April 26: This Day in TV History

[Stanislav]

Just a few random TV related events that happened on April 26. Discuss or comment as you please……

1931: Experimental TV station W2XCR (owned by General Broadcasting System's WGBS radio) begins regular broadcasts New York City with a special demonstration set up in Aeolian Hall. Thousands wait to catch a glimpse of Broadway stars who appeared on the six-inch square image, in an event to publicize the station’s four-hour daily broadcasts.

1933: Comedienne Carol Burnett is born in San Antonio, Texas.

1955: Bishop Fulton Sheen hosts the last episode of Live is Worth Living to be broadcast on the dying DuMont network. The show would subsequently move to ABC.

1965: Actor Kevin James (The King of Queens) is born (as Kevin George Knipfing) in Stony Brook, New York.

1973: Actress Irene Ryan (The Beverly Hillbillies) dies of a stroke in New York City, aged 70.

1981: Actor Jim Davis (Dallas) dies due to multiple myeloma in Northridge, California, aged 71.

1986: Actor Broderick Crawford (Highway Patrol) dies in Rancho Mirage, California, after suffering a stroke, aged 74.

1988: China Beach premieres on ABC.

1989: Actress Lucille Ball dies due to a ruptured aorta in Los Angeles, aged 77.

(Just a little featurette I hope to do as time permits. It’s an entirely random selection based on a quick Net search, and is not meant to be comprehensive. So, don’t post nasty messages about “you forgot THIS” or “how could you not mention THAT?” Do so, and I’ll just take my keyboard and go home…..)

 

[landtuna]

1973: Actress Irene Ryan (The Beverly Hillbillies) dies of a stroke in New York City, aged 70.
1981: Actor Jim Davis (Dallas) dies due to multiple myeloma in Northridge, California, aged 71.
1986: Actor Broderick Crawford (Highway Patrol) dies in Rancho Mirage, California, after suffering a stroke, aged 74.
1989: Actress Lucille Ball dies due to a ruptured aorta in Los Angeles, aged 77.

Good Heavens! Not a good day for actors.

BTW, Jim Davis was the lead in the TV series Tales of the Century back in the 50's.

 

[bpatrick]

I'll never forget the day Irene Ryan died. I was
a senior in high school, and my dad came home
and said, "Granny died." Now I always called my
maternal grandmother "Granny," and she had died
in December 1972, so I had to stop and ask myself
who he was talking about. Then it hit me. In an
odd way, Irene Ryan's death was like losing a grandmother;
I liked her that much on "The Beverly Hillbillies" when I
was a kid and still think she was the spark that made
that show go.

 

[radioman148]

>>1986: Actor Broderick Crawford (Highway Patrol) dies in Rancho Mirage, California, after suffering a stroke, aged 74>>

"10-4"

 

[wbhist]

1974: And then there was one: New York station WNBC-TV's daily afternoon movie show, Movie 4, comes to an end after a nearly 18-year run. The last film to be shown on Movie 4 was the 1960 version of The Time Machine with Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux. For most of its run, Movie 4 was generally considered an also-ran to WCBS-TV's weekday The Early Show and (until the mid-1960's) weekend The Late Show, this despite airing anywhere from hundreds to thousands of top-rank films over the years (for example, the Gary Cooper Western High Noon and John Wayne romantic comedy/drama The Quiet Man had their New York TV debut on Movie 4 in 1958; the latter was one of the first color films to be shown in color on New York TV). In recent years, however, Movie 4 fell to last place, due to a combination of competition from The Mike Douglas Show on WCBS-TV and WABC-TV's The 4:30 Movie, and WNBC's own ratings woes throughout much of the 1970's. The end for Movie 4 came due to WNBC's decision to launch a two-hour newscast that premiered on April 29, 1974 as NewsCenter4. (At 4:30 beginning that day, the lead-in was Room 222 reruns.) This leaves WABC's 4:30 Movie as the only late afternoon movie show on any of the network O&O's (WCBS cancelled its weekday Early Show in 1968 and put Mr. Douglas in its place).

 

[wbhist]

1931: Experimental TV station W2XCR (owned by General Broadcasting System's WGBS radio) begins regular broadcasts New York City with a special demonstration set up in Aeolian Hall. Thousands wait to catch a glimpse of Broadway stars who appeared on the six-inch square image, in an event to publicize the station’s four-hour daily broadcasts.

This would have been before the Hearst media empire purchased WGBS radio and changed its calls to the current WINS (which was named after Hearst's International News Service - which in 1958 merged with the United Press to become United Press International).

