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December 8: This Day in TV History

S

Stanislav

Just a few random TV related events that happened on December 8. Discuss or comment as you please……

1925: Sammy Davis, Jr. is born in Harlem, New York.

1936: Actor David Carradine (Kung Fu) is born (as John Arthur Carradine) in Hollywood, California.

1953: WOOD-TV (Grand Rapids, Michigan) moves from channel 7 to channel 8 to alleviate interference with WBKB-TV (now WLS-TV) in Chicago.

1953: Comedian Sam Kinison is born in Yakima, Washington.

1954: WIRI (channel 5, now WPTZ-TV) begins broadcasting in Plattsburgh (North Pole), New York.

1960: For the 3rd time (previously in 1954 and 1956), Mary Martin stars in an NBC-TV production of “Peter Pan.” However, this version is recorded on color videotape, enabling the special to be rebroadcast on the network several times over the next 13 years. (It also would turn up on the Disney Channel in 1989, and has been released on VHS and DVD.)

1961: Political commentator Ann Coulter is born in New York City.

1964: Actress Teri Hatcher (Lois & Clark, Desperate Housewives) is born in Palo Alto, Caliornia.

1968: A 90-minute musical version of Carlo Collodi's classic story “Pinocchio” airs on NBC. Peter Noone, lead singer of Herman's Hermits, plays Pinocchio and Burl Ives is cast as Geppetto.

1980: Musician John Lennon, 40, is gunned down in the entranceway of The Dakota in New York City by Mark David Chapman. Rushed to the hospital, he is pronounced Dead on Arrival. The news first hits U.S. TV network airwaves when sportscaster Howard Cosell announces Lennon’s death during an ABC broadcast of a Monday Night Football game between the Miami Dolphins and the New England Patriots.

1991: Tim Russert takes over as moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press, a position he would hold until his death on June 13, 2008 (longer than any other moderator in the show’s history).

1996: Actor Howard Rollins (In the Heat of the Night) dies in New York City of complications from lymphoma, aged 46.

(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…..) ;)
 
And it's now official: David Gregory, to no one's
surprise, is the new permanent host of "Meet
The Press." Since he's only 38, he could very
well surpass Russert in longevity.
 
Stanislav said:
1980: Musician John Lennon, 40, is gunned down in the entranceway of The Dakota in New York City by Mark David Chapman. Rushed to the hospital, he is pronounced Dead on Arrival. The news first hits U.S. TV network airwaves when sportscaster Howard Cosell announces Lennon’s death during an ABC broadcast of a Monday Night Football game between the Miami Dolphins and the New England Patriots.
Click to expand...

...Cosell's announcement was the first on broadcast TV; Kathleen Sullivan had an earlier bulletin on CNN announcing Lennon had been shot (but his condition was unknown at the time)...
 
Ultimajock said:
Stanislav said:
1980: Musician John Lennon, 40, is gunned down in the entranceway of The Dakota in New York City by Mark David Chapman. Rushed to the hospital, he is pronounced Dead on Arrival. The news first hits U.S. TV network airwaves when sportscaster Howard Cosell announces Lennon’s death during an ABC broadcast of a Monday Night Football game between the Miami Dolphins and the New England Patriots.
Click to expand...

...Cosell's announcement was the first on broadcast TV; Kathleen Sullivan had an earlier bulletin on CNN announcing Lennon had been shot (but his condition was unknown at the time)...
Click to expand...

Here's the clip from YouTube of Cosell's announcement of Lennon's death:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H9LoPfFaxA

For the record, Miami defeated New England on that tragic Dec. 8, 1980--16-13 in overtime.

Here's also an aircheck of WBBM-2 Chicago's "The 10 O'Clock News" covering the Lennon assassination--from the following evening, Dec. 9:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo9lgWxjjx0
 
Does anyone know what time (E.S.T., I'm assuming here) it was when Lennon's death was announced? I'm trying to determine how long it was from then until I heard an announcement on the radio (WLS, I think). I'm not a football fan, so I would not have been watching Monday Night Football. But I recall listening to a side of a Beatles album that evening, then turning on the radio and hearing the news.

21 years later, I was listening to a Beatles CD (times change!) then later heard on our network news that George Harrison had died. (I was board op-ing at the station that I was working for at the time.)
 
Stanislav said:
1953: WOOD-TV (Grand Rapids, Michigan) moves from channel 7 to channel 8 to alleviate interference with WBKB-TV (now WLS-TV) in Chicago.
Click to expand...

It's ironic that WOOD-TV went back to channel 7 during the digital transition, and stay on that channel after June 12th. Meanwhile, WLS-TV went back to channel 7 for digital, due to 52 being out-of-core, and didn't request a different channel earlier. While WLS-TV is still on channel 7, they added channel 44 for those who can't get them on channel 7. Since WLS-TV's channel 7 is now a translator, they can't interfere with WOOD-TV, but have to accept interference. Whether each other's stations were interfering each other is unknown, or if they're interfering with each other now.
 
2009: CBS announces the cancellation of As The World Turns with a set date of September 17, 2010 as it's final episode. A year minus a day after Guiding Light was canned.
 
dustintv said:
2009: CBS announces the cancellation of As The World Turns with a set date of September 17, 2010 as it's final episode. A year minus a day after Guiding Light was canned.
Click to expand...

Can't believe it's now been a year since we heard that sad news.
 
On "Mike & Mike In The Morning" this morning there was
a piece of videotape shot during a commercial break on
"MNF" the night John Lennon was murdered. Frank Gifford
and Howard Cosell were discussing whether or not to announce
what had happened; Cosell said something to the effect that he
would try to work it in after the next play.

BTW, Cosell and Lennon were close friends; for the premiere
of "Saturday Night Live With Howard Cosell" the Toupeed One
wanted Lennon to come on and introduce the Bay City Rollers.
Yoko Ono was pregnant at the time and Lennon had gone into
seclusion, turning Cosell down.

A totally unrelated event on Dec. 8: In 1941 WCBW (now WCBS)
broadcast the audio of President Franklin Roosevelt's speech asking
Congress for a declaration of war against Japan. Since there was
no CBS television network as such, there was no way to get live
pictures so Ch. 2 put up an American flag, then turned on a fan so
it would appear to be waving in the breeze.
 
That evening, NBC television did an audio only bulletin over a "special report" slide, interrupting the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson to announce the shooting of John Lennon. Anyone know what CBS did that night?
 
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