February 17: This Day in TV History

[Stanislav]

Just a few random TV related events that happened on February 17. Discuss or comment as you please……

1908: Sportscaster Red Barber is born (as Walter Lanier Barber) in Columbus, Mississippi.

1935: Actress Christina Pickles (St. Elsewhere) is born in Yorkshire, England.

1944: Actress Patricia Morrow (Peyton Place, Return to Peyton Place) is born in Los Angeles.

1956: The Midlands becomes the first part of the U.K. outside London to receive ITV programming.

1955: KTVF (channel 11) begins broadcasting in Fairbanks, Alaska. (Some sources give a sign-on date of February 3, perhaps for testing only.)

1958: Georgia’s first public TV station WETV (channel 30, now WPBA) signs on in Atlanta.

1970: The pilot episode of McCloud airs on NBC. It would become a regular series the following fall as part of Four in One.

1981: Professional bimbo Paris Hilton is born in New York City.

1997: The Monkees (all four of ‘em) make their first TV appearance in almost 28 years, with the ABC special Hey, Hey, It’s the Monkees. Their last joint TV appearance was in the 1969 NBC special 33⅓ Revolutions Per Monkee.

(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…..)

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

Good to see a mention of Red Barber. His first baseball broadcast came on opening day in 1934 (April 17, 1934) in Cincinnati on WSAI 1360-AM. It was also the first major league baseball game he had ever seen. In that game, Chicago Cubs pitcher Lon Warneke held the Reds hitless until one out in the ninth inning. He then gave up a single before retiring the next two batters for a 4-0 Cubs victory. At that time, WSAI, like WLW and the Reds, was owned by Powell Crosley.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

Good to see a mention of Red Barber. His first baseball broadcast came on opening day in 1934 (April 17, 1934) in Cincinnati on WSAI 1360-AM. It was also the first major league baseball game he had ever seen. In that game, Chicago Cubs pitcher Lon Warneke held the Reds hitless until one out in the ninth inning. He then gave up a single before retiring the next two batters for a 4-0 Cubs victory. At that time, WSAI, like WLW and the Reds, was owned by Powell Crosley.

While on the subject of Barber, a mention of what turned to be his last MLB game he called on Sept. 22, 1966 for the Yankees (copied and pasted from my Sept. 22 TDITVH reply): The New York Yankees-Chicago White Sox afternoon game at Yankee Stadium that day attracts only 413 fans, the smallest crowd in the history of that stadium (with the Yankees on the verge of their first last-place season since 1912--only two years removed from their previous World Series appearance). Legendary Yankee broadcaster Red Barber told his TV audience that the small crowd was "the story, not the game," but Yankee officials refused Barber's request for the TV cameras to pan the empty seats. A week later, then-Yankee owners CBS fire Barber, which ends his 32-year MLB broadcasting career (first with the Cincinnati Reds, and then with the Brooklyn Dodgers before moving to the Yankees in 1954).

A great article on the story behind the Barber firing:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/194884-the-yankees-didnt-like-the-truth

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

2009: One year ago tomorrow was the first of the two digital conversion dates (Feb. 17, 2009 was slated to be the original transition date--it would later be delayed to June 12, but many areas still transitioned on the 17th). Here's the nightlight video regarding the DTV transition that will bring back memories of this red (or black, depending on your view) letter date in TV history:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6tVLO5QFvg&feature=related