This is the opening of the 1976 Academy Awards featuring an elaborate opening number with Ray Bolger who was 64 years old at the time [The hell he was!] and still a pretty good dancer. The first part of it was pre-taped a day or two before and then there comes a point — you'll spot it easily — when they switch to a live performance in the auditorium.
It was during this that a small but noticeable error occurred. As you may know, the Director of a show like this is in a booth somewhere watching a bank of monitors that show what each camera is seeing and he (or she) decides which view to show the home audience. Next to the Director is a person who usually has the title of Technical Director who sits before a bank of buttons and punches the one the Director specifies. So the Director calls, "Camera 3, take" and the T.D. punches the button for Camera 3 and then the Director says, "Camera 8, take" and the T.D. punches the button with the "8" on it. And so on.
Now, if you touch-type, you've probably had the experience of typing with your fingers "one off." That is, you had your hands in the wrong position so when your fingers went down to hit an "S," they actually hit an "A" and every other key was off one and you typed some gibberish before you realized it. Well, that's what reportedly happened to the T.D. during this number.
As the story is told, the Director — I think it was the legendary Marty Pasetta but I'm too lazy to look it up right now — was very enthusiastic, waving his arms as he called out shots. He accidentally bumped the T.D., knocking that person's hands off the "keyboard" for a second. When the T.D. put his hands back in place, he was one off. So there's a point in the number when the Director calls for Camera 4 and the T.D. punches 3 and then the Director calls for Camera 7 and gets 6 and so on.
It only lasted about twenty seconds until almost the last shot of the song and not all the "wrong" shots look wrong. Still, when I was doing variety shows not long after this, I heard this story from everyone I encountered who worked in a control room. You'll notice when it happens…