Live on Our Stage! 3900 block of nebraska avenue nw
when nbc radio and television and its local affiliate, WRC, moved to new headquarters on Nebraska Avenue in 1958, the average TV screen measured 12 inches. The facility opened with six studios – three TV and three radio. Soon history happened here. On October 7, 1960, some 70 million viewers watched as NBC broadcast the second televised presidential debate, with candidates Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy facing four reporters. It was widely reported that Vice President Nixon used makeup to cover his five o’clock shadow, better to compete with the tanned and telegenic young Senator Kennedy. Also in these TV studios, former University of Maryland student Jim Henson and his wife Jane introduced a green “muppet” named Kermit to the world, leading to a regular show on WRC called Sam and Friends. The list of innovative programming by NBC and WRC is long. Since 1960, high school whiz kids have competed to answer Mac McGarry’s questions on WRC’s It’s Academic. Here the much-imitated Meet the Press got its start. And the WRC radio studios launched “the Joy Boys”: former American University students Ed Walker and Willard Scott. Their theme song, “We are the Joy Boys of radio, we chase electrons to and fro . . .,” opened a half- hour comedy show beamed regionally and to armed forces stationed around the world.
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