 DuMont produced more than 20 @,@ 000 television episodes during the decade from 1946 to 1956 . Because the shows were created prior to the launch of <unk> 's electronic videotape recorder in late 1956 , all of them were initially broadcast live in black and white , then recorded on film <unk> for <unk> and for West Coast <unk> . By the early 1970s , their vast library of 35mm and <unk> kinescopes eventually wound up in the hands of " a successor network , " who reportedly disposed of all of them in New York City 's East River to make room for more recent @-@ vintage <unk> in a warehouse . Other kinescopes were put through a silver <unk> process , because of the microscopic amounts of silver that made up the <unk> of black @-@ and @-@ white film during this time . It is estimated that only about 350 complete DuMont television shows survive today , the most famous being virtually all of Jackie Gleason 's Honeymooners comedy sketches . Most of the existing episodes are believed to have come from the personal archives of DuMont 's hosts , such as Gleason and Dennis James . 
