The Wall Street Journal reports that a tape of the television coverage of Super Bowl I has finally surfaced, after 44 years. It's missing half time and a chunk of the third quarter, and there are other, minor cuts, but this is a true piece of media history. Let's face it, the Super Bowl changed television forever. This tape, recorded at a local affiliate in Scranton, PA, has preserved, in wonderful color, something that national broadcasters CBS and NBC shamefully failed to.
Which is my main point, I guess - ABC dumped Dumont's tapes into New York Harbor, the BBC wiped out early Doctor Who episodes, if not for Bing Crosby's nerves we'd not have tape of one of the greatest World Series games ever played, even footage of the Moon landing was lost until it turned up by fluke in Australia. So much equipment designed to capture the moment, and so little thought given to keeping the results. It's a tragedy.
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