Two TV Moms

This newspaper ad played up the juxtaposition of the "real" mom (Pauline Robertson) and the TV mom (Jane Wyatt of Father Knows Best)  in Story of a Family.

Surprise!(?)

This is one of my favorite shots from Story of a Family. While R.L. is talking to the camera, a female shopper turns quickly to face the camera--as if caught by surprise.

TAMUCC PRESS RELEASE ABOUT TV FAMILY

TAMUCC has put together an excellent press release about TV Family and our fundraising drive.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – Produced 50 years before “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” “The Real Housewives,” and “Duck Dynasty,” America’s favorite reality TV family lived in Amarillo, Texas. 

Dr. Ethan Thompson, Associate Professor of Communication at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, recently completed his first feature-length documentary, about the Robertsons, an everyday family who starred in the 1960 NBC special “Story of a Family.”

AND IT TAKES IT FROM THERE...

Recreating the Dust Bowl

TV Family Excerpt 3: Recreating the Dust Bowl from Ethan Thompson on Vimeo.

Fifty years before she appeared in Ken Burns' documentary The Dust Bowl, Pauline Durrett Robertson described what it was like to get caught in a storm for NBC's Story of a Family. In this excerpt from TV Family, we see part of that segment, and PJ Robertson Pierce explains how the NBC crew recreated the dust storm for the 1960 special.

Braniff airlines + conscripted child actors...you can't do this any more!

TV Family Excerpt 2: Home as Stage

TV Family Excerpt: Home as Stage from Ethan Thompson on Vimeo.

Fund Raising Drive is On!

The campaign to raise funds to complete post-production on TV Family has officially started, and will last until December 18.

Check it out here.

You can also watch me explain the project in the video below.

First Excerpt from TV Family

Here's a short excerpt from TV Family I'm releasing in preparation for a funding drive. This contextualizes Story of a Family in relation to postwar TV documentaries as well as contemporary family-reality programs.