Jim Babb (the Gray Fox) went up through the sales ranks. He became manager of every department (or subsidiary) he worked in including Jefferson Productions. Eventually he was head of the entire broadcasting company.

Jefferson Productions | Home

Making Commercials

For over two decades JP's primary focus was producing TV spots. Many in our own company were unaware of what we did or how we did it. We've come across a reel of old commercials we did in the early '80's, from which we've randomly edited out a double handful for your viewing pleasure.

Roll 'em »

The First Full-time Staff



In an elaborate brochure from 1963, the full-time JP staff members are formally introduced.

Say hello »

New WBTV Center to be called "Jefferson Productions"

New wing underway to house staff, tape editing and duplication equipment. Purchased new cameras. Personnel named. The Charlotte News' Emery Wister got the story.

Details »

JP Bakes A Cake

In August of '78 a band of JP'ers trooped out to The Coast to tape a couple of spots for Ford. Together they cost nearly half a million dollars—yet were designed to be telecast only once! Such is the nature of big-budget advertising.

Check it out »

The Moment

Crazy got an early start in 1968. In April, a shocking event in Memphis, Tennessee, had our truck and crew on the road, helping ABC News cover the immediate aftermath of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

A solemn march »

Billboard: JP a "classy production house"

You couldn't buy media coverage like this. A national trade magazine gets all effusive and giddy about our success and capabilities. (The part about us being located midway between New York and Miami was true.)

Go tell it on the mountain »

Eastman Kodak Highlights JP Film

From 1974 to the mid '80s our film unit worked away from home base, in a studio on Pressley Road. We regularly purchased a fair amount of film stock from Kodak, so they decided to profile our outfit in their newsletter.

Self aggrandizement ahead »

All in a Day's Work

Lots of film and tape production was done in and around Charlotte, and Jefferson Productions got its share. One shoot in 1982, for BB&T, was different only in that the bank's advertising manager wrote an account of the production for their newsletter.

What he said »

JP Construction Improves Creativity, Productivity

If you build it they will come. Well, maybe. This was a state-of-art renovation back in '81. For what? Within a handful of years, JP closed its film facility, abandoned all commercial production activity (the little that was left), and became purely a mobile-unit rental and live-sports factory. Goodbye to all that.

Nice redwood paneling»

If it was Thursday, it usually meant taping the weekly syndicated Arthur Smith Shows in the Jefferson Productions studio. Once a show was taped, duplicates ("dubs") were made in JP's tape room and shipped to the stations who aired the show.

The Producer Remembers

This from Don McDaniel, who produced and directed the show for a number of years:

Usually we only did one show per session. If Arthur was going to be unavailable we would jam two in one day. In fact, Arthur would be very happy if we could get a show done in one half day, which never happened. I still remember when Arthur would come to me and say "Now, Don, we need to get this done. I've got a bus to catch at three o'clock."

It's unbelievable, but we never had preproduction meetings about the upcoming shows. As I recall he would give me a format of songs probably three days ahead of time. From there it was up to me, or whoever would be directing, to come up with the sets. Most of the time the sets were just whatever we had in the prop room. It was quiet challenging to keep it different.

Jim Scancarelli was a breath of fresh air to the effort. He and Mark Hamilton used to help me with ideas for set pieces. With the studio ceiling as low as it was, when we had to do a cover shot of the full cast, they were in the top two thirds of the frame (back then we didn't show lights...hard on the camera picture tubes) and we had a lot of floor. Jim would build and paint set pieces to fill this area of the frame. It gave it a little more interest.

If there was a budget, I never knew about it. In fact, I can't recall ever being told of a budget on anything we ever did at WBTV either. We just went out and did it. All the special shows we did...just do it. No questions. Can't remember money being discussed.