Just a few random TV related events that happened on May 9. Discuss or comment as you please……
1918: Journalist Mike Wallace (Night Beat, The Mike Wallace Interview, 60 Minutes) is born in Brookline, Massachusetts.
1930: Meteorologist Bill Kuster is born in Fernville, Pennsylvania. His career would include stints at KYW-TV in Philadelphia from 1963-79 and KUSA in Denver from 1979-96. (He retired in 1996, and died in 2006, aged 76.)
1946: The first regularly scheduled American variety show, Hour Glass, premieres on NBC.
1946: Actress Candice Bergen (Murphy Brown) is born in Beverly Hills, California.
1955: Sam and Friends, the first TV show to feature Jim Henson's Muppets, premieres on Washington’s WRC-TV.
1961: FCC Chair Newton Minow delivers his famous “vast wasteland” speech at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB). For those who didn’t get it imprinted into their brains in school, the relevant paragraph: “When television is good, nothing -- not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers -- nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit and loss sheet or rating book to distract you -- and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.” (If Minow could see what TV has subsequently become, I believe he would have used stronger -- perhaps unprintable -- descriptors than “vast wasteland...”)
1979: Robert Conrad and Ross Martin reunite for the first of two television movies, The Wild Wild West Revisited.
1986: File under that big “critically acclaimed but watched by almost no one” heading: Joe Bash, starring Peter Boyle, airs the last of just 6 episodes on ABC. Though one critic said, “Peter Boyle [is] outstanding as a grumpy cop in this...moody tragicomedy on loneliness,” viewers apparently preferred more upbeat fare to a “moody tragicomedy.”
2004: Comedian Alan King dies in New York City of cancer, aged 76. (My favorite Alan King anecdote...after participating in a Command Performance for the British Royal Family, he was brought before Queen Elizabeth II. “And how are you, Mr. King?” asked Her Royal Highness. “And how are you, Mrs. Queen?” King replied. She was not amused...)
(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…..)
1918: Journalist Mike Wallace (Night Beat, The Mike Wallace Interview, 60 Minutes) is born in Brookline, Massachusetts.
1930: Meteorologist Bill Kuster is born in Fernville, Pennsylvania. His career would include stints at KYW-TV in Philadelphia from 1963-79 and KUSA in Denver from 1979-96. (He retired in 1996, and died in 2006, aged 76.)
1946: The first regularly scheduled American variety show, Hour Glass, premieres on NBC.
1946: Actress Candice Bergen (Murphy Brown) is born in Beverly Hills, California.
1955: Sam and Friends, the first TV show to feature Jim Henson's Muppets, premieres on Washington’s WRC-TV.
1961: FCC Chair Newton Minow delivers his famous “vast wasteland” speech at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB). For those who didn’t get it imprinted into their brains in school, the relevant paragraph: “When television is good, nothing -- not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers -- nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit and loss sheet or rating book to distract you -- and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.” (If Minow could see what TV has subsequently become, I believe he would have used stronger -- perhaps unprintable -- descriptors than “vast wasteland...”)
1979: Robert Conrad and Ross Martin reunite for the first of two television movies, The Wild Wild West Revisited.
1986: File under that big “critically acclaimed but watched by almost no one” heading: Joe Bash, starring Peter Boyle, airs the last of just 6 episodes on ABC. Though one critic said, “Peter Boyle [is] outstanding as a grumpy cop in this...moody tragicomedy on loneliness,” viewers apparently preferred more upbeat fare to a “moody tragicomedy.”
2004: Comedian Alan King dies in New York City of cancer, aged 76. (My favorite Alan King anecdote...after participating in a Command Performance for the British Royal Family, he was brought before Queen Elizabeth II. “And how are you, Mr. King?” asked Her Royal Highness. “And how are you, Mrs. Queen?” King replied. She was not amused...)
(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…..)
