Just a few random TV related events that happened on March 11. Discuss or comment as you please……
1903: Bandleader Lawrence Welk is born is Strasberg, North Dakota. [See also 1971...]
1931: Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is born (as Keith Rupert Murdoch) in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
1934: Journalist Sam Donaldson is born in El Paso, Texas. (His hair, while quite advanced in years as well, was born at a much later date in a Korean sweatshop...) ;D
1948: WBAL-TV (channel 11) begins broadcasting in Baltimore, Maryland.
1950: A rare live TV appearance by The Three Stooges (Moe, Larry and Shemp) on Ed Wynn’s Camel Comedy Caravan. The Stooges play CBS executives who have arrived to revamp Ed’s show, with (predictably) madcap results. (At the end of the show, Wynn utters the backhanded dislcaimer, "Any resemblance between the Stooges and the actual CBS executives is purely.....malicious.")
1952: Author Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) is born in Cambridge, England.
1956: Voice artist Rob Paulsen (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain) is born in Detroit. In all, Paulsen has been the voice of over 250 different animated characters and performed in over 1000 commercials.
1958: Child actress Anissa Jones (Family Affair) is born (as Mary Anissa Jones) in West Lafayette, Indiana.
1968: The Lucy Show ends a 6-season run on CBS.
1971: ABC cancels The Lawrence Welk Show, motivated by both the older demographic of the show’s audience and the need to purge some shows to accommodate the Prime Time Access Rule. A not terribly well appreciated birthday “present” for the maestro, who turns 68 today. Welk, however, would have his revenge, going into syndication and lasting another 11 years.
1971: Inventor/television pioneer Philo Farnsworth dies in Salt Lake City, Utah of complications from pneumonia, aged 64.
1971:Actor/daredevil Johnny Knoxville (Jackass) is born (as Philip John Clapp) in Knoxville, Tennessee.
1973: WVIR-TV (channel 29) signs on in Charlottesville, Virginia as an NBC affiliate. The station would enjoy one of the longest monopolies in any TV market: 31 years later, CBS affiliate WCAV (channel 19) would provide WVIR its first local competition.
1974: ABC broadcasts the special Free to Be…You and Me, starring Marlo Thomas (and just about every card-carrying liberal in Hollywood).
It would win an Emmy and become a cult classic, helped along by the network’s providing 16mm prints of the show to many schools.
1979: Stillborn TV Shows Department: tonight’s scheduled premiere of the new CBS sitcom Mr. Dugan doesn’t happen. Why? Well, the network yanked the series (starring Cleavon Little as a U.S. congressman) after a pre-screening for real-life African-American congressmen got a, shall we say, less than enthusiastic reaction?
1989: COPS premieres on Fox. The show has aired over 700 episodes, following police officers in 140 different U.S. cities, as well as in Hong Kong, London, and the former Soviet Union.
1996: Actor Vince Edwards (Ben Casey) dies in Los Angeles from pancreatic cancer, aged 67.
1998: CBS airs the milestone 5000th episode of The Price is Right.
1999: Pioneering TV announcer Ray Forrest dies in Kinnelon, New Jersey, aged 83. Forrest began his NBC career before WWII, with experimental station W2XBS. He was the announcer for the first televised political convention (the Republican Convention in Philadelphia) in 1940, and it was he who read the formal announcement on camera when W2XBS became WNBT (later WNBC), ushering in the era of commercial television on July 1, 1941. Three days later, he did the first live on-camera spoken TV commercial, for Adam Hats, for which he received no extra monetary fee (but did get to keep the hat). Post-war, Forrest is best remembered by New York TV viewers as the host of Children’s Theater from 1949 to 1961.
2002: WSET-TV (Lynchburg, Virginia) is the only ABC affiliate to preempt an episode of Once and Again in which two female characters kiss one another. (Hmmm....Lynchburg..... Jerry Falwell....I’m just sayin’....ya suppose there was a phone call made there?) :
(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…..)
