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June 11: This Day in TV History

S

Stanislav

Just a few random TV related events that happened on June 11 (a busy day, it seems!). Discuss or comment as you please……

1936: Actor Chad Everett (Medical Center) is born in South Bend, Indiana.

1937: Actor/comedian Johnny Brown (Laugh-In, Good Times) is born in St. Petersburg, Florida.

1945: Actress Adrienne Barbeau (Maude) is born in Sacramento, California.

1949: WHAM-TV (later WROC-TV) begins broadcasting on channel 6 as Rochester, New York’s first TV station. The station would move to channel 5 in 1954 due to interference issues with CBLT in Toronto, and later to channel 8 in 1962 as part of a general channel reassignment in the region. The WHAM-TV calls now belong to Rochester’s channel 13 (formerly WORK-TV).

1951: Fulton J. Sheen is ordained a Bishop in the Catholic Church. Not long thereafter, he becomes one of the pioneers of religious television with the very popular show Life is Worth Living. Drawing as many as 30 million viewers on a weekly basis, the simple format (the Bishop just speaking in front of a chalkboard) proves surprisingly competitive against ratings giants like Frank Sinatra and Milton Berle. (Berle would, of course, joke about his competitor, saying, “He uses old material, too,” or, “He has better writers than I do.”)

1954: TV journalist Greta Van Susteren is born in Appleton, Wisconsin.

1956: WESH (channel 2) in Daytona Beach, Florida begins broadcasting.

1959: Actor Hugh Laurie (House) is born in Oxford, England. DYN: His American accent was so flawless in his House audition tape that producers of the show, unfamiliar with his lengthy resume of work on TV in the U.K., assumed him to be a Yank.

1966: The Newlywed Game begins an 8-year network run on ABC.

1974: Rock band KISS makes its first national talk-show appearance on The Mike Douglas Show. Gene Simmons (in full KISS regalia) is then interviewed by Mike, and endures sarcastic lines from fellow guest Totie Fields, who seems to regard the whole thing as an elaborate joke.

1984: The second half of a unique two-part episode of the game show Press Your Luck, featuring contestant Michael Larson, is telecast by CBS. Larson, an unemployed ice cream truck driver, entered game show history by using his VCR to figure out the allegedly random pattern (not so random, as it turned out) of the game board. He spun 45 consecutive times without hitting a Whammy, causing the episode to run over its allotted time (hence, the split into two parts), sending network executives into a tizzy in the process, and winning a total of over $110,000, a single-day game show record that stood for 22 years.

1994: Actor Herbert Anderson (Dennis the Menace) dies in Palm Springs, California, aged 77. Although best remembered for his 4 seasons as Dennis’ father, Henry, he also made many guest-starring appearances in other sitcoms during the 60’s and 70’s.

1999: Actor DeForest Kelly (Star Trek) dies of stomach cancer in Woodland Hills, California, aged 79.

2002: American Idol debuts on Fox. Western civilization somehow survives.

2003: Newscaster David Brinkley (The Huntley-Brinkley Report, NBC Nightly News, This Week with David Brinkley) dies in Houston, aged 82.

2003: Actor William Marshall dies in Los Angeles, aged 78. Lovers of cult films know him as the title star of the blaxploitation classic “Blacula,” while TV fans best remember him as Dr. Richard Daystrom in the Star Trek episode “The Ultimate Computer,” and as the King of Cartoons on Pee-wee’s Playhouse.

(Just a little featurette I hope to do as time permits…..don’t expect it every single day. 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…..) ;)
 
Stanislav said:
Fulton J. Sheen ... proves surprisingly competitive against ratings giants like Frank Sinatra and Milton Berle. (Berle would, of course, joke about his competitor, saying, “He uses old material, too,” or, “He has better writers than I do.”)
Click to expand...

Another memorable wisecrack from Berle about Bishop Sheen -- "we both have the same boss: Sky Chief." (In Berle's case, it was a brand of Texaco gasoline.)
 
1984: The second half of a unique two-part episode of the game show Press Your Luck, featuring contestant Michael Larson, is telecast by CBS. Larson, an unemployed ice cream truck driver, entered game show history by using his VCR to figure out the allegedly random pattern (not so random, as it turned out) of the game board. He spun 45 consecutive times without hitting a Whammy, causing the episode to run over its allotted time (hence, the split into two parts), sending network executives into a tizzy in the process, and winning a total of over $110,000, a single-day game show record that stood for 22 years.
I can't remember how that turned out...Did he have to give back his winnings? I think he passed away some years ago.
 
CBS allowed him to keep his winnings because, technically, he didn't do anything wrong. He simply memorized the "random" pattern of the game board (there were only 6 patterns originally) and knew at which point to hit the plunger, stopping the lights on the "$3000/$4000/$5000 + 1 spin" slot. This strategy allowed him to continue playing without running out of spins.

After amassing about $100,000, he finally relented and passed his remaining spins to another player.

After his appearance, producers added several more random patterns to the game board to prevent another Larson situation.

GSN did a documentary on his appearance three or four years ago, hosted by the late Peter Tomarken, during which he interviewed the two other players who appeared on that episode. Later, Tomarken showed them the "pattern" and within a few minutes both were able to stop the lights, on a simulated game board, in the same way Larson had.

Larson died penniless, having lost most of his winnings in several different "get rich quick" schemes, according to his ex-wife also interviewed for the special.
 
Stanislav said:
1994: Actor Herbert Anderson (Dennis the Menace) dies in Palm Springs, California, aged 77. Although best remembered for his 4 seasons as Dennis’ father, Henry, he also made many guest-starring appearances in other sitcoms during the 60’s and 70’s.
Click to expand...

