October 8: This Day in TV History

[Stanislav]

Just a few random TV related events that happened on October 8. Discuss or comment as you please……

1943: Actor Chevy Chase (Saturday Night Live) is born (as Cornelius Crane Chase) in New York City.

1948: WNBQ (channel 5, now WMAQ-TV) begins broadcasting in Chicago, the last of the city’s 4 commercial VHF stations to launch, as well as the 3rd of the original 5 NBC O&O’s.

1953: WTAP-TV (channel 15) signs on in Parkersburg, West Virginia.

1953: One from the VHF Morgue: KIVA (channel 11, Yuma, Arizona) begins full-power test transmissions from Pilot Knob (across the border in California). Regular programming would commence 10 days later. The sole station in the market for the first decade of its existence, KIVA was officially independent, but carried selected programs from all 4 commercial networks until becoming an NBC primary later on. Although licensed to Yuma (in the Mountain Time Zone), the station operated on Pacific Time as much of their viewership was located across the border in California’s Imperial Valley. The station would struggle, but persevere when competition arrived in the form of KBLU-TV (channel 13, now KSWT) in Yuma (1963) and KECC-TV (channel 9, now KECY-TV) in El Centro, California (1968). (In fact, one of KIVA’s owners, Bruce Merrill, fought tooth and nail against the establishment of these new stations.) With the market unable to support three local stations (and cable bringing additional competition from distant Phoenix and L.A. channels), KIVA ultimately gave up the ghost on January 31, 1970. The channel would remain dark for 18 years until KYMA signed on in 1988.

1954: CHCT (channel 2, now CICT-TV) begins broadcasting in Calgary, Alberta, as that province’s first TV station.

1966: WAND-TV (channel 17, Decatur, Illinois) activates its new 1100-foot tower in Argenta, Illinois. It is topped with an experimental RCA “Vee-Zee” antenna, one of only two ever put into service (the other at WJJY-TV in Jacksonville. Illinois).

1968: Actress Emily Procter (The West Wing, CSI: Miami) is born in Raleigh, North Carolina.

1985: KMBH-TV (channel 60) signs on in Harlingen, Texas, bringing a local PBS signal to the Rio Grande Valley for the first time.

1988: Empty Nest premieres on NBC as a spin-off from The Golden Girls.

(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…..)

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

1966: WAND-TV (channel 17, Decatur, Illinois) activates its new 1100-foot tower in Argenta, Illinois. It is topped with an experimental RCA “Vee-Zee” antenna, one of only two ever put into service (the other at WJJY-TV in Jacksonville. Illinois).

And both towers collapsed on the same weekend, Easter weekend 1978 (WAND on Saturday, March 25, WJJY's old stick the next day on Easter Sunday, March 26--during the worst ice storm in Central Illinois history.

By that time, WJJY had gone dark seven years earlier after only less than 2 years on the air during 1969-71 as an ABC affiliate for Quincy, Jacksonville, and as a second ABC affiliate for Springfield (in addition to WAND, which did not switch to NBC until 2005). But at that time there were plans to get channel 14 and their Vee-Zee back up and running as a regional PBS affiliate, which eventually became the "Network Knowledge" network of low-powered PBS stations licensed to Jacksonville (with a Springfield translator), Quincy and Macomb (with studios in Chatham, IL, just outside of Springfield).

More information on the history of WJJY and the collapse of their tower in 1978 is available at this page:

http://www.brainmist.com/wjjy_tv/wjjy_tv.htm ("The Rise and Fall of WJJY-TV Channel 14)

Also see the following two parts of a history of WAND-TV compiled by a weathercaster for Champaign station WICD-TV (he has also created histories of the "Big 3" affiliates in the Springfield/Decatur/Champaign market on his site--very interesting and informative reading):

http://www.dougquick.com/wanddecatur3.html (Part 2: 1965-77, including info on the construction of the 1,135-foot tower)

http://www.dougquick.com/wanddecatur4.html (Part 3: 1978-85, starting with the collapse and aftermath of the WAND-TV tower on Easter 1978).

 

[wbhist]

1943: Actor Chevy Chase (Saturday Night Live) is born (as Cornelius Crane Chase) in New York City.

