Just a few random TV related events that happened on November 24. Discuss or comment as you please……
1911: Actor Kirby Grant (Sky King) is born (as Kirby Grant Hoon, Jr.) in Butte, Montana.
1933: Actor René Enríquez (Hill Street Blues) is born in San Francisco.
1938: Actor David Newell (Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood) is born in O’Hara Township, Pennsylvania. Presumably, the birth was a “Speedy Delivery.” (OK....that was bad, even by MY standards...)
1947: Actor Dwight Schultz (The A-Team, Star Trek: The Next Generation) is born (as William Dwight Schultz) in Baltimore, Maryland.
1948: Kentucky’s first TV station, Louisville’s WAVE-TV, begins broadcasting on channel 5. They would move to channel 3 in 1953 due to mutual CCI problems with Cincinnati’s WLWT.
1957: Actress Denise Crosby (Star Trek: The Next Generation) is born in Hollywood, California.
1958: Viewed now in hindsight as sort of a retroactive “pre-pilot pilot,” the Rod Serling teleplay “The Time Element” is broadcast as an episode of CBS’ Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse. The critical success of the show (a time travel yarn involving Pearl Harbor) motivates the network to consider an anthology show based on similar scripts, and to begin talks with Serling about producing such a show. The rest, as they say, is history. (BTW, “The Time Element” is now rarely seen, and has never had an official DVD release in the U.S.)
1963: Lee Harvey Oswald is shot by Jack Ruby as he is led from Dallas Police HQ for transfer to the county jail. The incident airs live only on NBC (via WBAP-TV’s remote unit); CBS is there (courtesy of KRLD-TV) but makes the switch to Dallas late and misses carrying the shooting live by less than a minute (though videotape of it would run over and over on CBS that day, including the first improvised, manual slow-motion playing of videotape on TV). ABC is initially left in the cold as their affiliate WFAA’s remote unit is staged at the other end of the aborted transfer; the network has to make do with hastily developed newsreel footage of the shooting.
1976: Longtime WNBC-TV and WABC-TV weatherman Tex Antoine infamously follows a WABC report on the rape of a 5-year old girl by making a tasteless and utterly inappropriate joke during his weathercast. The quip kayos his employment at WABC – except for a subsequent brief stint at WNEW-TV, his TV career would soon come to an end.
1978: Actress Katherine Heigl (Roswell, Grey’s Anatomy) is born in Washington, D.C.
1981: Simon & Simon premieres on CBS.
1983: Sesame Street confronts the issue of death head-on in an episode in which Big Bird must come to grips with the fact that he will never see his friend, storekeeper Mr. Hooper (Will Lee), again. The bold move to incorporate actor Lee’s real-life death into the show via his character results in a moving episode that has always been considered one of the most influential moments in children’s television. The episode is purposefully scheduled to air on Thanksgiving Day, to allow parents to have an opportunity to talk to their children about the subject matter. DYK: The long, emotional scene in which the show’s adults try to explain Mr. Hooper’s death to Big Bird was accomplished in one single take.
1988: Mystery Science Theater 3000 premieres as a local show on Minneapolis-St. Paul’s KTMA-TV (channel 23). The show would go national on the Comedy Channel the following year.
2005: Actor Pat Morita (Happy Days) dies in Las Vegas, Nevada, aged 73.
(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…..)
1911: Actor Kirby Grant (Sky King) is born (as Kirby Grant Hoon, Jr.) in Butte, Montana.
1933: Actor René Enríquez (Hill Street Blues) is born in San Francisco.
1938: Actor David Newell (Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood) is born in O’Hara Township, Pennsylvania. Presumably, the birth was a “Speedy Delivery.” (OK....that was bad, even by MY standards...)
1947: Actor Dwight Schultz (The A-Team, Star Trek: The Next Generation) is born (as William Dwight Schultz) in Baltimore, Maryland.
1948: Kentucky’s first TV station, Louisville’s WAVE-TV, begins broadcasting on channel 5. They would move to channel 3 in 1953 due to mutual CCI problems with Cincinnati’s WLWT.
1957: Actress Denise Crosby (Star Trek: The Next Generation) is born in Hollywood, California.
1958: Viewed now in hindsight as sort of a retroactive “pre-pilot pilot,” the Rod Serling teleplay “The Time Element” is broadcast as an episode of CBS’ Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse. The critical success of the show (a time travel yarn involving Pearl Harbor) motivates the network to consider an anthology show based on similar scripts, and to begin talks with Serling about producing such a show. The rest, as they say, is history. (BTW, “The Time Element” is now rarely seen, and has never had an official DVD release in the U.S.)
1963: Lee Harvey Oswald is shot by Jack Ruby as he is led from Dallas Police HQ for transfer to the county jail. The incident airs live only on NBC (via WBAP-TV’s remote unit); CBS is there (courtesy of KRLD-TV) but makes the switch to Dallas late and misses carrying the shooting live by less than a minute (though videotape of it would run over and over on CBS that day, including the first improvised, manual slow-motion playing of videotape on TV). ABC is initially left in the cold as their affiliate WFAA’s remote unit is staged at the other end of the aborted transfer; the network has to make do with hastily developed newsreel footage of the shooting.
1976: Longtime WNBC-TV and WABC-TV weatherman Tex Antoine infamously follows a WABC report on the rape of a 5-year old girl by making a tasteless and utterly inappropriate joke during his weathercast. The quip kayos his employment at WABC – except for a subsequent brief stint at WNEW-TV, his TV career would soon come to an end.
1978: Actress Katherine Heigl (Roswell, Grey’s Anatomy) is born in Washington, D.C.
1981: Simon & Simon premieres on CBS.
1983: Sesame Street confronts the issue of death head-on in an episode in which Big Bird must come to grips with the fact that he will never see his friend, storekeeper Mr. Hooper (Will Lee), again. The bold move to incorporate actor Lee’s real-life death into the show via his character results in a moving episode that has always been considered one of the most influential moments in children’s television. The episode is purposefully scheduled to air on Thanksgiving Day, to allow parents to have an opportunity to talk to their children about the subject matter. DYK: The long, emotional scene in which the show’s adults try to explain Mr. Hooper’s death to Big Bird was accomplished in one single take.
1988: Mystery Science Theater 3000 premieres as a local show on Minneapolis-St. Paul’s KTMA-TV (channel 23). The show would go national on the Comedy Channel the following year.
2005: Actor Pat Morita (Happy Days) dies in Las Vegas, Nevada, aged 73.
(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…..)
