June 8: This Day in TV History

[Stanislav]

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

1933: Comedienne Joan Rivers is born in Brooklyn, New York. (That’s 75 years, or about 97 cosmetic surgeries ago.)

1948: Milton Berle becomes TV’s first “star” as his Texaco Star Theater debuts on NBC. The show garners incredible ratings (as high as 80) by today’s standards, but realists point out that at the time his show began, there was yet no competition in most TV markets – it was Uncle Miltie or the radio.

1956: Mississippi’s WDAM-TV (licensed to Laurel, but popularly identified with Hattiesburg) begins operations on channel 9 as a dual NBC/ABC affiliate. The station would move to channel 7 in 1959 due to an allocations shift in the region, and would drop ABC to become a sole NBC affiliate in 1962.

1964: ABC announces the cancellation of the short-lived folk music show Hootenanny. (The show would continue to be aired until September of that year.) The blame for the show’s rapid decline is attributed both to a lack of variety of performers (many singers and groups making multiple appearances on the series) and the overshadowing of the nascent folk music craze by the rock and roll “British Invasion.”

1966: An F5 tornado slams Topkea, Kansas in the midst of an 11-day outbreak of severe weather in the Midwest, leaving 16 dead, destroying 820 homes and damaging 3000 more. A 26-year old anchor at WIBW-TV named Bill Kurtis stays on the air for 24 straight hours to cover the destruction. (At the worst point of the storm, he would issue the emotional plea to viewers, “For God’s sake, take cover!”) This proved to be Kurtis’ big break, earning him a promotion later that year to Chicago’s CBS O&O WBBM-TV.

1967: WSBE-TV signs on channel 36 from the campus of Rhode Island College, becoming that state’s first (and only) public television station. It shares, by coincidence and not relation, the call letters of one of the few stations that briefly operated on the long-defunct Channel 1 in the 1940’s (that being WSBE in South Bend, Indiana).

1969: The final broadcast of the controversial Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, the show having been canceled by CBS for failure to allow network censors sufficient time to review episodes before broadcast. Although the brothers win a lawsuit against the network for breach of contract, they never again have a long-running or successful TV show.

1969: KDNL-TV (channel 30) begins broadcasting as St. Louis’ first UHF (and second independent) station. They would later affiliate with Fox in 1986, and ABC in 1994.

1974: Jon Pertwee makes his final regular appearance as the Third Doctor in the cult BBC series Doctor Who.

1979: Welcome Back, Kotter ends its network run on ABC.

(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…..)

 

[bpatrick]

Actually, Berle did only four shows in the summer of
1948. Texaco wanted to try some other comedians
in order to see who would be the best fit. Berle became
permanent host on September 21, 1948. BTW, his ratings
were so huge that his was the only show not pre-empted
on November 2, 1948, for coverage of the Truman-Dewey
Presidential election returns.

 

[RicoGregg]

Actually, Berle did only four shows in the summer of
1948. Texaco wanted to try some other comedians
in order to see who would be the best fit. Berle became
permanent host on September 21, 1948. BTW, his ratings
were so huge that his was the only show not pre-empted
on November 2, 1948, for coverage of the Truman-Dewey
Presidential election returns.

Another example of Uncle Milty's star power: Movie attendance nationwide plummeted into the toilet on Tuesday nights when Berle was on. As a result, most major movie theaters offered Tuesday night discounts. Expected? Of course. But what made it different was that the theaters also would stop the movie just before the Texaco Star Theater started so that patrons would not miss getting their Milton Berle fix. They had TVs in the lobby, and offered Tuesday-only specials at the snack bar. Many also put extra chairs in the lobby. After the show ended, they would pick up the movie from where they left off.

 

[dxnemo78]

The Smothers' show is one of those that I have an extremely vague snippet of a memory of it being on the air (I was 3 1/2 in June of '69). I have no doubt my older siblings watched it, and my Dad sometimes quoted Pat Paulsen.

As a kid I often visited my brother in St. Louis, and I remeber KDNL marking its 10th anniversary in '79. I lived in a three station market with no independents, so I liked the cartoons and other reruns I got to see when i was in StL. One of their slogans from that era was "TV 3-0, The Entertainers!!"

 

[Stanislav]

Another example of Uncle Milty's star power: Movie attendance nationwide plummeted into the toilet on Tuesday nights when Berle was on. As a result, most major movie theaters offered Tuesday night discounts. Expected? Of course. But what made it different was that the theaters also would stop the movie just before the Texaco Star Theater started so that patrons would not miss getting their Milton Berle fix. They had TVs in the lobby, and offered Tuesday-only specials at the snack bar. Many also put extra chairs in the lobby. After the show ended, they would pick up the movie from where they left off.

Of course, Berle's standard joke was "My show's been responsible for selling thousands of TV sets. I should know. My brother sold his, my aunt sold hers, my cousin sold his...."

