Just a few random TV related events that happened on April 6. Discuss or comment as you please……
1929: Actress Joi Lansing (The Bob Cummings Show a/k/a Love That Bob, Klondike, The Beverly Hillbillies [recurring role]) is born (as Joyce Rae Brown) in Salt Lake City, Utah.
1931: Actor/director Ivan Dixon (Hogan’s Heroes) is born in New York City.
1947: Actor John Ratzenberger (Cheers) is born in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
1950: RCA demonstrates its tricolor tube for FCC officials. Two receivers are used; one with three-gun, three-beam color kinescopes; the other with a single-beam switched color kinescope. RCA also demonstrates a newly developed method of transmitting the color signal over the narrow-band L-1 coaxial cable from Washington to New York and back
1954: Senator Joseph McCarthy, given the opportunity to respond to Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly’s scathing commentaries on him in previous editions of See It Now, uses his opportunity for rebuttal to attack Murrow. He accuses him (among other charges) of collusion with VOKS, a Soviet organization believed by Western officials to be a front for espionage and propaganda. He also calls Murrow “the cleverest of the jackal pack which is always found at the throat of anyone who dares to expose individual Communists and traitors.” McCarthy’s appearance does nothing positive for his image, and his “unfavorable” percentage in polls continues to grow.
1965: The world's first commercial (as opposed to experimental) communication satellite, Intelsat I (nicknamed “Early Bird”), is launched into synchronous orbit.
1970: WFIL-TV (channel 6, now WPVI-TV) premieres the “Action News” format, which would be copied by many other stations.
1972: After 12 seasons (5 on ABC, 7 on CBS), the final My Three Sons (episode #380) is broadcast.
1975: Actor Zach Braff (Scrubs) is born in South Orange, New Jersey.
1976: Actress Candice Cameron (Full House) is born in Los Angeles.
1985: Cover Up airs its final episode on CBS. The spy series never overcame mediocre ratings and the notoriety of co-star Jon-Erik Hexum’s tragic on-set death 6 months earlier. (He had been playing with a prop gun loaded with blanks when he jokingly put the weapon to his head and fired, apparently not realizing that even the wadding from a blank cartridge can be lethal at such close range.)
1987: Biography debuts on A&E.
1997: An ice storm brings down, for the second time in the station’s history, the transmitting tower of KXJB-TV (channel 4, Valley City/Fargo) in Trail County, North Dakota.
2008: Local TV personality Jean Daugherty dies, aged 84. She was known to Central New York baby boomer children as "The Play Lady" on the WHEN/WTVH (channel 5) children's program The Magic Toy Shop from 1955 to 1982. Ms. Daugherty wrote more than 6,000 episodes of the program which, at the time it ended its run, was the longest running local children's TV show in the country.
(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…..)
1929: Actress Joi Lansing (The Bob Cummings Show a/k/a Love That Bob, Klondike, The Beverly Hillbillies [recurring role]) is born (as Joyce Rae Brown) in Salt Lake City, Utah.
1931: Actor/director Ivan Dixon (Hogan’s Heroes) is born in New York City.
1947: Actor John Ratzenberger (Cheers) is born in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
1950: RCA demonstrates its tricolor tube for FCC officials. Two receivers are used; one with three-gun, three-beam color kinescopes; the other with a single-beam switched color kinescope. RCA also demonstrates a newly developed method of transmitting the color signal over the narrow-band L-1 coaxial cable from Washington to New York and back
1954: Senator Joseph McCarthy, given the opportunity to respond to Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly’s scathing commentaries on him in previous editions of See It Now, uses his opportunity for rebuttal to attack Murrow. He accuses him (among other charges) of collusion with VOKS, a Soviet organization believed by Western officials to be a front for espionage and propaganda. He also calls Murrow “the cleverest of the jackal pack which is always found at the throat of anyone who dares to expose individual Communists and traitors.” McCarthy’s appearance does nothing positive for his image, and his “unfavorable” percentage in polls continues to grow.
1965: The world's first commercial (as opposed to experimental) communication satellite, Intelsat I (nicknamed “Early Bird”), is launched into synchronous orbit.
1970: WFIL-TV (channel 6, now WPVI-TV) premieres the “Action News” format, which would be copied by many other stations.
1972: After 12 seasons (5 on ABC, 7 on CBS), the final My Three Sons (episode #380) is broadcast.
1975: Actor Zach Braff (Scrubs) is born in South Orange, New Jersey.
1976: Actress Candice Cameron (Full House) is born in Los Angeles.
1985: Cover Up airs its final episode on CBS. The spy series never overcame mediocre ratings and the notoriety of co-star Jon-Erik Hexum’s tragic on-set death 6 months earlier. (He had been playing with a prop gun loaded with blanks when he jokingly put the weapon to his head and fired, apparently not realizing that even the wadding from a blank cartridge can be lethal at such close range.)
1987: Biography debuts on A&E.
1997: An ice storm brings down, for the second time in the station’s history, the transmitting tower of KXJB-TV (channel 4, Valley City/Fargo) in Trail County, North Dakota.
2008: Local TV personality Jean Daugherty dies, aged 84. She was known to Central New York baby boomer children as "The Play Lady" on the WHEN/WTVH (channel 5) children's program The Magic Toy Shop from 1955 to 1982. Ms. Daugherty wrote more than 6,000 episodes of the program which, at the time it ended its run, was the longest running local children's TV show in the country.
(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…..)