It was long known that Chevy's "Weekend Update" catchphrase, "Good evening, I'm Chevy Chase and you're not" was a takeoff of the late WABC-TV (New York) news anchor Roger Grimsby's legendary open. However, there's a website that noted that the correct spelling of Grimsby's sign-on was "Hear now the news." Whereas for many years, many - including Chase - thought Grimsby was saying "Here now the news," which to Chevy made no sense grammatically. (Ironically, after Chevy left SNL as a regular, his successor as "Update" anchor, Jane Curtin, used Grimsby's open verbatim.)

Oh, B.T.W., the website link . . .
http://tyingmyshoes.blogspot.com/2008/02/hear-here.html

 

[LKellerIII]

1943: Actor Chevy Chase (Saturday Night Live) is born (as Cornelius Crane Chase) in New York City.

It was long known that Chevy's "Weekend Update" catchphrase, "Good evening, I'm Chevy Chase and you're not" was a takeoff of the late WABC-TV (New York) news anchor Roger Grimsby's legendary open. However, there's a website that noted that the correct spelling of Grimsby's sign-on was "Hear now the news." Whereas for many years, many - including Chase - thought Grimsby was saying "Here now the news," which to Chevy made no sense grammatically. (Ironically, after Chevy left SNL as a regular, his successor as "Update" anchor, Jane Curtin, used Grimsby's open verbatim.)

Oh, B.T.W., the website link . . .
http://tyingmyshoes.blogspot.com/2008/02/hear-here.html

So what was Grimsby's "legendary open? (in full). As a kid, I used to unofficially "collect" these (meaning, in my head). In Los Angeles, the all-time champ was George Putnam (recently deceased), who had about a dozen intros, and outros that he used constantly for many years. The most famous being his closing - "That's the up-to-the-minute news, up-to-the-minute that's all the news. The American flag flies proudly over (insert name of So. Cal town here,) , symbolizing a better, a stronger America. Back tonight at 10:00. See you then!".

A close second was Jerry Dunphy - "From the desert to the sea, to all of Southern California, good evening."

 

[Ultimajock]

So what was Grimsby's "legendary open? (in full). As a kid, I used to unofficially "collect" these (meaning, in my head). In Los Angeles, the all-time champ was George Putnam (recently deceased), who had about a dozen intros, and outros that he used constantly for many years. The most famous being his closing - "That's the up-to-the-minute news, up-to-the-minute that's all the news. The American flag flies proudly over (insert name of So. Cal town here,) , symbolizing a better, a stronger America. Back tonight at 10:00. See you then!".

A close second was Jerry Dunphy - "From the desert to the sea, to all of Southern California, good evening."

...in the movie The Hollywood Knights, Humble Harve Miller (as a KBLA disc jockey called "Doctor J" during a broadcast on Haloween Night 1965) introduces The Four Seasons' record "Big Girls Don't Cry" by saying, "From the Desert to the Sea, soulfully!" As I recall, the real-life KBLA-AM 1500 (which Miller programmed in 1965) couldn't actually reach either the Mojave Desert or the Pacific Ocean with its 1000 watt nighttime signal from the Verdugo Hills (between Burbank and Glendale), so I have to think Miller's actual reference was to Dunphy's KNXT/2 newscast opening...

 

[Ultimajock]

So what was Grimsby's "legendary open? (in full). As a kid, I used to unofficially "collect" these (meaning, in my head).

...I just recalled another one of those, if you're still collecting. For the short time he anchored the last (1976) incarnation of WISN-TV/12 Milwaukee's Eyewitness News, Jerry Doyle* opened with the words, "From the Machine Shop of America's Dairyland, Here is tonight's news"...

*this Jerry Doyle was a Circuit Court judge in the Milwaukee area before taking the WISN-TV gig, not the current-day radio conservitalk host...

 

[LKellerIII]

A close second was Jerry Dunphy - "From the desert to the sea, to all of Southern California, good evening."

...in the movie The Hollywood Knights, Humble Harve Miller (as a KBLA disc jockey called "Doctor J" during a broadcast on Haloween Night 1965) introduces The Four Seasons' record "Big Girls Don't Cry" by saying, "From the Desert to the Sea, soulfully!" As I recall, the real-life KBLA-AM 1500 (which Miller programmed in 1965) couldn't actually reach either the Mojave Desert or the Pacific Ocean with its 1000 watt nighttime signal from the Verdugo Hills (between Burbank and Glendale), so I have to think Miller's actual reference was to Dunphy's KNXT/2 newscast opening...

