Popular Entertainment - Overview
This Museum's popular entertainment collections hold some of the Smithsonian's most beloved artifacts. The ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz reside here, along with the Muppet character Kermit the Frog, and props from popular television series such as M*A*S*H and All in the Family. But as in many of the Museum's collections, the best-known objects are a small part of the story.
The collection also encompasses many other artifacts of 19th- and 20th-century commercial theater, film, radio, and TV—some 50,000 sound recordings dating back to 1903; posters, publicity stills, and programs from films and performances; puppets; numerous items from World's Fairs from 1851 to 1992; and audiovisual materials on Groucho Marx, to name only a few.
"Popular Entertainment - Overview" showing 113 items.
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sound recording: Metronome Presents Jazz At the Modern
- Description (Brief)
- George Wein and The Storyville Sextet. METRONOME PRESENTS JAZZ AT THE MODERN (Bethlehem BCP 6050)
- 33-1/3 rpm
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1960
- recording artist
- Wein, George
- Storyville Sextet
- maker
- Bethlehem
- ID Number
- 1978.0670.797
- maker number
- BCP 6050
- accession number
- 1978.0670
- catalog number
- 1978.0670.797
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
sound recording: Chris
- Description (Brief)
- Chris Connor. CHRIS (Bethlehem BCP 56)
- 33-1/3 rpm
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1953-1955
- 1957
- recording artist
- Connor, Chris
- maker
- Bethlehem
- ID Number
- 1978.0670.798
- maker number
- BCP 56
- accession number
- 1978.0670
- catalog number
- 1978.0670.798
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Ludwig Von Drake Thermos
- Description (Brief)
- This steel and glass thermos bottle was made by Aladdin in 1961. It has a screw-on blue plastic cup lid with handle and screw-on red plastic stopper. The bottle features cartoon images of Ludwig Von Drake in Disneyland. It is the companion bottle to lunch box number 2003.3070.10.01.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1961
- referenced
- Walt Disney Company
- maker
- Aladdin
- ID Number
- 2003.3070.10.02
- nonaccession number
- 2003.3070
- catalog number
- 2003.3070.10.02
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Technicolor Camera
- Description
- In "The Wizard of Oz", Dorothy's journey from Kansas to Oz is symbolized by a shift from black and white to Technicolor. This camera was one of several used to film the Oz scenes.
- Invented in 1932, the Technicolor camera recorded on three separate negatives--red, blue and green--which were then combined to develop a full-color positive print. The box encasing the camera, a "blimp," muffled the machine's sound during filming.
- The Early Color Cinema Equipment Collection [COLL.PHOTOS.000039] includes equipment, media and ephemera related to color motion pictures from the birth of the cinema to the mid twentieth century. This collection is comprised of 5 motion picture cameras, 3 movie projectors, more than 34 pieces of editing and other apparatus, more than 60 pieces of early color film and two notebooks illustrating the Technicolor process.
- Reproducing natural color on film had been an industry goal since the earliest days of motion picture production, but it took several decades to perfect a technology for making movies in color. Motion picture directors often toned or hand-tinted monochromatic film in the industry’s early days to add life and emotion to their productions. Though movie producers continued to use toning and tinting, these costly and inefficient processes could never produce the full range of color that movie cameras failed to record. Therefore, innovators increasingly focused on the use of color filters during capture and projection to reproduce color detail.
- Danish-American inventor August Plahn built and patented a camera and projector that split motion picture images through three color lenses using 70mm film. When the film, with three images printed across its width, was projected through the same colored filters, movies’ natural color was restored. The collection includes forty five short lengths of processed film and documents related to Plahn’s work as well as one camera, three projector heads and over seventy-five pieces of apparatus used by the engineer.
- While Plahn had little success marketing his inventions, the Boston-based Technicolor Corporation effectively marketed their similar technology to become the industry standard. The color cinema collection includes four Technicolor cameras as well as over twenty-five pieces of equipment related to the Technicolor process and a book of photographs illustrating Technicolor film processing in a train car.
