What’s in the ‘ET’ vault? William Shatner on a whale and Taylor Swift’s red carpet walks

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Movie, TV, and music lovers are now able to easily find out what their favorite celebrities are up to, all thanks to their smartphones.

Before the internet and cable TV, network news programs almost never reported on entertainment, except for brief interviews on morning shows. When Barbara Walters began conducting in-depth celebrity interviews for ABC in the 1970s, many traditional journalists were shocked and critical.

Things changed in 1981 with the debut of “Entertainment Tonight” on Paramount. This show was the first daily program to report the news by focusing on popular culture. It was also groundbreaking technologically – the first show distributed to stations via satellite, allowing them to broadcast episodes the same day they were recorded and offer up-to-the-minute updates.

Entertainment Tonight, now distributed by CBS Media Ventures, has remained a popular show for 45 seasons, even as television has changed dramatically. It continues to attract almost 3 million viewers each night and recently reached 1 billion views on YouTube. Kevin Frazier and Nischelle Turner currently host the program.

What really makes this program special is its incredible archive of footage. Over the years, its camera crews have been at every important movie set, press event, and awards show, creating a vast collection that documents the history of the entertainment industry.

Exploring the massive collection of 200,000 hours of archived video is like stepping back in time with show business – you’ll discover:

— Jane Fonda, dressed in ‘80s aerobics garb, giving a power walk lesson.

—Michael Jackson making his iconic “Beat It” music video.

—A 19-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio interviewed on the set of the ABC sitcom “Growing Pains.”

—Arnold Schwarzenegger getting his makeup applied before shooting a scene in “The Terminator.”

—George Clooney’s first interview in 1985 and the 164 others he’s done since then.

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Here are some interesting celebrity photos: Leonardo DiCaprio as a young actor in 1991, Jane Fonda dressed for aerobics in the 1980s, a makeup artist working on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s special effects for “The Terminator,” and William Shatner riding a whale at Marine World in 1987 (as seen on Entertainment Tonight).

Erin Johnson, an executive producer for “ET,” often points to a 1987 segment featuring William Shatner as a prime example of the show’s unique content. In the segment, Shatner rode on the back of a whale at Marine World in Vallejo as part of a promotion for the Endangered Species Act.

For the past several months, Entertainment Tonight has been working on a huge project to convert and save every one of its 11,600+ episodes, going all the way back to the very beginning with original host Mary Hart, who first started during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. They’ve also discovered many hours of interview footage that haven’t been shown before.

Video tapes from the CBS News archives have been transported by truck from a storage location in Burbank, California, to a new facility in New Jersey. There, the tapes will be restored and converted into digital files.

Hollywood Inc.

I was absolutely fascinated to learn how Joe Lauro, from Historic Films, actually found all that incredible footage from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. It’s amazing to think about – he unearthed this lost piece of history, which ultimately became the award-winning film at Sundance. It’s a real testament to his dedication and a lucky break for all of us who get to experience that music and energy now!

“We’ve uncovered things that we thought might have been gone,” Johnson said in a recent interview.

The creators of “Entertainment Tonight” wisely saved all of their footage. This was a smart move, as many talk and late-night shows from the 1960s and 70s unfortunately lost their programs because tapes were often erased and reused to cut costs. Maintaining this archive shows that “ET” has always considered itself a news-gathering organization.

Turner, who has been a co-host on “ET” since 2014, explained that despite being sometimes referred to as the “toy department,” they are fundamentally a news organization, and have been since its inception.

For years, “Entertainment Tonight” has been digging through its old footage for career highlights, which they share on weekends as “ET Vault Unlocked.” These segments are also available to watch anytime on YouTube. “ET”’s archive is also incredibly helpful when a celebrity passes away – for example, their tribute to Bob Newhart earned a Daytime Emmy nomination.

The film archive is now a source of income, boosted by the recent surge in popularity of celebrity documentaries and specials on streaming services. If you watch the credits of shows like Apple TV’s “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie,” Netflix documentaries about Arnold Schwarzenegger and Wham!, Hulu’s “Brats,” or the “Friends” and “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” reunions on HBO, you’ll find the archive’s footage is often credited.

We were discussing the Kennedys today and how we have footage from our ‘ET’ archive of a visit to the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port with Ethel Kennedy. We can essentially name almost anyone, and we have something in that archive that reveals a story about their life.

The collection includes unplanned interactions that later proved to be historically significant. For example, Frazier remembered being at the 2007 Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas when a publicist approached him with a special request.

Frazier explained that a colleague asked her to interview a new client, describing her as a promising young woman. It turned out the client was Taylor Swift.

Both Frazier and Turner mention receiving heartfelt gratitude from actors when they view old red carpet photos featuring them with family members who are now deceased.

We’re converting the old archives to digital format to make the tapes much easier to find. Previously, locating shows recorded before 2008 meant someone had to manually search through countless cassette cases – often with only a sticky note to indicate the contents.

However, this change will also allow more people to easily find and watch all available footage of their favorite celebrities online, for those who are really interested in seeing everything.

Johnson confirmed they’ve been discussing the idea. He believes there’s a strong interest in seeing familiar celebrities portrayed in a new way, describing it as being similar to watching personal home videos of them.

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2026-03-23 13:31