December 4: This Day in TV History

[Stanislav]

Just a few random TV related events that happened on December 4. Discuss or comment as you please……

1934: Game show host Wink Martindale (Gambit, High Rollers, Tic Tac Dough) is born (as Winston Conrad Martindale) in Jackson, Tennessee.

1937: Actor Max Baer, Jr. (The Beverly Hillbillies) is born in Oakland, California.

1949: KPHO-TV (channel 5) begins broadcasting as Phoenix, Arizona’s first TV station. The station would enjoy a monopoly in the market for 3 ½ years, until KTYL-TV (now KPNX) signed on.

1951: Actress Patricia Wettig (thirtysomething) is born in Grove City, Pennsylvania.

1966: KETS (channel 2) signs on in Little Rock, Arkansas, the first educational station in the state.

1973: Model and talk show host Tyra Banks is born in Inglewood, California.

1975: Grady, the short-lived Sanford and Son spin-off, premieres on NBC.

1981: Falcon Crest debuts on CBS.

(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…..)

 

[bpatrick]

1961: The daytime version of the game show "Yours
For A Song" debuts on ABC (the nighttime show had
started Nov. 14). I mention this because it's the last
game show Bert Parks emceed, unless you count the
"Hollywood Squares" pilot. After that he did some
acting, hosted the syndicated show "Circus!", and
mostly did the Miss America Pageant until he was fired
in 1979. "Yours For A Song" lasted until March 29, 1963.

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

Patricia Wettig spent a part of her life around the Greater Cincinnati area. Her father, Cliff, was a teacher and coach at Milford High School, just east of the city. He later went on to coach at several colleges in the East and South before passing away in 1981.

 

[landtuna]

"1949: KPHO-TV (channel 5) begins broadcasting as Phoenix, Arizona’s first TV station. The station would enjoy a monopoly in the market for 3 ½ years, until KTYL-TV (now KPNX) signed on."

It still does......(KPHO = CBS, KPNX = NBC) ;D

 

[Charles1]

Patricia Wettig spent a part of her life around the Greater Cincinnati area. Her father, Cliff, was a teacher and coach at Milford High School, just east of the city. He later went on to coach at several colleges in the East and South before passing away in 1981.

Cliff Wettig was the head basketball coach at my alma mater, Samford University, in Birmingham, at the time of his death.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

1934: Game show host Wink Martindale (Gambit, High Rollers, Tic Tac Dough) is born (as Winston Conrad Martindale) in Jackson, Tennessee.

He also is remembered for his rendition of the spoken-word 1959 song, "Deck of Cards" which made it to #7 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Wink made his first TV appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show" that year reciting "Deck of Cards." It is on YouTube at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKgVQdBLbHs&feature=related

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

1931: Television personality and commentator Wally George (nee George Walter Pearch; d. Oct. 7, 2003) is born in Oakland, CA. He is best known for hosting "Hot Seat" on KDOC-56 in Anaheim, and as a commentator on the short-lived "Rollergames" revival (1989).

 

[LKellerIII]

1931: Television personality and commentator Wally George (nee George Walter Pearch; d. Oct. 7, 2003) is born in Oakland, CA. He is best known for hosting "Hot Seat" on KDOC-56 in Anaheim, and as a commentator on the short-lived "Rollergames" revival (1989).

Wally was a wing-nut, and a derivative one at that, basically copying the right-wing talk format pioneered by Joe Pyne about 20 years earlier - only with much more screaming -and copied much more expertly by Morton Downey Jr. Wally George continued to do his low class show well past its sell by date...what was that thing growing on his face toward the end?

Notably - he's the birth father of actor Rebecca De Mornay, from whom he was estranged, and who, not surprisingly, considered him a nut job.

 

[Ultimajock]

1931: Television personality and commentator Wally George (nee George Walter Pearch; d. Oct. 7, 2003) is born in Oakland, CA. He is best known for hosting "Hot Seat" on KDOC-56 in Anaheim, and as a commentator on the short-lived "Rollergames" revival (1989).

Wally was a wing-nut, and a derivative one at that, basically copying the right-wing talk format pioneered by Joe Pyne about 20 years earlier - only with much more screaming -and copied much more expertly by Morton Downey Jr. Wally George continued to do his low class show well past its sell by date...what was that thing growing on his face toward the end?

Notably - he's the birth father of actor Rebecca De Mornay, from whom he was estranged, and who, not surprisingly, considered him a nut job.

...at least Mort, in his later years, 'fessed up to the sham he pulled with The Morton Downey Jr. Show and called it a crock. Both TMDJS and Hot Seat were "talk wrestling," lots of heat/lots of contrived angles/damned little light; at least The Joe Pyne Show and Barry Farber's two late '70s-early '80s syndicated shows had legitimate information to dispense inbetween the insults...

 

[wbhist]

1961: The daytime version of the game show "Yours For A Song" debuts on ABC (the nighttime show had
started Nov. 14). I mention this because it's the last game show Bert Parks emceed, unless you count the
"Hollywood Squares" pilot. After that he did some acting, hosted the syndicated show "Circus!", and
mostly did the Miss America Pageant until he was fired in 1979. "Yours For A Song" lasted until March 29, 1963.

And as mentioned somewhere else, Yours for a Song exclusively used tunes in the public domain with which to stump contestants, owing to ABC's precarious financial condition in those days. Its producer, Harry Salter, was also the original producer of Name That Tune, and was musical director of Stop the Music which Parks had hosted in the late 1940's.