August 12: This Day in TV History

[Stanislav]

Just a few random TV related events that happened on August 12. Discuss or comment as you please……

1907: Actor/comedian/Stooge Joe Besser (The Abbott and Costello Show, The Joey Bishop Show) is born in St. Louis, Missouri.

1910: Actress Jane Wyatt (Father Knows Best) is born in Campgaw, New Jersey. Besides her many film roles and status as a classic TV icon for Father, she is also revered by Trekkies for her role as Spock’s human mother in the Star Trek episode “Journey to Babel,” and the film “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.”

1955: WTHS-TV begins operating as a share-time non-commercial station in Miami, Florida. The arrangement had the Dade County School Board airing several hours of instructional programming in the daytime, while the Community TV Foundation would broadcast 2-3 hours of programming in the evenings. (The station would shut down for several hours in-between the two programming blocks.) In the late 1970’s, the school board turned over the license to the CTF, and the station would adopt the new calls WPBT.

1956: CHLT-TV (channel 7) signs on in Sherbrooke, Quebec.

1956: WBIR-TV (channel 10) starts broadcasting in Knoxville, Tennessee as a CBS affiliate. They would swap affiliations with WKXT-TV (channel 8 ) in 1988, becoming an NBC outlet.

1956: KOTI-TV (channel 2) debuts in Klamath Falls, Oregon.

1980: KGWC-TV (channel 14) begins broadcasting in Casper, Wyoming. It is just the second full-power TV station in the western part of the state, signing on over 23 years after KTWO-TV (channel 2 in Casper).

2000: Actress Loretta Young dies in Los Angeles, aged 87.

(Just a little featurette I hope to do as time permits…..don’t expect it every single day. 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…..)

 

[Corky Marlowe]

1955: WTHS-TV begins operating as a share-time non-commercial station in Miami, Florida. The arrangement had the Dade County School Board airing several hours of instructional programming in the daytime, while the Community TV Foundation would broadcast 2-3 hours of programming in the evenings. (The station would shut down for several hours in-between the two programming blocks.) In the late 1970’s, the school board turned over the license to the CTF, and the station would adopt the new calls WPBT.
Is this the station that gave the world "Jack Horkheimer: Star Gazer"?

 

[Stanislav]

1955: WTHS-TV begins operating as a share-time non-commercial station in Miami, Florida. The arrangement had the Dade County School Board airing several hours of instructional programming in the daytime, while the Community TV Foundation would broadcast 2-3 hours of programming in the evenings. (The station would shut down for several hours in-between the two programming blocks.) In the late 1970’s, the school board turned over the license to the CTF, and the station would adopt the new calls WPBT.
Is this the station that gave the world "Jack Horkheimer: Star Gazer"?

The same.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

August 12, 1994--a sad day in sports history with significant effects on television:

1994: Major League Baseball players begin their strike, which would eventually result in the cancellation of the 1994 World Series (the first series cancellation in 90 years) and a three-week delay to begin the 1995 season.

 

[radioman148]

August 12, 1994--a sad day in sports history with significant effects on television:

1994: Major League Baseball players begin their strike, which would eventually result in the cancellation of the 1994 World Series (the first series cancellation in 90 years) and a three-week delay to begin the 1995 season.

A very big black eye for baseball.

 

[KML0224]

A lockout would also cancel the entire NHL season some 12 years later. I could only imagine what would happen if the Super Bowl was ever a no-show.

 

[Stanislav]

A lockout would also cancel the entire NHL season some 12 years later. I could only imagine what would happen if the Super Bowl was ever a no-show.

There would be rioting in the streets. It would be the end of civilization. ;D

The baseball strike and the cancellation of the Series really alienated a lot of fans. That's why, IMHO, baseball looked the other way when McGwire and Sosa started hitting ungodly numbers of home runs. The race to beat Maris' record helped revive the game's popularity, so allegations of steroid use were back-burnered. Of course, by the time Bonds was achieving even more unbelievable numbers, the cat was out of the bag, and the revelations of performance enhancing drugs fueling the offensive explosion started to piss off and turn off even more traditional fans. (I'm one of them -- I used to be quite the avid fan of the game -- now, outside of keeping an eye on my alma mater's college team, I have no passion for it, certainly not at the Major League level.)

I remember a very pointed editorial cartoon that ran when Bonds was closing in on the career HR record. It showed a man and his young son at the Hall of Fame, looking at the plaques of Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron.

"Wow," the boy inquires, "what kind of performance enhancers did THEY use?"

The father replies: "Talent."

 

[radioman148]

A lockout would also cancel the entire NHL season some 12 years later. I could only imagine what would happen if the Super Bowl was ever a no-show.

