{"id":2341865,"date":"2026-03-23T10:56:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T10:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2341865"},"modified":"2026-03-23T10:56:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T10:56:13","slug":"ets-archive-has-william-shatner-on-a-whale-and-a-young-taylor-swift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/ets-archive-has-william-shatner-on-a-whale-and-a-young-taylor-swift\/","title":{"rendered":"‘ET’s’ archive has William Shatner on a whale and a young Taylor Swift"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Fans of movies, TV and music are enjoying an era when they can access an abundance of news about their favorite stars by just looking at their phones.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a big leap from the decades before internet and cable, when network TV news rarely covered show business outside of occasional interviews on their morning shows. When Barbara Walters started interviewing celebrities<\/a> on her prime time specials for ABC in the 1970s, pearl-clutching journalistic purists were aghast.<\/p>\n

A shift came in 1981, when Paramount launched \u201cEntertainment Tonight,\u201d the first daily program that looked at the news through a pop culture lens. It was also the first syndicated show delivered via satellite, enabling TV stations to air episodes on the days they were taped and provide breaking coverage.<\/p>\n

Now distributed by CBS Media Ventures, \u201cET\u201d has surpassed imitators and survived the seismic changes to the TV landscape, still reaching an average of nearly 3 million viewers nightly, according to Nielsen, and last month it racked up 1 billion views on YouTube. The show is currently in its 45th season and is co-hosted by Kevin Frazier and Nischelle Turner.<\/p>\n

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\u201cET\u201d co-hosts Nischelle Turner and Kevin Frazier on the Grammys red carpet earlier this year.<\/p>\n

(Entertainment Tonight)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

But what truly sets the program apart is how it has accumulated a massive tape archive that serves as a repository of show business history, thanks to years of having camera crews at every major movie set, press junket and award show red carpet. <\/p>\n

Going through the 200,000 hours of video in the vault is like a trip in a show business time machine where you\u2019ll find:<\/p>\n

\u2014 Jane Fonda, dressed in \u201880s aerobics garb, giving a power walk lesson. <\/p>\n

\u2014Michael Jackson making his iconic \u201cBeat It\u201d music video. <\/p>\n

\u2014A 19-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio interviewed on the set of the ABC sitcom \u201cGrowing Pains.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2014Arnold Schwarzenegger getting his makeup applied before shooting a scene in \u201cThe Terminator.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2014George Clooney\u2019s first interview in 1985 and the 164 others he\u2019s done since then.<\/p>\n

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1 <\/p>\n\"A <\/picture> <\/div>\n

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2 <\/p>\n\"Jane <\/picture> <\/div>\n

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3 <\/p>\n\"A <\/picture> <\/div>\n

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4 <\/p>\n\"William <\/picture> <\/div>\n

1.<\/strong> Leonardo DiCaprio in 1991.<\/span> 2.<\/strong> Jane Fonda in aerobics garb in the \u201880s.<\/span> 3.<\/strong> A makeup artist applying Arnold Schwarzenegger\u2019s \u201cTerminator\u201d prosthetics.<\/span> 4.<\/strong> William Shatner at Marine World in Vallejo riding a whale in a segment from 1987.<\/span> (Entertainment Tonight)<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

When \u201cET\u201d executive producer Erin Johnson talks about the curiosities in the vault, her go-to example is a 1987 segment with William Shatner who rode on the back of a whale at Marine World in Vallejo. Shatner participated in the stunt to promote the Endangered Species Act.<\/p>\n

In recent months, \u201cET\u201d has undertaken a massive project to digitize and preserve all 11,600-plus episodes made since its founding host Mary Hart first signed on when Ronald Reagan was in the White House. There are hours of unseen interview footage as well.<\/p>\n

Trucks have shipped video tapes cross-country from a storage facility in Burbank to a new facility in New Jersey that houses the CBS News archives. The tapes will be restored and transferred to digital files.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve uncovered things that we thought might have been gone,\u201d Johnson said in a recent interview.<\/p>\n

The makers of \u201cET\u201d had the foresight to keep everything they produced, avoiding the heartbreaking fate that many celebrity talk and late night shows of the \u201860s and \u201870s, when tapes were not archived but routinely erased and reused to save money. The archive reflects how \u201cET\u201d has always thought of itself as a news program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey call us the toy department a lot of times,\u201d said Turner, an \u201cET\u201d co-host since 2014. \u201cBut this is a news organization. It\u2019s been that way since it started.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"A <\/picture>\n
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\u201cET\u201d co-host Nischelle Turner with George Clooney, who has done more than 160 interviews with the show.<\/p>\n

(Entertainment Tonight)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

\u201cET\u201d has long been culling the archives for the career retrospectives that air on weekends under the title \u201cET Vault Unlocked,\u201d which are also available on demand through YouTube. They have also been an invaluable source when a star dies \u2014 an \u201cET\u201d tribute to comic Bob Newhart<\/a> was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award.<\/p>\n

The vault has also become a revenue generator as well, thanks to the boom of celebrity documentaries and specials on streaming platforms in recent years. Careful readers of end credits will see acknowledgments of \u201cET\u201d footage at the end of Apple TV\u2019s \u201cStill: A Michael J. Fox Movie<\/a>,\u201d the Netflix docs on Schwarzenegger<\/a> and Wham!, Hulu\u2019s \u201cBrats,\u201d and HBO\u2019s cast reunions of \u201cFriends\u201d and \u201cThe Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToday we were talking about doing something about the Kennedys, and it was like, \u2018in the vault, there\u2019s this time we went to Hyannis Port onto the Kennedy compound with Ethel Kennedy,\u2019 \u201d Frazier said. \u201cLiterally name a person, and we can connect the dot and show you something about their life from that \u2018ET\u2019 vault.\u201d<\/p>\n

The archive also contains spontaneous encounters that became landmark moments over time. Frazier recalled covering the Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas in 2007 when a publicist came to him with a request.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said, \u2018Hey, I have this new client. Will you interview her? She\u2019s a young girl and I think she\u2019s gonna be great,\u2019\u201d Frazier said. \u201cAnd it was Taylor, Swift.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"A <\/picture>\n
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Kevin Frazier and Taylor Swift in 2007 on the red carpet at the Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

(Entertainment Tonight)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Frazier and Turner both say they get warm thanks from actors after they see a vintage red carpet that shows them with a relative who has since died.<\/p>\n

The digitization of the archives is being done to make it easier to access the tapes. Finding shows made before 2008 required a production assistant to search through shelves of cassette cases, some with only a Post-It note to identify what was inside. <\/p>\n

But the process will also create opportunities to make the material more widely available online for consumers who want to go down the rabbit hole of watching every available segment with their favorite stars.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are definitely conversations about that,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cI think there\u2019s a huge appetite to see these stars that we all know and love in that different light. They are kind of like the best of their home movies.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fans of movies, TV and music are enjoying an era when they can access an abundance of news about their favorite stars by just looking at their phones. It\u2019s a big leap from the decades before internet and cable, when network TV news rarely covered show business outside of occasional interviews on their morning shows. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2341866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2341865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ETs-archive-has-William-Shatner-on-a-whale-and-a.com2Fe92F232F0d67cc8748d1948fb573c2a4.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2341865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2341865"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2341865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2341867,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2341865\/revisions\/2341867"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2341866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2341865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2341865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2341865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}