March 3: This Day in TV History

[Stanislav]

Just a few random TV related events that happened on March 3. Discuss or comment as you please……

1958: KTVU (channel 2) begins broadcasting in Oakland, California.

1959: Actor/comedian Lou Abbott (The Abbott and Costello Show) dies in East Los Angeles of a heart attack, aged 52. His death comes just 3 days short of his 53rd birthday (b. March 6, 1906 in Paterson, New Jersey).

1961: Actress Mary Page Keller (Ryan’s Hope, Another World, Duet, Open House) is born in Monterey Park, California.

1966: The Candlestick Park Tornado, one of only two F5 tornadoes in Mississippi's history, collapses the 1999’ tower and damages the transmitter building of WLBT (Channel 3, Jackson) near Raymond, Mississippi. The transmitter is able to be salvaged and repaired, and would be put back into service from an auxiliary tower. A replacement 1999’ tower would also collapse 31 years later, killing three Canadian tower workers.

1974: Nova premieres on PBS.

1982: Actress Jessica Biel (7th Heaven) is born in Ely, Minnesota.

1983: KLAX-TV (channel 31) signs on in Alexandria, Louisiana as an independent station. They would obtain an ABC affiliation two years later.

1983: The pilot of Moonlighting airs on ABC, with regular weekly episodes beginning 2 nights later, on March 5.

1987: Entertainer Danny Kaye dies in Los Angeles of a heart attack, aged 74.

1991: In Los Angeles, California, Rodney King is severely beaten by police officers after leading them on a high-speed chase and resisting arrest. The beating is captured on video by observers and portions of the tape are aired repeatedly on television in the U.S.

1998: Former CBS News president Fred Friendly dies in Riverdale, New York of a stroke, aged 82.

(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…..)

 

[therealjm12]

1959: Actor/comedian Lou Abbott (The Abbott and Costello Show) dies in East Los Angeles of a heart attack, aged 52. His death comes just 3 days short of his 53rd birthday (b. March 6, 1906 in Paterson, New Jersey).


That would be Lou Costello. - Bud Abbott the best straight man in the business.
By the way, am I the only one that notices a transmitting tower collapses just about everyday in TV history?

 

[Firebird]

1981: WCLQ Channel 61 debuts in Cleveland, Ohio. After a 6 year absence when Kaiser Broadcasting shut down WKBF and merged with WUAB/43, Balaban Broadcasting became the new licensee of Channel 61 in 1980. The station's schedule consisted of reruns, syndicated programs and old movies during the day and Prevue Subscription TV at night. WCLQ became a full time independent in 1983 when Prevue shut down.

After 2 ownership changes, and the emergence of WOIO/19 and WBNX/55 in 1985, both with superior programming, WCLQ was sold in 1986 to HSN where it became WQHS and broadcast the Home Shopping Club. The station is now owned by Univision.

Trivia: On March 3 and 4, WCLQ broadcast The Deer Hunter, with limited commercial interruption, before Prevue debuted a few days later. It was the only time Channel 61 in its incarnations as either WKBF, WCLQ or WQHS had the most viewers for a prime time program in the Cleveland area. Taking advantage of the situation, WKYC/3 actually bought time on Channel 61 to advertise their 11:00pm newscast.

TimL or OMW may have more info on WCLQ.

 

[bpatrick]

Bud Abbott died in 1974. In the mid-'60s he
provided his own voice for an Abbott and Costello
cartoon series.

Bud was in an elite company; gifted straight men
are hard to find: George Burns, Dean Martin, Dickie
Smothers, Dan Rowan. Can anyone think of others?

 

[Stanislav]

1959: Actor/comedian Lou Abbott (The Abbott and Costello Show) dies in East Los Angeles of a heart attack, aged 52. His death comes just 3 days short of his 53rd birthday (b. March 6, 1906 in Paterson, New Jersey).

That would be Lou Costello. - Bud Abbott the best straight man in the business.

G*DD*MMIT!!! With Abbott's name coming first in billing, and my being about to type "Abbott and Costello", my brain was ahead of my fingers and it came out that way. Shazbot......

By the way, am I the only one that notices a transmitting tower collapses just about everyday in TV history?

I brought that up on another board about a year ago....I think it was around the time of the KATV tower collapse. I looked up all the instances of TV towers going down (whether due to weather, accident, sabotage, or poor engineering) and if you average it all out, you can expect an average of 2 of those sticks crumbling per year.

 

[Stanislav]

Bud Abbott died in 1974. In the mid-'60s he
provided his own voice for an Abbott and Costello
cartoon series.

With Stan Irwin filling in as Lou's voice.

Bud was in an elite company; gifted straight men
are hard to find...

If you take a flick like "The Time of Their Lives," in which A&C are not a "team" (reputedly because they were feuding at the time, and the plot minimized their interaction), you can see that Bud Abbott could have also made a decent living doing light character roles even without a partner.

 

[Ultimajock]

Bud Abbott died in 1974. In the mid-'60s he
provided his own voice for an Abbott and Costello
cartoon series.