I don't remember if Herb Anderson ever responded to those claims by Jay North about all the abuse on Dennis the Meance even though Anderson was very much alive when in 1991 ( maybe 1992 ) when North started doing the talk show circuit going on about the abuse while on other shows North painted life on the set was very much like Donna Reed which BTW in that area it really was as both shows were filmed on the same set. Meanwhile after Herb's death I believe both Gloria Henry who played the mom and Sylvia Fields ( the originial Mrs. Wilson ) claimed on various TV shows that they knew nothing about the abuse between Jay and his Aunt that supposed to have happen on the set of Dennis The Menace.

But I don't ever recall Herb Anderson ever saying anything about this, nor Gale Gordon for that matter.
 
mleach said:
Stanislav said:
1994: Actor Herbert Anderson (Dennis the Menace) dies in Palm Springs, California, aged 77. Although best remembered for his 4 seasons as Dennis’ father, Henry, he also made many guest-starring appearances in other sitcoms during the 60’s and 70’s.
Click to expand...

I don't remember if Herb Anderson ever responded to those claims by Jay North about all the abuse on Dennis the Meance even though Anderson was very much alive when in 1991 ( maybe 1992 ) when North started doing the talk show circuit going on about the abuse while on other shows North painted life on the set was very much like Donna Reed which BTW in that area it really was as both shows were filmed on the same set. Meanwhile after Herb's death I believe both Gloria Henry who played the mom and Sylvia Fields ( the originial Mrs. Wilson ) claimed on various TV shows that they knew nothing about the abuse between Jay and his Aunt that supposed to have happen on the set of Dennis The Menace.

But I don't ever recall Herb Anderson ever saying anything about this, nor Gale Gordon for that matter.
Click to expand...

Paul Petersen (The Donna Reed Show) has been railing about the bad treatment of child actors for years. He's tried unsuccessfully to get laws passed that would have strict monitoring on production sets that use child actors in California.

That was one reason that Les Moonves & CBS chose New Mexico for the recently-cancelled Kid Nation (title correction if needed), which has the most lax child labor laws in the country.

There are horror stories a-plenty over the years. I'll briefly cite just a few:

Lauren Chapin (youngest daughter on Father Knows Best) had an alcoholic mother who was very abusive to her both on the set, and at home. According to Billy Gray (Bud), she drank up every penny that Lauren made. Gray said on the Mike Douglas Show that that was one person he was glad to see die.

Jackie Coogan, much like Gary Coleman later on, was totally robbed by his parents, causing the state of California to enact legislation requiring studios to put aside 25% of a child actor's earnings in trust, until he reached a certain age, not sure which age. The act is known as The Jackie Coogan Law.

Judy Garland was either starved by her "overseer" at MGM, or else the studio had a specially-hired cook mix benzadrine (sp) into her food. At one point, at the tender age of 15, they institutionalized her against her and her family's will. Supposedly, these orders came from Louis B. Mayer himself, even though his family disputes this. Regardless, in today's world, MGM would be extremely guilty of child abuse and child labor laws. A proud history at MGM, indeed. :-[

So if Jay North says there was abuse on the Dennis The Menace set, I would tend to believe him.
 
I believe North was abused on Dennis The Menace but there are a few stories about North I have a hard time believing such as him calling up Nickelodeon/Nick@Nite in the early 90s ( back when those channels aired the reruns on a regular basis, Dennis back in the late 80s was their top show I have been told as well as the first rerun to air on Nick@Nite in 1985 ) and threatening to "blow up the network" if they would continue to re-run Dennis The Menace. Had he done done that, ah I would think it would have made national news. yet this "story" from time to time seems to be taken as truth. Nor do I believe that the late Joe Kearns ( The orginal Mr. Wilson ) and Herb Anderson actually saw the abuse firsthand and did nothing, another rumor I have heard over the years about this abuse. I have a hard time believing that either. But as far as he was abused by family members..yes I believe that. And I believe that both Gloria Henry and Silvia Fields chances are really did not know about the abuse that was going on until the 90's when North came out with it.
 
Lauren Chapin wrote an autobiography some years ago which is just chilling in its description of treatment afforded her by her parents as well as her miserable life after the show ended.

If you are into this kind of history it is a book well worth reading.
 
On this date in 1979: John Wayne passed away.

Birthdays:

1922: John Bromfield (died 2005)--former actor who appeared in NBC's "Frontier" western anthology series (1955-56), and in the syndicated "Sherriff of Cochise" (later renamed "US Marshal) (1956-58).

1986: Shia LaBeouf--the actor began making guest appearances as early as age 12 on shows as "Caroline in the City" and "Suddenly Susan" before starring in "Even Stevens" on the Disney Channel from 2000-03.
 
1910: Jacques-Yves Cousteau (over 100 TV shows and documentaries) is born in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, Gironde, France.

1933: Gene Wilder (The Electric Company, Something Wilder, Will & Grace) is born (as Jerome Silberman) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

1939: Christina Crawford (The Secret Storm, Medical Center, Marcus Welby,M.D., Ironside) is born in Los Angeles.

1939: Jackie Stewart (Wide World of Sports, The American Sportsman) is born (as John Young Stewart) in Milton, West Dumbartonshire, Scotland.

1948: Michael Swan (Medical Center, As the World Turns, The Bold and the Beautiful) is born in San Jose, California.

1953: Peter Bergman (All My Children, The Nanny, The Young and the Restless) is born in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

1978: Joshua Jackson (Dawson's Creek, Fringe) is born (as Joshua Carter Jackson) in Vancouver, British Columbia.

1993: Ray Sharkey (Crime Story, Wiseguy) died at age 40, in Brooklyn, New York.
 
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