Just a few random TV related events that happened on May 5. Discuss or comment as you please……
1927: Actress/comedienne Pat Carroll is born in Shreveport, Louisiana. Among literally hundreds of appearances in TV sitcoms, game shows, and as a voice actress, some of her more notable roles include Bunny Halper on The Danny Thomas Show, Shirley Feeney's mother on Laverne and Shirley, and as the voice of Ursala in many TV and theme-park incarnations of Disney’s “Little Mermaid” franchise.
1935: Actor/writer Douglas Marland (A Brighter Day, As the World Turns, General Hospital, Guiding Light, Loving) is born in West Sand Lake, New York. He is also known for his famous writers’ creed “How Not to Wreck a Show.”
1943: Comedian/writer Michael Palin (Monty Python’s Flying Circus) is born in Broomhill, Sheffield, England.
1949: KGO-TV (channel 7) begins broadcasting in San Francisco. DYK: KGO is ABC's oldest original O&O station on the West Coast, as its sister station KECA-TV (now KABC-TV), also operating on channel 7, did not sign on the air until September 1949.
1959: Journalist Brian Williams (NBC Nightly News) is born in Elmira, New York.
1961: Alan Shepard pilots the Mercury Freedom 7 mission and becomes the second person, and the first American, to travel into space. The launch, return from space and subsequent collection by helicopter are seen live on television by millions.
1964: The acclaimed documentary film “Seven Up!” is broadcast on ITV in the U.K., showing the lives of fourteen 7-year-old schoolchildren. Subsequently, the producers would revisit these same 14 people at 7-year intervals and produce a series of follow-up documentaries (known colloquially as “The Up Series”). Filming for the next installment in the series, “56 Up!,” is expected to take place in late 2011 or early 2012.
1966: Wrier Josh Weinstein (The Simpsons) is born in Maryland.
1973: Actress Tina Yothers (Family Ties) is born in Whittier, California.
1974: The strange saga of channel 68 in Los Angeles begins. KVST-TV, a community access station owned by the Viewer Sponsored Television Foundation, signs on to the channel. The concept of the station, which included loaning out portable equipment to anyone to produce programming, was unusual for a broadcast station (so-called public access channels being normally found on cable systems). Despite some genuinely notable programs (including the first television appearance of the new wave rock group Oingo Boingo in 1975), KVST could not survive long under a cloud of technical difficulties, underfunding, and constant internal political strife, and would go dark in December 1975. In 1987, channel 68 was briefly occupied by KEEF-TV (owned by the Black Television Workshop), but violations of the technical parameters of the license, and other questions about the owner, led the FCC's Mass Media Bureau to shut down KEEF after just a few months on the air. (The station’s actual start and end dates are lost to obscurity. In reality, the channel was never included in TV listings, and most Angelinos never even knew it was there anyway.) There were also unsuccessful efforts made in the early 1990s to restart channel 68 as a Hispanic Christian TV station. Eventually, channel 68 would be reoccupied –- by the pre-transition DTV signal of KRCA-TV (analog channel 62) in Riverside, California, an assignment that will be vacated when channels 52-69 are cleared at the end of the digital transition.
1979: Actor Vincent Kartheiser (Angel, Mad Men) is born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
1980: America's Top 10 with Casey Kasem, the television version of Kasem's long-running radio institution American Top 40, premieres in syndication.
1981: Actress Danielle Fishel (Boy Meets World) is born in Mesa, Arizona.
1990: TaleSpin premieres on the Disney Channel.
1995: Longtime Baltimore (WJZ-TV) news anchor Al Sanders dies of lung cancer in Baltimore, aged 54. He joined WJZ-TV in 1972 and was on the air there for more than two decades. DYK: He changed his name professionally a few years before the WJZ gig: he was born Al Gay. (Hmm....wonder why he changed it?) :
2000: The last first-run Boy Meets World is aired on ABC.
2008: Most of the classic SCTV cast (Eugene Levy, Martin Short, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, and Joe Flaherty) reunite for the first time in many years to perform for the charity event “The Benefit of Laughter” at the Second City Theatre in Toronto.