Bud was in an elite company; gifted straight men
are hard to find: George Burns, Dean Martin, Dickie
Smothers, Dan Rowan. Can anyone think of others?

...on occasion, Avery Schreiber served as a good one alongside Jack Burns...

 

[LKellerIII]

Bud Abbott died in 1974. In the mid-'60s he
provided his own voice for an Abbott and Costello
cartoon series.

Bud was in an elite company; gifted straight men
are hard to find: George Burns, Dean Martin, Dickie
Smothers, Dan Rowan. Can anyone think of others?

...on occasion, Avery Schreiber served as a good one alongside Jack Burns...

For straight men, are you limiting this only to stand-up acts, or can we include comedy acting (TV and film)? If so, you'd have to include Andy Griffith as a great straight man to Don Knotts...and later Jack Burns. Andy realized early on during the run of the Andy Griffith Show that the show worked better when he played it straight, as the sane and mature person reacting to Barney and the other eccentric townsfolk of Mayberry. At that point, he toned down the corn-pone, and even his southern accent.

 

[RicoGregg]

In the Marx Brothers movies, I loved the way that the straight man role was transferable.

After Groucho would make his grand entrance, Zeppo, or the designated romantic lead (Allan Jones, etc.) would be straight man to Groucho. Then...

Groucho would be straight man to Chico. Then...

Chico would be straight man to Harpo, and Groucho would be straight man to both of them.

In the words of Harpo: Honk-Honk!

 

[Stanislav]

For straight men, are you limiting this only to stand-up acts, or can we include comedy acting (TV and film)? If so, you'd have to include Andy Griffith as a great straight man to Don Knotts...and later Jack Burns. Andy realized early on during the run of the Andy Griffith Show that the show worked better when he played it straight, as the sane and mature person reacting to Barney and the other eccentric townsfolk of Mayberry.

You are also more or less describing both of Bob Newhart's long series, especially the latter (Newhart). Bob always was perfect for simply reacting -- in his deadpan, stammering way -- to all the crazies around him. Eddie Albert also falls into that category on Green Acres, where his frustration stems from being (in his mind) the only sensible, sane one in town (or even in his own home).

All these are perhaps not "straight men" in the classic vaudeville-ish Bud Abbott sense of merely feeding material to a partner who gets all the laugh lines -- these TV characters get their own share of funny lines and schtick -- the same genus, if not quite the same species.

 

[landtuna]

And Jack Benny.....straight man to himself.

 

[LKellerIII]

For straight men, are you limiting this only to stand-up acts, or can we include comedy acting (TV and film)? If so, you'd have to include Andy Griffith as a great straight man to Don Knotts...and later Jack Burns. Andy realized early on during the run of the Andy Griffith Show that the show worked better when he played it straight, as the sane and mature person reacting to Barney and the other eccentric townsfolk of Mayberry.

You are also more or less describing both of Bob Newhart's long series, especially the latter (Newhart). Bob always was perfect for simply reacting -- in his deadpan, stammering way -- to all the crazies around him. Eddie Albert also falls into that category on Green Acres, where his frustration stems from being (in his mind) the only sensible, sane one in town (or even in his own home).

All these are perhaps not "straight men" in the classic vaudeville-ish Bud Abbott sense of merely feeding material to a partner who gets all the laugh lines -- these TV characters get their own share of funny lines and schtick -- the same genus, if not quite the same species.

Newhart was the perfect straight man. When you think about it, he was even the straight man in his stand-up "telephone" bits - reacting to the unseen and unheard "caller" on the other end.

 

[Ultimajock]

Newhart was the perfect straight man. When you think about it, he was even the straight man in his stand-up "telephone" bits - reacting to the unseen and unheard "caller" on the other end.

...to a great extent, Shelley Berman used the same phone-related framework, and for a while was every bit as successful as Newhart...

 

[Stanislav]

By the way, am I the only one that notices a transmitting tower collapses just about everyday in TV history?

I brought that up on another board about a year ago....I think it was around the time of the KATV tower collapse. I looked up all the instances of TV towers going down (whether due to weather, accident, sabotage, or poor engineering) and if you average it all out, you can expect an average of 2 of those sticks crumbling per year.

And, appropo of this point:

http://www.televisionbroadcast.com/article/75422

The WSPA tower (Spartanburg SC) came down a couple days ago when that late winter storm swept through the South.

When you consider the engineering involved in putting up these very tall, very skinny, yet very heavy structures, and keeping them upright, it's amazing that most of them do endure. I'm no expert on the physics involved, but it seems like even the slightest defect, damage, or load imbalance can bring everything toppling to the ground. Very touchy and vulnerable structures. I don't envy the guys that have to build, repair, and maintain these things.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

1983: The pilot of Moonlighting airs on ABC, with regular weekly episodes beginning 2 nights later, on March 5.

Didn't "Moonlighting" actually premiere in 1985?

 

[Toledo Eleven]

1983: The pilot of Moonlighting airs on ABC, with regular weekly episodes beginning 2 nights later, on March 5.

Didn't "Moonlighting" actually premiere in 1985?

I agree, it was 1985.