Robert Osborne's new digs

Robert Osborne and Alec Baldwin on the now former TCM set

So I was watching the introduction to The Adventures of Robin Hood on Sunday night. Oh, I've seen the movie before, but I was intending to watch the premiere of The Amazing Race which was supposed to come on at 8:00 PM. Some sporting event must have gone long, though, as The Amazing Race began about 15 minutes late, leaving me time to watch Robert Osborne's intro and listen to the stirring Erich Korngold music.

I didn't notice, but apparently the folks down at TCM headquarters in Atlanta have made some changes to the set from which Osborne does his introductions. Some eagle-eyed TCM watcher who's also a member of the TCM bulletin boards noticed it and posted there about it. So, I made it a point to watch the introduction to Ship of Fools last night to take another look for myself. Gone apparently are those familiar red chairs from which Osborne conducted so many interviews, replaced with something cream-colored. Other than that, I didn't pay particularly close attention to the rest of the set to note the other changes. I also couldn't find any articles on the Internet about it, or photos.

To be fair, the set probably did need some sort of touching up. High definition can be harsh on blemishes, and after al those years you'd think the set pieces would suffer wear and tear that would become noticeable on TV -- and that's something you definitely don't want. (If you've read this blog often enough, you'll know I also like game shows, and people who follow The Price is Right a lot more closely than I do would point out that several of their pricing games had to be refurbished for the change to high-definition.) The bigger surprise is that the change seems to have come in the middle of a month. I would have thought that Robert Osborne did all of his introductions for 31 Days of Oscar over one set of taping sessions, over about a week. This also would have given the set designers much more time to construct and install the new set, even if it's something they have to do every month -- surely TCM's sister channels use that space for something else during the rest of the month.