Some time ago here, I recommended a visit to the online Archive of American Television interviews, a series of oral histories that have been shot on video and which are now available on Google Video. The item I posted yesterday about the Emerson College and their Oral History of Comedy project brought some reminders (the first from Trevor Kimball) that more videos are being posted all the time from that other, also-worthy venture. The TV Academy is interviewing everyone who'll sit for them who was important in the world of teevee.
The present list of what's up on Google for viewing is available in the right-hand margin of the project's weblog. If you can't find a dozen videos there you want to watch, you just aren't interested in the history of television. The next one I'm going to tackle is the one with my occasional employers, Sid and Marty Krofft. Sid especially has had one of the most colorful, fascinating careers in show business and if he tells some of the stories he's told me over the years, that's an interview not to miss.
The Archive of American Television interviews are very long. For example, Carroll O'Connor's (which was recently posted) runs eight parts for a total of 3 hours and 47 minutes. That's a lot of Carroll O'Connor. You might want to experience these videos the way I do, which is to start one going, minimize the window it's in and then do other work on my computer, allowing the audio to run, radio-style. I should also caution you that a few chapters of these interviews seem to not have made their way onto Google Video…at least not in a way that a search will turn them up. At the moment, I can't find Part One of Larry Gelbart or Part Five of Milton Berle.
That's about all I have to say about this. So I'll just add that I wish someone was doing this with the pioneers of the comic book business.