SEARCH FOR TOMORROW - LIVE SHOW

Using an obviously bogus reason "We lost the tapes" (see "TOOTSIE" 1982)
the Soap Opera I was working on in 1983 "SEARCH FOR TOMORROW", amid much hoopla, went LIVE for one show. It was the second time I had the opportunity to do live television, the first was a year earlier at the REEVES TELETAPE'S newly resurrected Ed Sullivan Theater when we did the Arthritis Telethon for 24 hours.......
The show, a Proctor & Gamble owned soap, was experiencing slipping ratings and had recently changed Executive Producers and the new EX felt she needed to do something spectacular and attention grabbing to inject new interest into the show.
She ran the idea past P&G as well as NBC and they all got on board. a premise, not unlike the one used in "Tootsie" was leaked to the media and since our show's shoot schedule was usually two weeks ahead of the air schedule there was adequate time to set it all up and hype it.
The tapes for a specific episode were "lost" and it was a pivotal episode so the viewers would be "hooked" into a concluding plot arc, and hopefully return for more.
I was the video operator on the show and thought this would make a wonderful professional memory, so I asked the engineering dept. to roll a 3/4" tape about thirty minutes before air. I wanted program audio on one channel and the PL, or headphone audio on the other channel.
NBC even had the legendary Don Pardo do the intro announcement.
I have tried to include it all......