January 8: This Day in TV History

[Stanislav]

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

1923: Actor/voice artist Larry Storch (F Troop) is born in New York City.

1933: Journalist Charles Osgood (CBS Sunday Morning) is born in New York City.

1935: Elvis Presley is born in Tupelo, Mississippi.

1938: Game show host Bob Eubanks (The Newlywed Game) is born in Flint, Michigan.

1947: Actress Laurie Walters (Eight is Enough) is born in San Francisco.

1955: WUNC-TV (channel 4) signs on in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It is the first educational station in the state, and the first south of Washington, D.C.

1966: Shindig! airs for the last time on ABC, with musical guests The Kinks and The Who.

1981: Actor Matthew “Stymie” Beard (“Our Gang”/The Little Rascals) dies in Los Angeles, aged 56.

2005: The premiere episode of The Will, a new reality series, is aired on CBS. Ratings are so piss-poor that the network shelves the series, making it one of only a handful of programs to have been canceled after a single episode. To date, the remaining 5 episodes have yet to be seen anywhere on U.S. television.

2007: Actress Yvonne De Carlo (The Munsters) dies in Woodland Hills, California, aged 84.

(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…..)

 

[Ultimajock]

1966: Shindig! airs for the last time on ABC, with musical guests The Kinks and The Who.

...the kinescope of Jimmy O'Neill introducing The Who and the band's performance of "I Can't Explain" are featured in the documentary film The Kids Are Alright...

 

[LKellerIII]

1966: Shindig! airs for the last time on ABC, with musical guests The Kinks and The Who.

...the kinescope of Jimmy O'Neill introducing The Who and the band's performance of "I Can't Explain" are featured in the documentary film The Kids Are Alright...

Rhino Video put out many of the Shindig! shows on VHS more than a decade ago - most of the tapes were collections of appearances by a particular group or artist. I found the Righteous Brothers Shindig! tape in a video store bargain bin a few years ago. I don't know if they were ever released on DVD or not.

 

[Stanislav]

I'm surprised that no one else has pointed out that I missed this one:

1926: Comedian/kiddie host/game show panelist Soupy Sales is born (as Milton Supman) in Franklinton, North Carolina.

Having grown up on a steady diet of Soupy and other 60's kiddie idols on WNEW and WPIX, I should be ashamed.... :-[

 

[wbhist]

I'm surprised that no one else has pointed out that I missed this one:

1926: Comedian/kiddie host/game show panelist Soupy Sales is born (as Milton Supman) in Franklinton, North Carolina.

Having grown up on a steady diet of Soupy and other 60's kiddie idols on WNEW and WPIX, I should be ashamed.... :-[

Not to mention this tidbit:
1941: Comedian/writer Graham Chapman (Monty Python's Flying Circus) is born in Leicester, Leicestershire, England.

 

[WMC2006]

I should be ashamed.... :-[

Yes, you should be. I'm ashamed for you. I'm embarrassed. I'm insulted. I'm appalled. I'm horrified. I'm sad. I'm beside myself. But mostly just really really sad.

 

[ricksegers]

Soupy Sales is acceptable...just be mindful of Pinky Lee.

 

[firepoint525]

Wasn't January 8, 2005, a Saturday night? That might explain why The Will failed. That, and the fact that I never heard of it! ;D

And as for Elvis, was his middle name "Aron" or "Aaron"? ;D

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

With regards to Soupy Sales - after moving to Cincinnati in 1949 from Huntington, West Virginia, Soupy had one of the first TV teen dance shows. As Soupy Hines, he hosted "Soupy's Soda Shop" on WKRC-TV, then on Channel 11.

Soupy later reportedly stopped using Hines because it sounded like Heinz - the food products company. He took Sales from "Chic Sale", a vaudevillian and actor of the 20's & 30's.

 

[RicoGregg]

I should be ashamed.... :-[

Yes, you should be. I'm ashamed for you. I'm embarrassed. I'm insulted. I'm appalled. I'm horrified. I'm sad. I'm beside myself. But mostly just really really sad.

(in my Jimmy Durante voice)

I'm mortified! I'm absolutely mortified! Ha-chi-cha-cha!

