MBarnum, here is the link to Museum of Television and Radio.
http://www.mtr.org/Here are the hours:
The Museum is open Tuesdays to Sundays from 12:00 to 6:00 p.m. and Thursday evenings until 8:00 p.m. The Museum is closed on Mondays and New Year's Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
It costs $10 for admission.
Unfortunately, you don't have unlimited time at the Museum. If you're a non-member you can only watch (if I recall correctly) 2 hours worth of material. More info from the Web site:
Choosing a Program from the Collection
Access to information on the Museum's vast collection is literally at your fingertips in the Library. (You must make a reservation to use the Library at the lobby front desk when you arrive.)
Using a Macintosh computer, you search the database for the television or radio program of your choice. A Visitor Services staff person will be glad to assist you at any time!
When you find a program you want, you reserve it and then go to a console room, where you watch or listen to the program at a monitor with headphones.The museum is a wonderful place but it's not as supported as one would think for such a valuable resource. They have just announced a cutback in staff and hours and although they have Macs for searching they were (at least when I was there last) not current Macs running the latest software. The database in which you search is somewhat clumsy AND even though they have thousands of hours of material, they don't have everything. Don't be surprised if you look for something and it's not there. The staff is very nice and willing to help but they are understaffed and sometimes overwhelmed with requests. Keep that in mind. Also, the viewing equipment is not state-of-the-art either. Everything is on videotape so there are some pieces which are not in great viewing shape.
There is a large room right off the entrance where material is played all day. The material is related to whatever the exhibition or series being mounted at that time. You can enter that room and stay for as long as you like. When we went the Muppets were on exhibition so we saw some great Henson/Muppet stuff.
The Web site doesn't give you a lot of information and you can't search their database from the Web site (unfortunately) but you should be able to glean something from looking at it.
All that being said, I think a trip to the Museum of Television and Radio is a great event and you'll have a wonderful time.