Occasionally I'll see an item in an auction that is a little off beat and quite unique. That was the case with this item which I was able to buy at a very reasonable price during an auction of space memorabilia a few months ago. I entered a fairly low bid for the item and was pleasantly surprised when I won. I don't know why there was not more interest in the item when it came up for bid since it is a really cool piece of astronaut owned/used memorabilia.
These two Scripts were described as being from the personal collection of Apollo 7 Astronaut Walt Cunningham and were used by him for his appearance on the Bob Hope Show/Special November 6, 1968 as part of the Apollo 7 Crews' appearance along with fellow Apollo 7 Astronauts Wally Schirra and Donn Eisele. Actress Barbara Eden also appeared on the show and was part of an Apollo 7 comedy bit as can be seen in the below picture. Cunningham's name is handwritten on the first page of each Script and may be his authentic signature. Each Script also has numerous pages with handwritten notations/edits which apparently were made by Cunningham at the time! Although the below Script 1, Page 1, is annotated as 'Bob Hope Special. Dec. '68', it was used for the November 6, 1968 show. This notation may have been made in error by Cunningham himself. Further down, Script 2, Page 1, is annotated with the correct date the show was aired as follows: 'Bob Hope Special #68/69-3 Air: November 6, 1968'.
SCRIPT 1
PAGE 1
SCRIPT 1
PAGE 6
SCRIPT 1
PAGE 7
SCRIPT 2
PAGE 1
SCRIPT 2
PAGE 8
SCRIPT 2
PAGE 11
Below is a photo of the Apollo 7 Crew with Hope and Eden during the show!
I was able to obtain a copy of the full audio portion of the show from Archival Television Audio,
which mirrors the two Scripts exactly as they are notated/edited!!!
Since obtaining these Scripts in November 2015, I have been looking for a video of this show. You would not believe how hard it has been to find! In August 2020, I got a lead that part of the show was included in the documentary 'Apollo: Missions To The Moon', which I bought a copy of. In this film, there is a 47 second clip (21:25 to 22:12) of the show which mirrors parts of pages 4 and 5 of Script 2. I subsequently emailed Tom Jennings of 1895 Films, the producer of the documentary, and asked him where he obtained the clip. He emailed me back and put me in touch with one of his producers, Chris Morcom. So, I emailed Chris and he told me he obtained the clip from a company called RetroVideo. I went to their website and looked it over. My chances of obtaining a copy of the show did not look good however when I read this on the RetroVideos' inquiry page: 'PLEASE NOTE: RETRO VIDEO DOES NOT SUPPLY FOOTAGE TO COLLECTORS OR FANS. PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS FORM UNLESS YOU ARE WORKING WITH A LEGITIMATE PRODUCTION COMPANY ON A PROJECT INTENDED FOR BROADCAST OR COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION. THANK YOU.' I took a chance and emailed them via their actual email anyway. After all I was on a mission to preserve a piece of manned space program history!
,
Surprisingly, I received a reply rather quickly from a Bob DiCicco with RetroVideo.
He replied: 'Thank you for your email. Due to personal websites and Youtube we do not send shows or even
segments of anything here in our library to individuals. The material gets out and is impossible to police.
I'm sorry but we can't help you on this.'
Very nice response email but he is obviously not a space artifact collector!
Sooo... I am again at a dead end in my search for the complete video of the show.
Here are pages 4 and 5 from Script 2:
Here is a comparison of pages 4 and 5 from Script 2 as compared with the video clip from
the November 6, 1968 Bob Hope Show:
As a side note, these Scripts came in a manila envelope with some interesting notations believed to have been made by Cunningham, as can be seen in the below photo.
All in all an interesting piece of manned space program history!
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