February 2: This Day in TV History

[Stanislav]

Just a few random TV related events that happened on February 2. Discuss or comment as you please……

1932: Actor Robert Mandan (Search for Tomorrow, Soap, Three’s a Crowd) is born in Clever, Missouri.

1947: Actress Farrah Fawcett (Charlie’s Angels) is born (as Ferrah Leni Fawcett) in Houston, Texas.

1949: Actor Brent Spiner (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Threshold) is born in Houston, Texas.

1950: What’s My Line? debuts on CBS.

1953: Bounty hunter Duane “Dog” Chapman is born in Denver, Colorado.

1961: Actress Lauren Lane (The Nanny) is born in Oklahoma City.

1969: KMST-TV (channel 46, later KCCN-TV, now KION-TV) begins broadcasting in Salinas, California.

1973: The Midnight Special debuts as a regular series on NBC. (A one-time special/pilot had aired about 6 months earlier.)

1992: Singer/pageant host Bert Parks dies in La Jolla, California, aged 77.

(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]

It might be added that Bert Parks did more than sing or host pageants. He was the M.C. on a number of early TV quiz shows. Such as: Stop the Music, Double or Nothing, Your's For A Song. With regards to pageants, I never thought the Miss America contest was the same after he was removed from hosting it.

 

[Ultimajock]

It might be added that Bert Parks did more than sing or host pageants. He was the M.C. on a number of early TV quiz shows. Such as: Stop the Music, Double or Nothing, Your's For A Song.

...and hosted the first pilot (for CBS) of The Hollywood Squares. A second pilot, with Sandy Baron replacing Parks, was taped before CBS passed on the project with either Parks or Baron asking the questions. When NBC picked up the rights, Baron was already committed to co-starring in Hey, Landlord! and Parks had been too stiff on his pilot, so Peter Marshall was tapped instead...

...oh, and Parks also played Herb Tarlek, Sr., on WKRP in Cincinnati...

 

[ricksegers]

The most heat I ever caught from listeners was based on Bert Parks. I was doing a talk show in Jackson Mississippi (WSLI) when Parks was bounced as host of the pagent in '83. The reason given by the executive diretor was Parks was too old. The guy that fired him was like 10 years older than Bert and I referred to him on the air as the aging executive dictator of the Miss America pageant. The phones went crazy as all the "seasoned citizens" were upset because I said aging. I guess if I had just called him the executive dictator it would have been okay.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

1970: Actress Jennifer Westfeldt (Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place) is born in Guilford, CT.

 

[mjlarochelle]

And of course some years ago on February 2nd, a TV weatherman in Pittsburgh woke up again and again to the same day.

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I remember in 1999 on this day, Wiarton Willie, the most well-known groundhog in Ontario, was found dead in his hole when he was supposed to come out. I don't know if Canada AM carried this live but there was a lot of TV coverage of it. It was the strangest Groundhog Day I ever saw. Other groundhogs die all the time but having one die the very morning it is supposed to come out is pretty creepy.