- The Society of Motion Picture Engineers, the industry’s leading trade group, donated examples of a number of other early color film technologies, including Prizma, Kelley-line screen, Krayn Screen, Naturalcolor, Multicolor and Morgana color processes.
- This finding aid is one in a series documenting the PHC’s Early Cinema Collection [COLL.PHOTOS.000018]. The cinema-related objects cover the range of technological innovation and popular appeal that defined the motion picture industry during a period in which it became the premier form of mass communication in American life, roughly 1885-1930. See also finding aids for Early Sound Cinema [COLL.PHOTOS.000040], Early Cinema Equipment [COLL.PHOTOS.000037], Early Cinema Film and Ephemera [COLL.PHOTOS.000038] and the Gatewood Dunston Collection [COLL.PHOTOS.000021].
- date made
- 1937
- maker
- Technicolor Corporation
- ID Number
- PG*8166
- catalog number
- 8166
- maker number
- Patent No: 2,000,058
- accession number
- 260112
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
sound recording: San Antonio Shout; Tin Roof Blues
- Description (Brief)
- Ben Pollack and His Pick-A-Rib Boys. side 1: SAN ANTONIO SHOUT; side 2: TIN ROOF BLUES (Discovery 132)
- 78 rpm
- Location
- Currently not on view
- recording artist
- Ben Pollack and His Pick-a-Rib Boys
- maker
- Discovery
- ID Number
- 1978.0670.238
- maker number
- 132
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
sound recording: Maryland, My Maryland; Sensation Rag
- Description (Brief)
- Ben Pollack and his Pick-a-Rib Boys. side 1: MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND; side 2: SENSATION RAG (Discovery 133)
- 78 rpm
- Location
- Currently not on view
- recording artist
- Ben Pollack and His Pick-a-Rib Boys
- maker
- Discovery
- ID Number
- 1978.0670.239
- maker number
- 133
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
sound recording: I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby; San Sue Strut
- Description (Brief)
- Ben Pollack and his Pick-a-Rib Boys. side 1: I CAN'T GIVE YOU ANYTHING BUT LOVE, BABY; side 2: SAN SUE STRUT (Discovery 131)
- 78 rpm
- 78 rpm
- Location
- Currently not on view
- recording artist
- Ben Pollack and His Pick-a-Rib Boys
- maker
- Discovery
- ID Number
- 1978.0670.240
- maker number
- 131
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
sound recording: Papa Dip; Turk's Blues
- Description (Brief)
- Turk Murphy's Jazz Band. side 1: PAPA DIP; side 2: TURK'S BLUES (Good Time Jazz 4)
- 78 rpm
- Location
- Currently not on view
- recording artist
- Turk Murphy's Jazz Band
- maker
- Good Time Jazz
- ID Number
- 1978.0670.254
- accession number
- 1978.0670
- catalog number
- 1978.0670.254
- maker number
- 4
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Dorothy's Ruby Slippers
- Description
- Sixteen-year-old Judy Garland wore these sequined shoes as Dorothy Gale in the 1939 film classic The Wizard of Oz. In the original book by L. Frank Baum, Dorothy's magic slippers are silver; for the Technicolor movie, they were changed to ruby red to show up more vividly against the yellow-brick road. One of several pairs used during filming, these size-five shoes are well-worn, suggesting they were Garland's primary pair for dance sequences.
- Date made
- 1939
- user
- Garland, Judy
- designer
- Adrian
- maker
- Adrian
- ID Number
- 1979.1230.01
- accession number
- 1979.1230
- catalog number
- 1979.1230.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
sound recording: Boogie Rock; Talkin' the Blues
- Description (Brief)
- B.B. "Blues Boy" King. side 1: BOOGIE ROCK; side 2: TALKIN' THE BLUES (RPM 435)
- 78 rpm
- Location
- Currently not on view
- recording artist
- King, B. B.
- maker
- RPM
- ID Number
- 1991.0305.179
- maker number
- 435
- accession number
- 1991.0305
- catalog number
- 1991.0305.179
- accession number
- 1991.0305
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center