November 11: This Day in TV History

[Stanislav]

Just a few random TV related events that happened on November 11. Discuss or comment as you please……

1925: Comedian Jonathan Winters is born in Bellbrook, Ohio.

1934: Game show host Jim Perry (Card Sharks, $ale of the Century) is born (as James Edward Dooley) in Camden, New Jersey.

1937: Sportscaster Warner Wolf is born in Washington, D.C.

1949: WTTV (Channel 10, now channel 4) signs on in Bloomington, Indiana.

1951: Bing Crosby Enterprises first demonstrates black-and-white video recording using a modified Ampex audio tape recorder.

1951: Game show host Marc Summers (Double Dare, What Would You Do?) is born (as Mark Berkowitz) in Indianapolis, Indiana.

1964: Actress Calista Flockhart (Ally McBeal, Brothers & Sisters) is born in Freeport, Illinois.

1980: Too Close for Comfort premieres on ABC.

2003: The BBC current affairs series Panorama, launched in 1953, becomes the first UK television show to reach its 50th anniversary on air.

2003: A friend of Jonathan Brandis (seaQuest DSV) finds the young actor hanging and near death from a suicide attempt. Despite the rapid response of paramedics and a quick rush to the hospital, Brandis is pronounced dead just a few hours later (early a.m. on the 12th). He is just 27 years old.

2006: Anchor and former news director Alec Gifford officially announces his retirement after 51 years on New Orleans TV, nearly all of them with WDSU.

(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…..)

 

[bpatrick]

Didn't WDSU at one point lure away the whole WVUE
team: Gifford, weathercaster Nash Roberts, and sports
guy Buddy Diliberto?

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

This historical event would later influence the development of a 1960-64 TV series, as well as pop culture to this day:

1926: US Route 66 is established between Santa Monica, CA and Chicago (although road signs would not be posted until the next year). The route would officially be decommissioned on June 27, 1985.

 

[firepoint525]

This historical event would later influence the development of a 1960-64 TV series, as well as pop culture to this day:
1926: US Route 66 is established between Santa Monica, CA and Chicago (although road signs would not be posted until the next year). The route would officially be decommissioned on June 27, 1985.

Was any official reason ever given for this? I live just one mile from U.S. highway 70, and just over the hill from interstate 40 (close enough to hear traffic from it!), but highway 70 was never decommissioned after I-40 was opened, probably some time back in the '60s. Good thing, too! Every time there is a traffic backup on I-40, guess which highway the traffic is diverted onto!

 

[easttxtv]

This historical event would later influence the development of a 1960-64 TV series, as well as pop culture to this day:
1926: US Route 66 is established between Santa Monica, CA and Chicago (although road signs would not be posted until the next year). The route would officially be decommissioned on June 27, 1985.

Was any official reason ever given for this?

Other than being redundant, none that I've ever seen. The multiple combo of states requesting changes or complete removal (especially in CA) was probably too much for the Federal DOT, FHWA, and AASHTO to contend with.

I live just one mile from U.S. highway 70, and just over the hill from interstate 40 (close enough to hear traffic from it!), but highway 70 was never decommissioned after I-40 was opened, probably some time back in the '60s. Good thing, too! Every time there is a traffic backup on I-40, guess which highway the traffic is diverted onto!

US 70 is different, most of it's length still remains (it wasn't incorporated into the design of I-40 like Route 66 was, a-la widening to 4-lane using US 70's lanes as one direction or the other on I-40, or using US 70's lanes as an adjacent service road (or "feeder" or "outer road" or "frontage road", depending on where you are); much of TX's Route 66 mileage ended up as part of I-40's design). It criss-crosses I-40 several times in TN, and comes veryclose but not quite, to being assimilated in AR by I-40, and is only part of I-30 and I-55 for a short time each. Otherwise, US 70 isn't part of, or endangered by, any Interstate. It didn't suffer the same decay that Route 66 has, although US 70 was another "victim" of CA's almost complete purge of US routes. Besides, you don't have Bobby Troup and others trying to come up with a song about US 70 8)

 

[firepoint525]

I used to live in Memphis (don't live there now), where I-40 and I-55 pass through.* Interestingly enough, parts of both I-40 and I-55 replaced parts of the old route 66, but route 66 does not come through Memphis.

*Interesting side note that I-40 and I-55 do not actually meet in Memphis. They actually cross each other in West Memphis, Arkansas.

 

[RyanHoward]

1974: Actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who as a child appeared on the ABC sitcom Growing Pains
before his very successful film career(Titanic, Catch Me If You Can), is born in Los Angeles.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

Lest we forget--Nov. 11 is also Veterans' Day.