There would be rioting in the streets. It would be the end of civilization. ;D

The baseball strike and the cancellation of the Series really alienated a lot of fans. That's why, IMHO, baseball looked the other way when McGwire and Sosa started hitting ungodly numbers of home runs. The race to beat Maris' record helped revive the game's popularity, so allegations of steroid use were back-burnered. Of course, by the time Bonds was achieving even more unbelievable numbers, the cat was out of the bag, and the revelations of performance enhancing drugs fueling the offensive explosion started to piss off and turn off even more traditional fans. (I'm one of them -- I used to be quite the avid fan of the game -- now, outside of keeping an eye on my alma mater's college team, I have no passion for it, certainly not at the Major League level.)

I remember a very pointed editorial cartoon that ran when Bonds was closing in on the career HR record. It showed a man and his young son at the Hall of Fame, looking at the plaques of Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron.

"Wow," the boy inquires, "what kind of performance enhancers did THEY use?"

The father replies: "Talent."

You're exactly correct. Baseball looked the other way on steroids.

 

[mleach]

A lockout would also cancel the entire NHL season some 12 years later. I could only imagine what would happen if the Super Bowl was ever a no-show.

There would be rioting in the streets. It would be the end of civilization. ;D

The baseball strike and the cancellation of the Series really alienated a lot of fans. That's why, IMHO, baseball looked the other way when McGwire and Sosa started hitting ungodly numbers of home runs. The race to beat Maris' record helped revive the game's popularity, so allegations of steroid use were back-burnered. Of course, by the time Bonds was achieving even more unbelievable numbers, the cat was out of the bag, and the revelations of performance enhancing drugs fueling the offensive explosion started to piss off and turn off even more traditional fans. (I'm one of them -- I used to be quite the avid fan of the game -- now, outside of keeping an eye on my alma mater's college team, I have no passion for it, certainly not at the Major League level.)

I remember a very pointed editorial cartoon that ran when Bonds was closing in on the career HR record. It showed a man and his young son at the Hall of Fame, looking at the plaques of Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron.

"Wow," the boy inquires, "what kind of performance enhancers did THEY use?"

The father replies: "Talent."

I totally agree with you !!!!

Today pro-sports is much more about the money and how "sexy" the players look on camera and less about the actual game itself. Sadly this "trend" is slowing reaching down to other sports too, even in high school sports. About a year ago one of our local papers had published a photo of a local high school football player who was the "star quarterback" for his school. The photo showed this 16 year old sporting a full beard, shaved head, shirtless, very much inked up and down his arms ( as in lots of black tattoos ), wearing work boots, earrings in both ears and oh yes..he had a lit cigar in his mouth. Not too mention there was fog in the background as if this photo was shot at some Hollywood photo studio or whatever.The paper actualy got some heat for publishing this photo as some had considered the pic as "soft core".

..and oh yes, the coach even admitted that this guy wasnt much of a football player BUT he "looked good to the chicks !!".

Whatever happened to the days when it mattered more how well one plays the game and not so much (if at all ) how one looks good in front of cameras or what kind of enhancers they take?

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

August 12, 1994--a sad day in sports history with significant effects on television:

1994: Major League Baseball players begin their strike, which would eventually result in the cancellation of the 1994 World Series (the first series cancellation in 90 years) and a three-week delay to begin the 1995 season.

A very big black eye for baseball.

And the bitter irony of it all was that in late September 1994, shortly after that year's postseason was officially cancelled as a result of the strike, Ken Burns' "Baseball" series premiered on PBS. Unlike "The Civil War," I haven't seen "Baseball" shown in reruns on PBS (usually during pledge weeks or summers) ever since the summer of '95 on my then-local PBS station (WTVP Peoria, IL). Do you think Ken Burns' "Baseball" would be remembered as vividly as his "Civil War" had the former series NOT premiered during the midst of the '94 strike?

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

August 12, 1994--a sad day in sports history with significant effects on television:

1994: Major League Baseball players begin their strike, which would eventually result in the cancellation of the 1994 World Series (the first series cancellation in 90 years) and a three-week delay to begin the 1995 season.

A very big black eye for baseball.

And the bitter irony of it all was that in late September 1994, shortly after that year's postseason was officially cancelled as a result of the strike, Ken Burns' "Baseball" series premiered on PBS. Unlike "The Civil War," I haven't seen "Baseball" shown in reruns on PBS (usually during pledge weeks or summers) ever since the summer of '95 on my then-local PBS station (WTVP Peoria, IL). Do you think Ken Burns' "Baseball" would be remembered as vividly as his "Civil War" had the former series NOT premiered during the midst of the '94 strike?

Since my last post, I have seen "Baseball" repeated locally on one of my local PBS stations (WSEC Springfield) this past winter. And then "Tenth Inning" will be airing Sept. 28-29.