Collecting Classic TV Treasures
NEW YORK - James Comisar’s collecting passion started when he was 12. As president of The Gong Show fan club, he used to drag his dad to marathon Saturday tapings of the tongue-in-cheek TV talent show and, afterward, he would fish cue cards out of the dumpster behind the studio. (Dad made him get permission.) He’d keep his favorites and then sell the rest behind the math bungalow at Palm Junior High.
Comisar still hasn’t located the original gong (he said he’d “give a lung”), but he has accumulated more than 6,000 key artifacts of television history: important props, costumes and set pieces from TV’s most popular shows. That’s more than resides in the Smithsonian. Click here to view a choice selection, from Ralph Kramden’s bus driver jacket to Maxwell Smart’s shoe phone and a flag from Survivor.