 

[wbhist]

1968: WABC-TV (Channel 7) in New York moves its daily afternoon movie show to 4:30 P.M., after spending the last two years at 6:00. Initially recycling the old title The Big Show from 1963, the program (whose first film in its new time slot was the 1960 Kirk Douglas/Kim Novak film Strangers When We Meet) was initially two hours in length, due to the early evening newscast (then 10 months away from being rebranded as Eyewitness News) commencing in those days at 6:30. By the summer of 1969, it became officially known as The 4:30 Movie, and was pared back to 90 minutes after Sept. 8, 1969 when the early evening Eyewitness News was expanded to an hour. (Advertising in TV Guide's New York-Metropolitan edition and the New York Daily News used The Big Show title for its first two months - Jan.-Feb., 1968 - at 4:30, then up until the summer of 1969 there was no mention of a movie show title in any ads. The first known use of The 4:30 Movie title in WABC's print ads was for the week of Aug. 18-22, 1969, during "Bob Hope Week.")

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

1945: Actress Kathleen Noone (All My Children, Knots Landing, Sunset Beach, Passions) is born in Hillsdale, NJ.

 

[FreddyE1977]

1938: Game show host Bob Eubanks (The Newlywed Game) is born in Flint, Michigan.

As documented by Michael Moore in Roger and Me, his signature film about their mutual hometown of Flint, Michigan.
(Eubanks says some kind and complimentary things while visiting his birthplace, only to ruin it all by telling
a crude, off-color and anti-Semitic joke)

 

[Ultimajock]

1938: Game show host Bob Eubanks (The Newlywed Game) is born in Flint, Michigan.

As documented by Michael Moore in Roger and Me, his signature film about their mutual hometown of Flint, Michigan.
(Eubanks says some kind and complimentary things while visiting his birthplace, only to ruin it all by telling
a crude, off-color and anti-Semitic joke)

...Chuck Barris always said that Eubanks was the stupidest man he ever hired to emcee any of his game shows (and that includes John Barbour, who initially got the pilot for The Gong Show but started criticising Jaye P. Morgan for gonging the first act, lacking any clue about what the show was supposed to be). The Roger & Me gaffe merely confirmed Barris' estimation...

 

[bpatrick]

Wasn't January 8, 2005, a Saturday night? That might explain why The Will failed. That, and the fact that I never heard of it! ;D

And as for Elvis, was his middle name "Aron" or "Aaron"? ;D

Aron. He had a twin brother who died in infancy, Jesse Garon.

 

[bpatrick]

1933: Mike Darrow (host of the original ABC version of "Dream
House," "The $128,000 Question," and the USA version of "Jackpot!",
as well as announcer on "The Who, What Or Where Game") is born
in Toronto. He was a disc jockey at CHUM before hosting game shows
in the U.S.

 

[firepoint525]

And as for Elvis, was his middle name "Aron" or "Aaron"? ;D

Aron. He had a twin brother who died in infancy, Jesse Garon.

Nothing like getting an answer to a question, a year later! ;D I asked my GF (an Elvis expert!) this same question, and she told me that the name on his birth certificate was "Aron," but that he had it legally changed to "Aaron" sometime later. I asked her what is on his grave marker (I'm thinking it is "Aaron"), but she didn't know for sure.

 

[bpatrick]

And as for Elvis, was his middle name "Aron" or "Aaron"? ;D

Aron. He had a twin brother who died in infancy, Jesse Garon.

Nothing like getting an answer to a question, a year later! ;D I asked my GF (an Elvis expert!) this same question, and she told me that the name on his birth certificate was "Aron," but that he had it legally changed to "Aaron" sometime later. I asked her what is on his grave marker (I'm thinking it is "Aaron"), but she didn't know for sure.

Your girlfriend is right on two counts; his birth name was "Elvis Aaron Presley" but it was spelled "Aron" on his birth certificate, and "Aaron" is the way it is spelled on his grave marker. However, he did try to legally change the spelling but apparently ran into some bureaucratic red tape; Vernon Presley, knowing that Elvis was trying to get the spelling changed, ordered it be spelled "Aaron" on the grave marker.
And twin brother Jesse Garon was stillborn.

It's not the only time a mistake like that has been made on a birth certificate. Oprah Winfrey's first name was supposed to have been "Orpah," but somebody misspelled it. I guess, to paraphrase George Fenneman, that makes her "the one...the only...OPRAH!"