 

[Ultimajock]

1974: And then there was one: New York station WNBC-TV's daily afternoon movie show, Movie 4, comes to an end after a nearly 18-year run. The last film to be shown on Movie 4 was the 1960 version of The Time Machine with Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux. For most of its run, Movie 4 was generally considered an also-ran to WCBS-TV's weekday The Early Show and (until the mid-1960's) weekend The Late Show, this despite airing anywhere from hundreds to thousands of top-rank films over the years (for example, the Gary Cooper Western High Noon and John Wayne romantic comedy/drama The Quiet Man had their New York TV debut on Movie 4 in 1958; the latter was one of the first color films to be shown in color on New York TV). In recent years, however, Movie 4 fell to last place, due to a combination of competition from The Mike Douglas Show on WCBS-TV and WABC-TV's The 4:30 Movie, and WNBC's own ratings woes throughout much of the 1970's. The end for Movie 4 came due to WNBC's decision to launch a two-hour newscast that premiered on April 29, 1974 as NewsCenter4. (At 4:30 beginning that day, the lead-in was Room 222 reruns.) This leaves WABC's 4:30 Movie as the only late afternoon movie show on any of the network O&O's (WCBS cancelled its weekday Early Show in 1968 and put Mr. Douglas in its place).

...I believe Douglas was grabbed by WCBS-TV from WOR-TV/9; I have some old Jean Shepherd WOR Radio programs from the mid-'60s containing promos for Douglas' WOR-TV runs, one of which had WOR Radio alumni Bob & Ray as guest hosts for the week...

 

[wbhist]

...I believe Douglas was grabbed by WCBS-TV from WOR-TV/9; I have some old Jean Shepherd WOR Radio programs from the mid-'60s containing promos for Douglas' WOR-TV runs, one of which had WOR Radio alumni Bob & Ray as guest hosts for the week...

He was indeed stolen from Ch. 9, in 1968. The ultimate irony came after Group W replaced Mr. Douglas with John Davidson in 1980, and WCBS-TV initially ran The John Davidson Show in Mr. Douglas' old time slot which was prior to the 6 P.M. news; by 1981 WOR-TV got the show (albeit with the newer host) back. (Mr. Douglas went to a different production company, I.I.N.M., after Group W dumped him, and WCBS aired his new outing in the mornings.)

But the upshot was Movie 4, which I seem to recall had a degree of success prior to 1968 but was up to that time always in the shadow of WCBS-TV's "skeins," and that the combo of Douglas, WABC's 4:30 Movie and WNBC's worsening early 1970's ratings performance helped sink it, would I be correct in that presumption? Certainly after Movie 4 left the air, this pretty much ended WNBC's run as a movie showcase.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

1977: Actor Thomas John Patrick ("Tom") Welling (Smallville) is born in New York.

 

[wbhist]

But the upshot was Movie 4, which I seem to recall had a degree of success prior to 1968 but was up to that time always in the shadow of WCBS-TV's "skeins," and that the combo of Douglas, WABC's 4:30 Movie and WNBC's worsening early 1970's ratings performance helped sink it, would I be correct in that presumption? Certainly after Movie 4 left the air, this pretty much ended WNBC's run as a movie showcase.

I have a few other tidbits: Another thing that sank Movie 4's reputation (and may have hurt the ratings of its 6 P.M. newscasts after 1968) was its penchant, during the mid-to-late 1960's, to run ancient (i.e. pre-1948) films that had run on the other New York area stations (WCBS, WNEW, WABC, WOR, WPIX - and yes, even Channel 13 during its years as commercial WATV/WNTA-TV) aforehand. This reputation stuck, even with the station's modernization of its film library with part of the 'MGM/7' package and the post-1960 Universal features, to such an extent that it was even mentioned in a 1970 New York magazine article about the local news ratings wars at 6 P.M. among WCBS, WNBC and WABC. This reputation may well have explained WNBC, in 1966 when they resumed airing "first-run" recent films on the weekend, titling such a program the Saturday Film Festival. At Movie 4's 1957-64 zenith, it was somewhat of a poor man's Late Show; in its last years especially, it seemed to have become an even poorer man's 4:30 Movie.

And while the weekday Movie 4 ended on this day in 1974, I've since found (from old TV listings in the Daily Register of Monmouth County, NJ) that the title itself remained for occasional weekend afternoon movie showings through about 1977, when it and other "franchise" titles (The Great Great Show and Sunday Film Festival) were all retired and folded into one single solitary Cinema 4 banner.

 

[Corky Marlowe]

1965: Actor Kevin James (The King of Queens) is born (as Kevin George Knipfing) in Stony Brook, New York.

Ah, another real name to remember.

1973: Actress Irene Ryan (The Beverly Hillbillies) dies of a stroke in New York City, aged 70.

Didn't she die just after a performance of the Broadway show in which she was appearing? ("Pippin", I think.)

1986: Actor Broderick Crawford (Highway Patrol) dies in Rancho Mirage, California, after suffering a stroke, aged 74.

My mom used to call him "Old Obble-Obble", because she thought that's what it sounded like when he'd bark out orders on "Highway Patrol".

 

[Ultimajock]

1973: Actress Irene Ryan (The Beverly Hillbillies) dies of a stroke in New York City, aged 70.

Didn't she die just after a performance of the Broadway show in which she was appearing? ("Pippin", I think.)

...actually, she suffered the stroke during the performance of Pippin (the hit song out of which was, ironically, "Corner of the Sky") and died a few days later...