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Reddit, my wife's dad was on the Ed Sullivan show in 1969, but he has no recording. I'm told it's probably impossible to find. Can you help me find it for his birthday?
**9/27/2010 - my follow-up is stuck in spam on both reddit.com and askreddit** :/ **9/28/2010 - okay, follow-up [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/djt6n/thank_you_reddit_you_made_my_fatherinlaws/) He was in the Georgia Tech Glee Club, and they were the musical guest on the show. I don't think he's even seen the episode since the original airing in 1969. I've tried torrents, every video site I know of, CBS.com, Amazon, and I've even tried contacting our local CBS affiliate. I'm about ready to give up, but I've seen Reddit do amazing things. Maybe someone's great-grandfather was a producer for the show. Maybe someone here has every episode of every talk show ever made pressed into gold-plated LP records for purposes of first-contact with aliens. I'm not optimistic as I've read that Johnny Carson's Tonight Show has no surviving footage from prior to 1970 (apparently shows used to recycle tape as it was expensive). I fear the same will be true for all but the most famous moments of the Ed Sullivan Show. Failing that, maybe someone has an awesomely appropriate idea for what might be the next best thing if the video itself is impossible. Here's the IMDb entry for the episode - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0724932/ tl;dr - (see the title) **edit**: I guess it's probably not possible. Thanks to those of you who commented. **edit 2**: Well, something changed. For about 15 minutes, this post was showing no upvotes; it wasn't even registering my attempts to upvote those who had commented. Then a flood of them came in. I guess I was glitched somehow. Hope reigns! **EDIT! WE MAY HAVE FOUND IT!!** Current situation as of 5:15pm I just got an email from someone reliable who says that they have a copy of this episode and can send it to me! I'm very optimistic that this is legit, but I don't have it in my hands yet. More to come later on! Thanks again to all of you. I'm looking forward to recapping this to give credit where credit is due and to share some more detail about the cool stuff that came up during this process. Wooooooo!!!!!! ***keeping this stuff below because it's interesting for those just finding this and because it's not 100% a sure thing yet*** * It would be good if I could know for sure whether or not CBS has a recording somewhere in their archives. * Even more people saying there's a chance they have/know of a copy. * Yes, I have successfully spoken with The Paley Center. They do not have the episode and have referred me to SOFA. * SOFA Entertainment had been brought up before, but I'm convinced now that I'll need to go to them unless one of those back channels comes through somehow. No official organization (CBS, museums, archives, universities, websites, etc.) will give me a copy of the video without SOFA's permission. I've heard this from multiple credible sources now. I've also been told that they have been rigidly protective of their materials on occasion in the past, but that they are sometimes accommodating. I'm hoping for the latter. * I have made an inquiry and am awaiting response. * A few Redditors have said that they may have a back-route to getting a copy through various friends or connections. These leads are very cool and would be typical Reddit magic if one of them comes through. * A couple of Redditors have provided me with contact info for people at SOFA--one of them had info from a previous successful effort to get a copy of a clip. I have an email in to SOFA now. * I've gotten helpful responses from a handful of people at various websites and organizations. I'll thank them later when this is all done with. * A PBS station did some rebroadcasts of Sullivan's shows. I can try to contact WQED to see if they have any of that footage. Someone below said a friend works there, so that's potentially a promising lead. * Georgia Tech's archives library has responded with a negative. I have emails oustanding with a few others at Georgia Tech who may be in a unique position to know of an unofficial recording somewhere. So I either have to go through Sofa or hope for Reddit magic. This might be the last update for a few hours until I can get back to this. (EDIT: Reddit magic it is!) more