Just a few random TV related events that happened on April 9. Discuss or comment as you please……
1932: Musician Carl Perkins is born in Tiptonville, Tennessee.
1935: Comedian/actor Avery Schreiber (My Mother the Car, The Burns and Schreiber Comedy Hour) is born in Chicago.
1953: WHYN-TV (channel 53) signs on in Springfield, Massachusetts. The station would move to channel 40 in 1959, and change calls to the present WGGB-TV in 1979.
1954: WMFD-TV (channel 6, later WECT) begins broadcasting in Wilmington, North Carolina.
1955: WTVI (channel 54, Belleville, Illinois) crosses the Mighty Mississippi to be reborn as KTVI (channel 36) in St. Louis, Missouri. Two years later, the station would take a longer trip (frequency-wise) down the dial to channel 2.
1963: News commentator and former congressman Joe Scarborough (Morning Joe) is born in Atlanta, Georgia.
1965: Actor Mark Pellegrino (Dexter, Grey’s Anatomy) is born in Los Angeles.
1965: Television executive Jeff Zucker is born in Homestead, Florida.
1974: The new “Peanuts” special It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown premieres on CBS.
1979: Actress Keisha Knight Pulliam (The Cosby Show, Tyler Perry's House of Payne) is born in Newark, New Jersey.
1979: WRLP-TV (channel 32) in Greenfield, Massachusetts goes dark after 22 years on the air, most of those as a satellite of WWLP (channel 22) in Springfield. The station’s interesting history can be found in its page at The UHF Morgue.
1980: The Madison Square Garden Network changes its name to USA Network after the ownership structure is reorganized.
1996: Actor/comedian/voice artist/children’s show host Sandy Becker dies of a heart attack in Remsenburg, New York, aged 74. (One of my personal TV heroes growing up...never missed his show on WNEW-TV. One thing I always admired about Sandy is that he never patronized his juvenile audience or talked down to them; he related to them as fellow human beings that just happened to be smaller and younger than he.)
(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…..)
1932: Musician Carl Perkins is born in Tiptonville, Tennessee.
1935: Comedian/actor Avery Schreiber (My Mother the Car, The Burns and Schreiber Comedy Hour) is born in Chicago.
1953: WHYN-TV (channel 53) signs on in Springfield, Massachusetts. The station would move to channel 40 in 1959, and change calls to the present WGGB-TV in 1979.
1954: WMFD-TV (channel 6, later WECT) begins broadcasting in Wilmington, North Carolina.
1955: WTVI (channel 54, Belleville, Illinois) crosses the Mighty Mississippi to be reborn as KTVI (channel 36) in St. Louis, Missouri. Two years later, the station would take a longer trip (frequency-wise) down the dial to channel 2.
1963: News commentator and former congressman Joe Scarborough (Morning Joe) is born in Atlanta, Georgia.
1965: Actor Mark Pellegrino (Dexter, Grey’s Anatomy) is born in Los Angeles.
1965: Television executive Jeff Zucker is born in Homestead, Florida.
1974: The new “Peanuts” special It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown premieres on CBS.
1979: Actress Keisha Knight Pulliam (The Cosby Show, Tyler Perry's House of Payne) is born in Newark, New Jersey.
1979: WRLP-TV (channel 32) in Greenfield, Massachusetts goes dark after 22 years on the air, most of those as a satellite of WWLP (channel 22) in Springfield. The station’s interesting history can be found in its page at The UHF Morgue.
1980: The Madison Square Garden Network changes its name to USA Network after the ownership structure is reorganized.
1996: Actor/comedian/voice artist/children’s show host Sandy Becker dies of a heart attack in Remsenburg, New York, aged 74. (One of my personal TV heroes growing up...never missed his show on WNEW-TV. One thing I always admired about Sandy is that he never patronized his juvenile audience or talked down to them; he related to them as fellow human beings that just happened to be smaller and younger than he.)
(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…..)