Looking at old kinescopes of the show today, one marvels at what people were so excited about. Basically decades-old vaudeville schtick, only done in front of a TV camera. But Uncle Miltie had two factors working in his favor. (1)Not everyone had seen the old vaudeville shows -- to them, the material was new. (2)Even if the jokes were stale, and the gags old as the hills, it was coming into your living room, live, and for free. There was an excitement about TV then that we can't even imagine -- it was something new and marvelous, even on a flickering 10-inch black and white screen.

 

[Ultimajock]

1964: ABC announces the cancellation of the short-lived folk music show Hootenanny. (The show would continue to be aired until September of that year.) The blame for the show’s rapid decline is attributed both to a lack of variety of performers (many singers and groups making multiple appearances on the series) and the overshadowing of the nascent folk music craze by the rock and roll “British Invasion.”

...there was also a refusal by many performers -- including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Peter Paul & Mary, Phil Ochs and The Kingston Trio, the biggest acts of the folk music revival of the early '60s -- to appear on the program as long as ABC maintained its blacklisting of Pete Seeger, who, among other things, popularised the term "hootenany" (along with best friend Woody Guthrie) in the first place...

 

[KeithE4]

Just a few random TV related events that happened on June 8. Discuss or comment as you please……
1967: WSBE-TV signs on channel 36 from the campus of Rhode Island College, becoming that state’s first (and only) public television station. It shares, by coincidence and not relation, the call letters of one of the few stations that briefly operated on the long-defunct Channel 1 in the 1940’s (that being WSBE in South Bend, Indiana).

The only stations that were assigned CPs for post-war Channel 1 were WSBE South Bend IN, KARO Riverside CA, and one in Trenton NJ that I can't find a callsign for, if one was ever assigned. None of these stations ever went on the air AFAIK. WSBE became WSBT-TV and signed on in December 1952 on Channel 34 (now on 22).

 

[oldiesfan6479]

...his ratings were so huge that his was the only show not pre-empted
on November 2, 1948, for coverage of the Truman-Dewey Presidential
election returns.

I guess the editors of the Chicago Tribune were watching
Uncle Miltie instead of monitoring the election results
when they were putting their bulldog edition to bed.

 

[Stanislav]

...his ratings were so huge that his was the only show not pre-empted
on November 2, 1948, for coverage of the Truman-Dewey Presidential
election returns.

I guess the editors of the Chicago Tribune were watching
Uncle Miltie instead of monitoring the election results
when they were putting their bulldog edition to bed.

Boy, you make one little mistake, and they never let you forget..... ;D

 

[bpatrick]

That "one little mistake" was immortalized in
the photograph of Truman holding up the front
page of the Chicago Daily Tribune with the headline,
"Dewey Defeats Truman." Truman also enjoyed
mimicking H.V. Kaltenborn who, on NBC Radio, kept
insisting that Dewey was going to pull off a victory.

Speaking of the impact Berle had on business, a
laundromat owner in Brighton Beach, NY, installed
a TV set and put up a sign: "Watch Berle while
your clothes whirl."

 

[Ultimajock]

...his ratings were so huge that his was the only show not pre-empted
on November 2, 1948, for coverage of the Truman-Dewey Presidential
election returns.

I guess the editors of the Chicago Tribune were watching
Uncle Miltie instead of monitoring the election results
when they were putting their bulldog edition to bed.

Boy, you make one little mistake, and they never let you forget..... ;D

...that mistake led to a neat little moment on "Our World," the 1986-87 ABC documentary series that was hosted by Linda Ellerbee and Ray Gandolf. In a piece about that election, Gandolf went back to the general location of a newsstand in Evanston, Illinois, where, as a Northwestern University student, he had seen that infamous gaffe edition of the Chicago Evening Tribune. At the end of the clip, he leaned in towards the camera and emphatically said, "And I didn't buy the paper!" ;-) ...

 

[RicoGregg]

...his ratings were so huge that his was the only show not pre-empted
on November 2, 1948, for coverage of the Truman-Dewey Presidential
election returns.

I guess the editors of the Chicago Tribune were watching
Uncle Miltie instead of monitoring the election results
when they were putting their bulldog edition to bed.

Boy, you make one little mistake, and they never let you forget..... ;D

...that mistake led to a neat little moment on "Our World," the 1986-87 ABC documentary series that was hosted by Linda Ellerbee and Ray Gandolf. In a piece about that election, Gandolf went back to the general location of a newsstand in Evanston, Illinois, where, as a Northwestern University student, he had seen that infamous gaffe edition of the Chicago Evening Tribune. At the end of the clip, he leaned in towards the camera and emphatically said, "And I didn't buy the paper!" ;-) ...

....and so it goes. :-\

 

[Stanislav]

...his ratings were so huge that his was the only show not pre-empted
on November 2, 1948, for coverage of the Truman-Dewey Presidential
election returns.

I guess the editors of the Chicago Tribune were watching
Uncle Miltie instead of monitoring the election results
when they were putting their bulldog edition to bed.