It must have been Harve's little tribute to Dunphy. Way off the subject of Classic TV for a second - KBLA is talked about a lot on the radio boards here. It was a great station crippled by a horrible signal. I grew up about 5 miles away from their transmitter (as the crow flies) - in Tujunga - on the other side of the Verdugo Hills. After sunset, KBLA could not be heard - just static.

 

[wbhist]

So what was Grimsby's "legendary open? (in full).

The full open was, "Good evening, I'm Roger Grimsby, hear now the news." (Which Jane Curtin later opened Update with, only substituting her own name for Grimsby's.) It should also be noted that Chevy's sign-off of "Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow" - later used by Ms. Curtin and, even later, by Tina Fey - had originated in the newscast parody that was in 1974's The Groove Tube (in which, though Chevy was in the film, he wasn't in the news segment); that close was very likely a parody of the sign-off used by John Charles Daly (of What's My Line? fame) in his capacity as ABC News anchor from October 1953 to December 1960, "Good night and a good tomorrow."

But though Chevy openly admitted that he modeled his opening after Grimsby's, his "Update" anchor persona appeared to be a hybrid of different anchors who were on the New York television scene as of 1975-76. In some of the phony "live remotes" of Laraine Newman, for example, Chase appeared to be parodying WCBS-TV's Jim Jensen, who was famous for his probing questions of reporters either on the field or in the studio, and his essentially making them look like fools if they didn't have a ready answer to whatever question he was throwing at them at the moment.

And his mock "file reports," mainly of the Patty Hearst trial, where they had childhood-scrawl "artist's renderings" (and later on, old B&W one-reeler or cartoon clips), and at the last second he was seen crouched in a corner of the news set, holding his nose to get the "pinched" effect of reporters phoning in their stories - this appeared to be a parody of the shoddy newsgathering practices indulged by WPIX in late 1968, where their "coverage" of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia (where they took stock footage of military maneuvers and passed them off as coming "via satellite," and reporters supposedly filing "on-the-scene" reports of the unfolding events actually delivered them from a phone booth at the lobby of the Daily News building where the station's studios were) and other major stories led to a decade-long (1969-79) license challenged filed by a group called Forum Communications. Ironically, in the early 1980's, WPIX went on to air hour-long edits of the 1975-80 SNL episodes in repeats.

 

[mleach]

On the subject of Chevy Chase....

Back in 1980 when Chase made an appearance on Tom Snyder's Tomorrow show, Chase made a joke about movie star Cary Grant by saying ""Oh, What a Gal !!". There were some reports at the time that had Chevy Chase joking with Tom Snyder that Cary Grant was a "****".

However that night of Chevy's Tomorrow appearance...Cary Grant was indeed watching Tom Snyder and heard Chase's remarks and then he sued Chase for slander. Both settled out of court. I recall reading in one of my movie books that the amount Chevy Chase paid to Grant was $10,000 while another claimed as a result of the settlement, all the money Chevy Chase had made in "Oh Heavenly Dog" went right to Cary Grant.

 

[LKellerIII]

On the subject of Chevy Chase....

Back in 1980 when Chase made an appearance on Tom Snyder's Tomorrow show, Chase made a joke about movie star Cary Grant by saying ""Oh, What a Gal !!". There were some reports at the time that had Chevy Chase joking with Tom Snyder that Cary Grant was a "****".

However that night of Chevy's Tomorrow appearance...Cary Grant was indeed watching Tom Snyder and heard Chase's remarks and then he sued Chase for slander. Both settled out of court. I recall reading in one of my movie books that the amount Chevy Chase paid to Grant was $10,000 while another claimed as a result of the settlement, all the money Chevy Chase had made in "Oh Heavenly Dog" went right to Cary Grant.

Are you sure that's not one of those show-biz "urban legends?" Saying "oh, what a gal" might imply Grant was gay, but I don't think it rises to the level of slander. It could also be one of those silly off- the-cuff remarks that comedians like to throw out. Also, if you're suing, why not sue Snyder and NBC for failing to censor the remark?

If true, I guess I could believe that Chase would be willing to pay $10K to save $100K in lawyer's fees, but not the few million bucks he would have been paid to make a movie.

 

[RicoGregg]

On the subject of Chevy Chase....

Back in 1980 when Chase made an appearance on Tom Snyder's Tomorrow show, Chase made a joke about movie star Cary Grant by saying ""Oh, What a Gal !!". There were some reports at the time that had Chevy Chase joking with Tom Snyder that Cary Grant was a "****".