1903: Bandleader Lawrence Welk is born is Strasberg, North Dakota. [See also 1971...]
1931: Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is born (as Keith Rupert Murdoch) in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
1934: Journalist Sam Donaldson is born in El Paso, Texas. (His hair, while quite advanced in years as well, was born at a much later date in a Korean sweatshop...) ;D
1948: WBAL-TV (channel 11) begins broadcasting in Baltimore, Maryland.
1950: A rare live TV appearance by The Three Stooges (Moe, Larry and Shemp) on Ed Wynn’s Camel Comedy Caravan. The Stooges play CBS executives who have arrived to revamp Ed’s show, with (predictably) madcap results. (At the end of the show, Wynn utters the backhanded dislcaimer, "Any resemblance between the Stooges and the actual CBS executives is purely.....malicious.")
1952: Author Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) is born in Cambridge, England.
1956: Voice artist Rob Paulsen (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain) is born in Detroit. In all, Paulsen has been the voice of over 250 different animated characters and performed in over 1000 commercials.
1958: Child actress Anissa Jones (Family Affair) is born (as Mary Anissa Jones) in West Lafayette, Indiana.
1968: The Lucy Show ends a 6-season run on CBS.
1971: ABC cancels The Lawrence Welk Show, motivated by both the older demographic of the show’s audience and the need to purge some shows to accommodate the Prime Time Access Rule. A not terribly well appreciated birthday “present” for the maestro, who turns 68 today. Welk, however, would have his revenge, going into syndication and lasting another 11 years.
1971: Inventor/television pioneer Philo Farnsworth dies in Salt Lake City, Utah of complications from pneumonia, aged 64.
1971:Actor/daredevil Johnny Knoxville (Jackass) is born (as Philip John Clapp) in Knoxville, Tennessee.
1973: WVIR-TV (channel 29) signs on in Charlottesville, Virginia as an NBC affiliate. The station would enjoy one of the longest monopolies in any TV market: 31 years later, CBS affiliate WCAV (channel 19) would provide WVIR its first local competition.
1974: ABC broadcasts the special Free to Be…You and Me, starring Marlo Thomas (and just about every card-carrying liberal in Hollywood).
It would win an Emmy and become a cult classic, helped along by the network’s providing 16mm prints of the show to many schools.1979: Stillborn TV Shows Department: tonight’s scheduled premiere of the new CBS sitcom Mr. Dugan doesn’t happen. Why? Well, the network yanked the series (starring Cleavon Little as a U.S. congressman) after a pre-screening for real-life African-American congressmen got a, shall we say, less than enthusiastic reaction?
1989: COPS premieres on Fox. The show has aired over 700 episodes, following police officers in 140 different U.S. cities, as well as in Hong Kong, London, and the former Soviet Union.
1996: Actor Vince Edwards (Ben Casey) dies in Los Angeles from pancreatic cancer, aged 67.
1998: CBS airs the milestone 5000th episode of The Price is Right.
1999: Pioneering TV announcer Ray Forrest dies in Kinnelon, New Jersey, aged 83. Forrest began his NBC career before WWII, with experimental station W2XBS. He was the announcer for the first televised political convention (the Republican Convention in Philadelphia) in 1940, and it was he who read the formal announcement on camera when W2XBS became WNBT (later WNBC), ushering in the era of commercial television on July 1, 1941. Three days later, he did the first live on-camera spoken TV commercial, for Adam Hats, for which he received no extra monetary fee (but did get to keep the hat). Post-war, Forrest is best remembered by New York TV viewers as the host of Children’s Theater from 1949 to 1961.
2002: WSET-TV (Lynchburg, Virginia) is the only ABC affiliate to preempt an episode of Once and Again in which two female characters kiss one another. (Hmmm....Lynchburg..... Jerry Falwell....I’m just sayin’....ya suppose there was a phone call made there?) :
(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…..)