Just a few random TV related events that happened on March 27. Discuss or comment as you please……
1931: Actor David Janssen (Richard Diamond, The Fugitive, O’Hara U.S. Treasury, Harry-O) is born (as David Harold Meyer) in Naponee, Nebraska.
1939: The BBC broadcasts the entirety of “Magyar Melody” live from His Majesty's Theatre. The 175-minute broadcast is the first showing of a full-length musical on television.
1950: WHAS-TV (channel 9) signs on in Louisville, Kentucky. The station would move to channel 11 in 1953 to alleviate interference with Cincinnati’s WCPO-TV.
1955: WPRO-TV (channel 12, now WPRI-TV) debuts in Providence, Rhode Island.
1955: NBC dedicates Color City in Burbank, California, the first studio facilities specifically designed for color broadcasting. The $3 million complex (imagine what it would cost today!) was 150' by 90' by 50' high (12,600 sq. ft.), with 16 dressing rooms and 4 chorus rooms.
1963: Latin American singer/actress/children’s show host Xuxa is born (as Maria da Graça Meneghel) in Santa Rosa, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
1970: Actress Elizabeth Mitchell (Lost) is born in Los Angeles.
1974: The 90-minute pilot for The Rockford Files airs on NBC. The show would become a regular series starting in September.
1975: Singer Fergie, f/k/a Stacy Ann Ferguson (Kids Incorporated) is born in Hacienda Heights, California.
1977: Actress Diana Hyland (Young Dr. Malone, Peyton Place, The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, Eight is Enough) dies of cancer in Los Angeles, aged 41.
1977: Milwaukee’s WITI (channel 6) and WISN-TV (channel 12) reverse their network swap of 16 years previous, with WITI returning to CBS and WISN to ABC.
1983: The ABC mini-series The Thornbirds airs the first of 4 episodes. It would prove to be the second-highest rated miniseries of all time in the U.S.; only Roots garnered a larger audience.
1985: On his cable TV talk show Hot Properties, comedian Richard Belzer asks Hulk Hogan to demonstrate one of his signature wrestling moves. Hogan obliges, putting Belzer in a “sleeper hold,” which causes Belzer to pass out, hitting his head on the floor and sustaining a minor laceration to the scalp. Belzer would later sue Hogan for $5 million, eventually settling out of court. Hogan would later say that he regrets the incident.
1989: Generations premieres on NBC.
1990: The U.S. government’s TV Martí begins beaming television programs to Cuba from the Florida Keys.
2002: Comedian Milton Berle dies in Los Angeles, aged 93. A year earlier, a cancerous tumor had been found in his colon, but was growing so slowly that Berle and his doctors decided against risky surgery, believing that the tumor would not be seriously life-threatening for many more years.
2002: The George Lopez Show debuts on ABC.
2004: Game show host/announcer Art James (It’s Academic, The Who What or Where Game, Say When!, Concentration) dies of natural causes in Palm Springs, California, aged 74.
2006: Producer/director Dan Curtis (Dark Shadows, The Winds of War, War and Remembrance) dies of a brain tumor in Brentwood, California, aged 78.
(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…..)
1931: Actor David Janssen (Richard Diamond, The Fugitive, O’Hara U.S. Treasury, Harry-O) is born (as David Harold Meyer) in Naponee, Nebraska.
1939: The BBC broadcasts the entirety of “Magyar Melody” live from His Majesty's Theatre. The 175-minute broadcast is the first showing of a full-length musical on television.
1950: WHAS-TV (channel 9) signs on in Louisville, Kentucky. The station would move to channel 11 in 1953 to alleviate interference with Cincinnati’s WCPO-TV.
1955: WPRO-TV (channel 12, now WPRI-TV) debuts in Providence, Rhode Island.
1955: NBC dedicates Color City in Burbank, California, the first studio facilities specifically designed for color broadcasting. The $3 million complex (imagine what it would cost today!) was 150' by 90' by 50' high (12,600 sq. ft.), with 16 dressing rooms and 4 chorus rooms.
1963: Latin American singer/actress/children’s show host Xuxa is born (as Maria da Graça Meneghel) in Santa Rosa, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
1970: Actress Elizabeth Mitchell (Lost) is born in Los Angeles.
1974: The 90-minute pilot for The Rockford Files airs on NBC. The show would become a regular series starting in September.
1975: Singer Fergie, f/k/a Stacy Ann Ferguson (Kids Incorporated) is born in Hacienda Heights, California.
1977: Actress Diana Hyland (Young Dr. Malone, Peyton Place, The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, Eight is Enough) dies of cancer in Los Angeles, aged 41.
1977: Milwaukee’s WITI (channel 6) and WISN-TV (channel 12) reverse their network swap of 16 years previous, with WITI returning to CBS and WISN to ABC.
1983: The ABC mini-series The Thornbirds airs the first of 4 episodes. It would prove to be the second-highest rated miniseries of all time in the U.S.; only Roots garnered a larger audience.
1985: On his cable TV talk show Hot Properties, comedian Richard Belzer asks Hulk Hogan to demonstrate one of his signature wrestling moves. Hogan obliges, putting Belzer in a “sleeper hold,” which causes Belzer to pass out, hitting his head on the floor and sustaining a minor laceration to the scalp. Belzer would later sue Hogan for $5 million, eventually settling out of court. Hogan would later say that he regrets the incident.
1989: Generations premieres on NBC.
1990: The U.S. government’s TV Martí begins beaming television programs to Cuba from the Florida Keys.
2002: Comedian Milton Berle dies in Los Angeles, aged 93. A year earlier, a cancerous tumor had been found in his colon, but was growing so slowly that Berle and his doctors decided against risky surgery, believing that the tumor would not be seriously life-threatening for many more years.
2002: The George Lopez Show debuts on ABC.
2004: Game show host/announcer Art James (It’s Academic, The Who What or Where Game, Say When!, Concentration) dies of natural causes in Palm Springs, California, aged 74.
2006: Producer/director Dan Curtis (Dark Shadows, The Winds of War, War and Remembrance) dies of a brain tumor in Brentwood, California, aged 78.
(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…..)