Boy, you make one little mistake, and they never let you forget..... ;D

...that mistake led to a neat little moment on "Our World," the 1986-87 ABC documentary series that was hosted by Linda Ellerbee and Ray Gandolf. In a piece about that election, Gandolf went back to the general location of a newsstand in Evanston, Illinois, where, as a Northwestern University student, he had seen that infamous gaffe edition of the Chicago Evening Tribune. At the end of the clip, he leaned in towards the camera and emphatically said, "And I didn't buy the paper!" ;-) ...

....and so it goes. :-\

God, I miss her (Ellerbee) as a regular network news presence. She had a unique and refreshing personality and attitude that no one has duplicated. Guys like Keith Olbermann (and I love him) have a great irreverence and "take no prisoners" approach, but it's on a manic level. Linda was more laid back and whimsical, and could say the most outrageous and cynical things in such a matter-of-fact way.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

Some June 8 birthdays:

1950: Kathy Baker--has appeared on "Picket Fences" and "Boston Public"

1958: Keenen Ivory Wayans--creator of "In Living Color"

1966: Julianna Marguiles--played nurse Carol Hathaway on "ER" from 1994-2000

1978: Maria Menounos--the former Massachusetts Teen USA (1996) has appeared as correspondent on "Entertainment Tonight," "Access Hollywood," and "Today"

 

[bpatrick]

Re the cancellation of the Smothers Brothers:
going from the sublime to the ridiculous, the
following Sunday (June 15) saw the debut of
"Hee Haw." Like it or not, it far outlasted the
Smothers and the show it was meant to copy,
"Laugh-In." Of course, starting in the fall of '71,
"Hee Haw" was in first-run syndication, but no
matter.

 

[Stanislav]

Re the cancellation of the Smothers Brothers:
going from the sublime to the ridiculous, the
following Sunday (June 15) saw the debut of
"Hee Haw."

Sure of that date? (I see that is what Wikipedia says but, well, you know...) I've read other sources that say Hee Haw wasn't quite ready to hit the air, and that CBS filled in with specials and one-shots for a few weeks until the Kornfield was prepared. If that is the case, it would not surprise me -- the notion that Paley was so keen on dumping the Brothers that he did so the first chance he got, even having no immediate replacement for the show, and that rather than keep the Smothers on for a few weeks in reruns that had previously been approved by the censors, he would just take a ratings hit and throw on some ad hoc stuff until Hee Haw was ready. I guess the TV Guide experts could confirm/deny this. (Although the cancellation of the Smothers happened so abruptly, I imagine published listings may well have continued to list them for an issue or two...)

I also always thought that the choice of Hee Haw as a replacement wasn't happenstance -- it wasn't that it was the only potential replacement, but one so diametrically opposite in content as to be another finger poked in the eyes of Tom and Dick. :

 

[Ultimajock]

...I hope someone can check on the chronology (Brooks & Marsh? Alex McNeil?), but I'm under the impression that Hee Haw wasn't in the Sunday night spot the Smothers Brothers vacated until the autumn, and that the first post-Smothers series to run in that slot was actually The Leslie Uggams Show...

 

[bpatrick]

Alex McNeil says "Hee Haw" debuted on June 15.
Leslie Uggams got the 9 PM (ET) slot in September,
but her show was gone by Christmas. CBS deliberately
refused to put "Hee Haw" back at that time; the implications
of replacing an African-American with what Variety writer
Les Brown once called "the most Southern cracker show
on the networks" were enough for CBS to move Glen
Campbell from Wednesday 7:30 to Sunday at 9 (where
he'd started as the Smothers' 1968 summer replacement),
and put "Hee Haw" in his Wednesday slot (it replaced Red
Skelton on Tuesdays at 8:30 in the 1970-71 season, while
Skelton moved to NBC).

I can very much understand why CBS would put something
in the Smothers' slot that was as far removed from their
show as possible.

BTW, "Hee Haw" and Johnny Cash (ABC's summer replacement
for "The Hollywood Palace" on Saturdays) were smash hits,
inspiring a rash of summer shows in 1970, none of which, to
my knowledge, made it. However, when ABC gave Saturdays
at 9:30 back to the affiliates in January 1971 several stations
moved Cash from Wednesdays back into his original time slot;
I know it happened in Atlanta, Orlando, and Raleigh.

 

[ixnay]

1979: Welcome Back, Kotter ends its network run on ABC.

I missed Kotter that night. :-[ I had a good excuse IMO: my high school graduation.

Was that 6/8/1979 ep a first run? Because according to Brooks and Marsh (2003 ed.), Kotter's last airing wasn't until 8/10/1979.

ixnay

 

[Stanislav]

1979: Welcome Back, Kotter ends its network run on ABC.

I missed Kotter that night. :-[ I had a good excuse IMO: my high school graduation.

Was that 6/8/1979 ep a first run? Because according to Brooks and Marsh (2003 ed.), Kotter's last airing wasn't until 8/10/1979.

Probably last first-run -- later on in TDITVH, I made that distinction on other shows.