However that night of Chevy's Tomorrow appearance...Cary Grant was indeed watching Tom Snyder and heard Chase's remarks and then he sued Chase for slander. Both settled out of court. I recall reading in one of my movie books that the amount Chevy Chase paid to Grant was $10,000 while another claimed as a result of the settlement, all the money Chevy Chase had made in "Oh Heavenly Dog" went right to Cary Grant.

Are you sure that's not one of those show-biz "urban legends?" Saying "oh, what a gal" might imply Grant was gay, but I don't think it rises to the level of slander. It could also be one of those silly off- the-cuff remarks that comedians like to throw out. Also, if you're suing, why not sue Snyder and NBC for failing to censor the remark?

If true, I guess I could believe that Chase would be willing to pay $10K to save $100K in lawyer's fees, but not the few million bucks he would have been paid to make a movie.

A touch of irony here: With all due respect to poster mleach, Cary Grant's given name was Archibald Leach!

 

[firepoint525]

Didn't Cary Grant die in 1980? If so, he didn't really live long enough to enjoy the money! :'(

 

[Ultimajock]

Didn't Cary Grant die in 1980? If so, he didn't really live long enough to enjoy the money! :'(

...Cary Grant died on 29 November 1986 in Davenport, Iowa, while on a speaking tour...

 

[mleach]

Are you sure that's not one of those show-biz "urban legends?" Saying "oh, what a gal" might imply Grant was gay, but I don't think it rises to the level of slander. It could also be one of those silly off- the-cuff remarks that comedians like to throw out. Also, if you're suing, why not sue Snyder and NBC for failing to censor the remark?

If true, I guess I could believe that Chase would be willing to pay $10K to save $100K in lawyer's fees, but not the few million bucks he would have been paid to make a movie.

I am pretty sure at least part of this story was true but I do think there are other parts of it ( like the Oh Heavenly Dog part , the 10K I agree sounds right..10K to Chevy Chase would be more like $10 to me and you ) well chances some pieces of this are were added over the years I guess to make the story "juicy" or whatever.

Come to think of it I believe Tom Snyder talked about this suit to Elizabeth Montgomery when he had her on his syndicated radio show years ago ( 1991 ? ). This was of course around the time her co-star from Bewitched, Dick Sargent had came out of the closet.

You do bring up a good point...why didn't Cary Grant sue NBC and Tom Synder over this and only Chevy Chase? One of TV's more goofy mysteries.

 

[rwells2265]

It should also be noted that Chevy's sign-off of "Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow" - later used by Ms. Curtin and, even later, by Tina Fey - had originated in the newscast parody that was in 1974's The Groove Tube (in which, though Chevy was in the film, he wasn't in the news segment); that close was very likely a parody of the sign-off used by John Charles Daly (of What's My Line? fame) in his capacity as ABC News anchor from October 1953 to December 1960, "Good night and a good tomorrow."

And one of the best closes ever. The anchorman (played by "Tube" co-writer/co-producer Ken Shapiro) says: "Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow. No matter what the news may be this time, or any time ... until next time, have a good time, ALL the time."

Then he sits there as the teletype fx is brought up, and a brilliant parody of an anchor having to hold their face when the control room doesn't cut to commercial or package.

Groove Tube is awfully dated and "'70s free-sex" in many places, but what's good is beyond great. The cooking show skit is far and away my favorite. Worth a find.

--Russell

 

[wbhist]

It should also be noted that Chevy's sign-off of "Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow" - later used by Ms. Curtin and, even later, by Tina Fey - had originated in the newscast parody that was in 1974's The Groove Tube (in which, though Chevy was in the film, he wasn't in the news segment); that close was very likely a parody of the sign-off used by John Charles Daly (of What's My Line? fame) in his capacity as ABC News anchor from October 1953 to December 1960, "Good night and a good tomorrow."

And one of the best closes ever. The anchorman (played by "Tube" co-writer/co-producer Ken Shapiro) says: "Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow. No matter what the news may be this time, or any time ... until next time, have a good time, ALL the time."

