Just a few random TV related events that happened on February 21. Discuss or comment as you please……
1934: Actress Rue McClanahan (Maude, The Golden Girls) is born (as Eddi Rue McClanahan) in Healdton, Oklahoma.
1946: Actress Tyne Daly (Cagney and Lacey) is born (as Ellen Tyne Daly) in Madison, Wisconsin.
1950: WOI-TV (channel 4, later channel 5) begins broadcasting in Ames, Iowa. It is owned (initially) by Iowa State University in Ames, making it the first commercial television station in the U.S. owned by a major college. As such, it would also carry some educational programming until KDPS-TV (channel 11, now KDIN-TV) signs on in 1959.
1953: Actor William Petersen (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation) is born in Evanston, Illinois.
1954: WTTV (Bloomington, Indiana) moves from channel 4 to channel 10.
1959: The Ben Hecht Show, a live talk show on New York's WABC-TV, is cancelled permanently after Hecht's guest, surrealist painter Salvador Dali, uses the word "orgasm" during an interview. Hecht had already been in trouble with the station for occasionally being “profane” (at least by 1950’s standards).
1963: The original Tesltar satellite, Telstar I, goes permanently out of service after just 19 months of use. The pioneering bird was the victim of high-altitude nuclear tests, the blasts causing increased radiation in the Van Allen Belt, which overwhelmed the satellite’s fragile transistors. Though dead now for 46 years, Telstar I is still in a stable orbit around the Earth.
1979: Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt (Party of Five) is born in Waco, Texas.
2000: David Letterman returns to television (Late Show with David Letterman) following his quintuple heart bypass surgery in January. He brings all of the doctors that had performed the operation out on stage with him and, in an unusual show of emotion, is nearly in tears as he thanks the doctors.
2005: Quirky televangelist Dr. Gene Scott dies in Glendale, California of a stroke brought on by metastatic terminal cancer, aged 75.
2006: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg designates the block on West 66th St. between Columbus Ave. and Central Park West as “Peter Jennings Way” in honor of the late anchor. (The block is home to ABC’s news headquarters.)
(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…..)
1934: Actress Rue McClanahan (Maude, The Golden Girls) is born (as Eddi Rue McClanahan) in Healdton, Oklahoma.
1946: Actress Tyne Daly (Cagney and Lacey) is born (as Ellen Tyne Daly) in Madison, Wisconsin.
1950: WOI-TV (channel 4, later channel 5) begins broadcasting in Ames, Iowa. It is owned (initially) by Iowa State University in Ames, making it the first commercial television station in the U.S. owned by a major college. As such, it would also carry some educational programming until KDPS-TV (channel 11, now KDIN-TV) signs on in 1959.
1953: Actor William Petersen (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation) is born in Evanston, Illinois.
1954: WTTV (Bloomington, Indiana) moves from channel 4 to channel 10.
1959: The Ben Hecht Show, a live talk show on New York's WABC-TV, is cancelled permanently after Hecht's guest, surrealist painter Salvador Dali, uses the word "orgasm" during an interview. Hecht had already been in trouble with the station for occasionally being “profane” (at least by 1950’s standards).
1963: The original Tesltar satellite, Telstar I, goes permanently out of service after just 19 months of use. The pioneering bird was the victim of high-altitude nuclear tests, the blasts causing increased radiation in the Van Allen Belt, which overwhelmed the satellite’s fragile transistors. Though dead now for 46 years, Telstar I is still in a stable orbit around the Earth.
1979: Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt (Party of Five) is born in Waco, Texas.
2000: David Letterman returns to television (Late Show with David Letterman) following his quintuple heart bypass surgery in January. He brings all of the doctors that had performed the operation out on stage with him and, in an unusual show of emotion, is nearly in tears as he thanks the doctors.
2005: Quirky televangelist Dr. Gene Scott dies in Glendale, California of a stroke brought on by metastatic terminal cancer, aged 75.
2006: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg designates the block on West 66th St. between Columbus Ave. and Central Park West as “Peter Jennings Way” in honor of the late anchor. (The block is home to ABC’s news headquarters.)
(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…..)
