April 28: This Day in TV History

[Stanislav]

Just a few random TV related events that happened on April 28. Discuss or comment as you please……

1930: Actress Carolyn Jones (The Addams Family) is born in Amarillo, Texas.

1948: Actress Marcia Strassman (Welcome Back, Kotter) is born in New York City.

1949: Actor Paul Guilfoyle (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation) is born in Canton, Massachusetts.

1950: Comedian Jay Leno (The Tonight Show) is born in Andover, Massachusetts.

1955: WBIQ-TV (channel 10) launches in Birmingham, Alabama, the second in a series of stations that would comprise Alabama Educational Television, later Alabama Public Television (APT).

1956: WDMJ-TV (channel 6, now WLUC-TV) begins broadcasting in Marquette, Michigan, the Upper Peninsula’s first TV station.

1957: WSOC-TV (channel 9) signs on in Charlotte, North Carolina.

1958: NBC dedicates the $1.5 million Videotape Central at its Burbank facilities. The setup includes one RCA color video tape recorder and eight Ampex black-and-white VTRs. The facility is used primarily for multiple time-zone delay. (Videotape was not yet generally used for routine production/pre-recording of shows.)

1959: KLOE-TV (channel 10, now KBSL-TV) begins operations in Goodland, Kansas. Studios are initially co-located in the same tiny building as sister AM station KLOE (730 kHz) – the building is expanded vertically by a half-story to accommodate TV lighting.

1959: KPLR-TV (channel 11) goes on-air in St. Louis, Missouri, the first independent TV station in the state.

1959: Arthur Godfrey and His Friends ends a decade-long run on CBS.

1962: Taiwan Television Enterprise, Ltd. (commonly known as TTV) begins operating that country’s first TV station.

1965: My Name Is Barbra, Barbra Streisand's first TV special, airs on CBS. The special is broadcast in conjunction with the release of Streisand's fifth studio album (also titled “My Name Is Barbra”).

1967: Actress Kari Wührer (Swamp Thing, Sliders) is born in Brookfield, Connecticut.

1973: Actress Elisabeth Röhm (Angel, Law & Order) is born in Düsseldorf, Germany. (Nope, not another Army Brat – her parents are Germans who emigrated to the U.S. before her first birthday.)

1975: Tom Snyder interviews John Lennon on The Tomorrow Show. It would be the increasingly reclusive Lennon’s last televised interview. (The show would also be replayed in December 1980 as a tribute to Lennon following his murder.)

1981: Actress Jessica Alba (Dark Angel) is born in Pomona, California.

1996: Dexter’s Laboratory premieres on Cartoon Network.

(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…..)

 

[KML0224]

Check your Jay Leno stats...I think he was born in New Rochelle, NY.

 

[Stanislav]

Check your Jay Leno stats...I think he was born in New Rochelle, NY.

My bad...grew up in Andover, but born in New Rochelle.

 

[WMC2006]

1967: Actress Kari Wührer (Swamp Thing, Sliders) is born in Brookfield, Connecticut.

But her first big break came as co-host of MTV's Remote Control in 1987. Nothing like seeing Kari in a bikini during MTV's Daytona Beach spring break coverage.

 

[Ultimajock]

1967: Actress Kari Wührer (Swamp Thing, Sliders) is born in Brookfield, Connecticut.

But her first big break came as co-host of MTV's Remote Control in 1987. Nothing like seeing Kari in a bikini during MTV's Daytona Beach spring break coverage.

...Wührer didn't join Remote Control until late in 1988. At the time of the show's first Spring Break tapings, it was Marisol Massey http://imagecache.allposters.com/images/pic/MMPH/265596~Marisol-Massey-Posters.jpg who was the spokesmodel on the show. (And where the hell did she head off to?)...

 

[WMC2006]

I don't know where she went but Kari was the only one of the 5 women to last more than one season. Susan Ashley from the 5th season was my 2nd fave after Kari.

 

[wbhist]

1958: NBC dedicates the $1.5 million Videotape Central at its Burbank facilities. The setup includes one RCA color video tape recorder and eight Ampex black-and-white VTRs. The facility is used primarily for multiple time-zone delay. (Videotape was not yet generally used for routine production/pre-recording of shows.)

Of course, the production of An Evening with Fred Astaire just a few months later changed all that . . .

 

[Stanislav]

1958: NBC dedicates the $1.5 million Videotape Central at its Burbank facilities. The setup includes one RCA color video tape recorder and eight Ampex black-and-white VTRs. The facility is used primarily for multiple time-zone delay. (Videotape was not yet generally used for routine production/pre-recording of shows.)

Of course, the production of An Evening with Fred Astaire just a few months later changed all that . . .

Well, that was one of the first shows where they both pre-recorded and edited with tape as an integral part of the production of the program, as opposed to just from time-shifting purposes. (For instance, the opening montage used preview clips from the upcoming segments of the program.) But it was several more years before the practice was common -- I think Parr started producing his show on tape around '60, and Truth or Consequences around that same time, to name two early ones. The Ford Show, too, about that same time. Probably a few others I can't think of at the moment. And it would be several more years before soaps started routinely pre-taping, and even then early on it was pretty much just putting a more or less "live" run-through on tape for convenience -- no complicated editing or fancy special effects. It was Kovacs in his ABC specials who really pushed the envelope on what was possible to do with videotape -- he used massive amounts of edits (physically cutting and pasting the actual tape back then) and did special effects that no one else had tried with tape.

 

[radioman148]

1958: NBC dedicates the $1.5 million Videotape Central at its Burbank facilities. The setup includes one RCA color video tape recorder and eight Ampex black-and-white VTRs. The facility is used primarily for multiple time-zone delay. (Videotape was not yet generally used for routine production/pre-recording of shows.)

Of course, the production of An Evening with Fred Astaire just a few months later changed all that . . .

Well, that was one of the first shows where they both pre-recorded and edited with tape as an integral part of the production of the program, as opposed to just from time-shifting purposes. (For instance, the opening montage used preview clips from the upcoming segments of the program.) But it was several more years before the practice was common -- I think Parr started producing his show on tape around '60, and Truth or Consequences around that same time, to name two early ones. The Ford Show, too, about that same time. Probably a few others I can't think of at the moment. And it would be several more years before soaps started routinely pre-taping, and even then early on it was pretty much just putting a more or less "live" run-through on tape for convenience -- no complicated editing or fancy special effects. It was Kovacs in his ABC specials who really pushed the envelope on what was possible to do with videotape -- he used massive amounts of edits (physically cutting and pasting the actual tape back then) and did special effects that no one else had tried with tape.

Kovacs was a genius.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

1982: English TV personality Nikki Grahame (Big Brother 7) is born in Watford, England.