And that last set of sentences of Mr. Shapiro's close in that segment, appeared to be a parody of then-WNEW-TV news anchor Bill Jorgensen's "thanking you for your time this time 'til next time" sign-off.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

1941: Civil rights leader, politician and 1984 & 1988 Democratic presidential candidate Jesse Jackson is born in Greenville, SC. He hosted "Saturday Night Live" in 1984, and also hosted the short-lived talk show "Both Sides With Jesse Jackson" in 1992.

 

[bpatrick]

So what was Grimsby's "legendary open? (in full). As a kid, I used to unofficially "collect" these (meaning, in my head). In Los Angeles, the all-time champ was George Putnam (recently deceased), who had about a dozen intros, and outros that he used constantly for many years. The most famous being his closing - "That's the up-to-the-minute news, up-to-the-minute that's all the news. The American flag flies proudly over (insert name of So. Cal town here,) , symbolizing a better, a stronger America. Back tonight at 10:00. See you then!".

A close second was Jerry Dunphy - "From the desert to the sea, to all of Southern California, good evening."

Actually Jerry Dunphy's opening was "From the mountains to the desert to the sea, to all of Southern California, good evening."

...in the movie The Hollywood Knights, Humble Harve Miller (as a KBLA disc jockey called "Doctor J" during a broadcast on Haloween Night 1965) introduces The Four Seasons' record "Big Girls Don't Cry" by saying, "From the Desert to the Sea, soulfully!" As I recall, the real-life KBLA-AM 1500 (which Miller programmed in 1965) couldn't actually reach either the Mojave Desert or the Pacific Ocean with its 1000 watt nighttime signal from the Verdugo Hills (between Burbank and Glendale), so I have to think Miller's actual reference was to Dunphy's KNXT/2 newscast opening...

 

[LKellerIII]

It should also be noted that Chevy's sign-off of "Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow" - later used by Ms. Curtin and, even later, by Tina Fey - had originated in the newscast parody that was in 1974's The Groove Tube (in which, though Chevy was in the film, he wasn't in the news segment); that close was very likely a parody of the sign-off used by John Charles Daly (of What's My Line? fame) in his capacity as ABC News anchor from October 1953 to December 1960, "Good night and a good tomorrow."

And one of the best closes ever. The anchorman (played by "Tube" co-writer/co-producer Ken Shapiro) says: "Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow. No matter what the news may be this time, or any time ... until next time, have a good time, ALL the time."

And that last set of sentences of Mr. Shapiro's close in that segment, appeared to be a parody of then-WNEW-TV news anchor Bill Jorgensen's "thanking you for your time this time 'til next time" sign-off.

Again, I'll submit the greatest (and probably longest) news close of all times, from the infamous George Putnam in Los Angeles from the early 1950s through the early 1970s:

"And that's the up-to-the-minutes news, up-to-the-minute, that's all the news. The American flag flies proudly over (insert name of southern California city or suburb here), symbolizing a better, a stronger America. Back tomorrow at 5:00, and again at 10:00. See you then!"

 

[Tim L]

It should also be noted that Chevy's sign-off of "Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow" - later used by Ms. Curtin and, even later, by Tina Fey - had originated in the newscast parody that was in 1974's The Groove Tube (in which, though Chevy was in the film, he wasn't in the news segment); that close was very likely a parody of the sign-off used by John Charles Daly (of What's My Line? fame) in his capacity as ABC News anchor from October 1953 to December 1960, "Good night and a good tomorrow."

And one of the best closes ever. The anchorman (played by "Tube" co-writer/co-producer Ken Shapiro) says: "Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow. No matter what the news may be this time, or any time ... until next time, have a good time, ALL the time."

And that last set of sentences of Mr. Shapiro's close in that segment, appeared to be a parody of then-WNEW-TV news anchor Bill Jorgensen's "thanking you for your time this time 'til next time" sign-off.

All this talk about sign-off's puts me in mind of a radio personality by the name of "Hymie" Williams..A sportscaster at various times on Canton, Ohio Radio stations WNYN-900, WOIO/WRCW-1060 and WINW-1520..He went back and forth between these 3 stations for probably over 30 years, doing sports news and commentary. He had a really unique delivery..A High pitched sort of Walter Winchell style.... (though not as fast) "Hey there everybody This is The Sports Voice Of Hymie Williams..." His signature closing was..

"This has been Hymie Williams with the Sports..And I'll see you next time, which will be..The best time"

While Williams had his fans and never went begging for sponsors, it was rather telling that the major AM station in Canton, WHBC-1480, never hired him..