thirty rpm disks. Do you have access to those,
Jenny? The records? (Answer inaudible) If we made audio tapes of each
of the records, could that be transcribed to further tapes? Would you
like those? I can do that, because I have both the records.
From Neville Lecture
A Gentleman: You said something about your television shows. I am not familiar with them.
Neville: I had 26 in L.A. on Channel 11. There were thirteen, and then I had a break for about three months, and they brought me back for another thirteen. There were 26 half-hour shows; I did just what I am doing now. They gave me a lectern, and I simply sat at a desk really and spoke extemporaneously. There was no cue to bring me in. When they started the camera, I was seated at the desk. I didn’t have to walk off the stage; I didn’t have to come on the stage. There was no director. I was simply seated at the desk, and then the camera simply moved in on me, and then at the end of what I had to say it just faded and went to the one to follow me. I had enormous mail on it. It was a tremendous success as far as what I do, but they couldn’t use it to sell perfume. I was told that I had an audience in excess of about three hundred thousand every Sunday afternoon between 2:00 and 2:30. That is what I was told by the survey; they estimate so many who view. In those days it was not done on tape; it was all done live. In those days everything was live for TV. The tapes came in after my days so those things are just a memory now.
The Gentleman: It was a number of years ago?