(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…..)
1927: Actress/comedienne Pat Carroll is born in Shreveport, Louisiana. Among literally hundreds of appearances in TV sitcoms, game shows, and as a voice actress, some of her more notable roles include Bunny Halper on The Danny Thomas Show, Shirley Feeney's mother on Laverne and Shirley, and as the voice of Ursala in many TV and theme-park incarnations of Disney’s “Little Mermaid” franchise.
1935: Actor/writer Douglas Marland (A Brighter Day, As the World Turns, General Hospital, Guiding Light, Loving) is born in West Sand Lake, New York. He is also known for his famous writers’ creed “How Not to Wreck a Show.”
1943: Comedian/writer Michael Palin (Monty Python’s Flying Circus) is born in Broomhill, Sheffield, England.
1949: KGO-TV (channel 7) begins broadcasting in San Francisco. DYK: KGO is ABC's oldest original O&O station on the West Coast, as its sister station KECA-TV (now KABC-TV), also operating on channel 7, did not sign on the air until September 1949.
1959: Journalist Brian Williams (NBC Nightly News) is born in Elmira, New York.
1961: Alan Shepard pilots the Mercury Freedom 7 mission and becomes the second person, and the first American, to travel into space. The launch, return from space and subsequent collection by helicopter are seen live on television by millions.
1964: The acclaimed documentary film “Seven Up!” is broadcast on ITV in the U.K., showing the lives of fourteen 7-year-old schoolchildren. Subsequently, the producers would revisit these same 14 people at 7-year intervals and produce a series of follow-up documentaries (known colloquially as “The Up Series”). Filming for the next installment in the series, “56 Up!,” is expected to take place in late 2011 or early 2012.
1966: Wrier Josh Weinstein (The Simpsons) is born in Maryland.
1973: Actress Tina Yothers (Family Ties) is born in Whittier, California.
1974: The strange saga of channel 68 in Los Angeles begins. KVST-TV, a community access station owned by the Viewer Sponsored Television Foundation, signs on to the channel. The concept of the station, which included loaning out portable equipment to anyone to produce programming, was unusual for a broadcast station (so-called public access channels being normally found on cable systems). Despite some genuinely notable programs (including the first television appearance of the new wave rock group Oingo Boingo in 1975), KVST could not survive long under a cloud of technical difficulties, underfunding, and constant internal political strife, and would go dark in December 1975. In 1987, channel 68 was briefly occupied by KEEF-TV (owned by the Black Television Workshop), but violations of the technical parameters of the license, and other questions about the owner, led the FCC's Mass Media Bureau to shut down KEEF after just a few months on the air. (The station’s actual start and end dates are lost to obscurity. In reality, the channel was never included in TV listings, and most Angelinos never even knew it was there anyway.) There were also unsuccessful efforts made in the early 1990s to restart channel 68 as a Hispanic Christian TV station. Eventually, channel 68 would be reoccupied –- by the pre-transition DTV signal of KRCA-TV (analog channel 62) in Riverside, California, an assignment that will be vacated when channels 52-69 are cleared at the end of the digital transition.
1979: Actor Vincent Kartheiser (Angel, Mad Men) is born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
1980: America's Top 10 with Casey Kasem, the television version of Kasem's long-running radio institution American Top 40, premieres in syndication.
1981: Actress Danielle Fishel (Boy Meets World) is born in Mesa, Arizona.
1990: TaleSpin premieres on the Disney Channel.
1995: Longtime Baltimore (WJZ-TV) news anchor Al Sanders dies of lung cancer in Baltimore, aged 54. He joined WJZ-TV in 1972 and was on the air there for more than two decades. DYK: He changed his name professionally a few years before the WJZ gig: he was born Al Gay. (Hmm....wonder why he changed it?) :
2000: The last first-run Boy Meets World is aired on ABC.
2008: Most of the classic SCTV cast (Eugene Levy, Martin Short, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, and Joe Flaherty) reunite for the first time in many years to perform for the charity event “The Benefit of Laughter” at the Second City Theatre in Toronto.
(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…..)
