Just a few random TV related events that happened on June 27 (another big day). Discuss or comment as you please……
1908: Actor and voice artist Willard "Bill" Kennedy is born in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. You may not recognize the name, but you certainly know the voice – he narrated the iconic opening to The Adventures of Superman. (“Faster than a speeding bullet….”)
1927: Bob “Captain Kangaroo” Keeshan is born in Lynbrook, New York.
1944: The FCC reassigns the frequency spectrum for TV and FM radio, with FM moving from 44-50 mHz to 88-106 mHz, and TV assigned 44-50 (the eventually reassigned “channel 1”), 54-88, and 174-216 mHz. They also designate the 480-920 mHz UHF range as an unchanneled block of frequencies for “experimental television.”
1947: WNBW (later WRC-TV) signs on from the Nation’s Capital. DYK: The earliest surviving color videotape is a recording of the dedication of WRC-TV's new Washington studios on May 21, 1958. President Eisenhower spoke at the event.
1947: With the launch of WNBW, NBC announces what it calls “the world's first regularly operating television network,” linking stations in New York, Schenectady, Philadelphia and Washington. (Baltimore and Boston would be added later that year.)
1949: The venerable and campy series Captain Video and His Video Rangers debuts on the DuMont network. Besides being one of the most successful shows ever run on DuMont, it was also the first television sci-fi series. DYK: For most of the series run, Captain Video's live adventures actually took up only about 15 minutes of each day's 30-minute time slot – the remaining time would be filled with seedy old cowboy films, which were passed off as “the adventures of Captain Video's undercover agents on Earth.” DYK II: While earlier episodes were amateurish and sometimes incoherent, many of the later season’s shows were written by noted science-fiction writers, such as James Blish, Arthur C. Clarke, and Isaac Asimov.
1965: The original NBC run of Watch Mr. Wizard comes to an end after 547 live broadcasts over 15 years.
1966: The first episode of Dark Shadows is broadcast on ABC. Uniquely among soaps of the era, all but one of the 1225 episodes survive (most as original 2” videotapes, with just a handful only extant as 16mm kinescopes).
1974: The final original episode of The Flip Wilson Show is broadcast by NBC. It made history as the first successful network variety series starring an African-American.
1975: Game show fans shed a tear as the final original episode of the long-running Password is broadcast by ABC. The show ran from 1961-67 on CBS, then was revived on ABC from 1971-75.
1983: The first episode of the soap opera Loving is broadcast by ABC. The series would rack up 3,169 shows before leaving the air in 1995.
1984: The Supreme Court rules in NCAA v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma that the NCAA's television plan for men’s basketball is in violation the Sherman Antitrust Act. As a result, individual schools and conferences are freed to negotiate their own TV contracts.
1995: Jodi Huisentruit, a 27-year old news anchor at KIMT in Mason City, Iowa, fails to show up for her scheduled early morning broadcast. Despite an exhaustive investigation, intensive searches, publicity on shows like America's Most Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries, and over 1000 interviews, Ms. Huisentruit has never been found, and her fate remains unknown. (She was declared legally dead in 2001.)
2003: Dead Like Me premieres on Showtime. The quirky dramedy about grim reapers would last for 29 episodes, later being rerun on the Sci-Fi Channel.
(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…..)
1908: Actor and voice artist Willard "Bill" Kennedy is born in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. You may not recognize the name, but you certainly know the voice – he narrated the iconic opening to The Adventures of Superman. (“Faster than a speeding bullet….”)
1927: Bob “Captain Kangaroo” Keeshan is born in Lynbrook, New York.
1944: The FCC reassigns the frequency spectrum for TV and FM radio, with FM moving from 44-50 mHz to 88-106 mHz, and TV assigned 44-50 (the eventually reassigned “channel 1”), 54-88, and 174-216 mHz. They also designate the 480-920 mHz UHF range as an unchanneled block of frequencies for “experimental television.”
1947: WNBW (later WRC-TV) signs on from the Nation’s Capital. DYK: The earliest surviving color videotape is a recording of the dedication of WRC-TV's new Washington studios on May 21, 1958. President Eisenhower spoke at the event.
1947: With the launch of WNBW, NBC announces what it calls “the world's first regularly operating television network,” linking stations in New York, Schenectady, Philadelphia and Washington. (Baltimore and Boston would be added later that year.)
1949: The venerable and campy series Captain Video and His Video Rangers debuts on the DuMont network. Besides being one of the most successful shows ever run on DuMont, it was also the first television sci-fi series. DYK: For most of the series run, Captain Video's live adventures actually took up only about 15 minutes of each day's 30-minute time slot – the remaining time would be filled with seedy old cowboy films, which were passed off as “the adventures of Captain Video's undercover agents on Earth.” DYK II: While earlier episodes were amateurish and sometimes incoherent, many of the later season’s shows were written by noted science-fiction writers, such as James Blish, Arthur C. Clarke, and Isaac Asimov.
1965: The original NBC run of Watch Mr. Wizard comes to an end after 547 live broadcasts over 15 years.
1966: The first episode of Dark Shadows is broadcast on ABC. Uniquely among soaps of the era, all but one of the 1225 episodes survive (most as original 2” videotapes, with just a handful only extant as 16mm kinescopes).
1974: The final original episode of The Flip Wilson Show is broadcast by NBC. It made history as the first successful network variety series starring an African-American.
1975: Game show fans shed a tear as the final original episode of the long-running Password is broadcast by ABC. The show ran from 1961-67 on CBS, then was revived on ABC from 1971-75.
1983: The first episode of the soap opera Loving is broadcast by ABC. The series would rack up 3,169 shows before leaving the air in 1995.
1984: The Supreme Court rules in NCAA v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma that the NCAA's television plan for men’s basketball is in violation the Sherman Antitrust Act. As a result, individual schools and conferences are freed to negotiate their own TV contracts.
1995: Jodi Huisentruit, a 27-year old news anchor at KIMT in Mason City, Iowa, fails to show up for her scheduled early morning broadcast. Despite an exhaustive investigation, intensive searches, publicity on shows like America's Most Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries, and over 1000 interviews, Ms. Huisentruit has never been found, and her fate remains unknown. (She was declared legally dead in 2001.)
2003: Dead Like Me premieres on Showtime. The quirky dramedy about grim reapers would last for 29 episodes, later being rerun on the Sci-Fi Channel.
(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…..)