September 11: This Day in TV History

[Ultimajock]

...I just recalled something -- the Jack Paar Program on which Liberace played piano behind Cassius Clay reciting his poetry was scheduled to air on November 22, 1963 over NBC. It had been taped the previous Sunday, as Paar used the same studio that Johnny Carson used on weekdays; Liberace set out to an Eastern U.S. concert tour that week, accounting for his Pittsburgh hotel room story I mentioned upthread. Due to the JFK assassination coverage, the program wasn't aired until the following Friday, November 29. Also because of the assassination, on November 24 NBC ran a kinescope of the previous night's BBC production of That Was The Week That Was, an American pilot for which series NBC had already aired two weeks earlier. Although not the usual satirical episode -- in fact, the somber tribute song "In The Summer Of His Years" was written for the broadcast and became a U.S. Top 40 hit for Connie Francis a couple of months later -- it's worth noting, since when the series was added to NBC's schedule it immediately engaged in a "feud" with Jack Paar, whose program followed TW3 on Friday nights (Paar once called TW3 "Henry Morgan's Amateur Hour," as Morgan was a frequent guest on the earlier show)...

 

[Corky Marlowe]

Another famous, or rather, infamous person whose death on 11/22/63 was obscured by the assassination: Robert Stroud, the "Birdman Of Alcatraz".

The way I remember hearing about Liberace's near death was that he was overcome by either carpet fumes or dry-cleaning fumes in a dressing room before a concert, and that it was accidental, not an attempted suicide.

 

[bpatrick]

Paar may have been joking about Henry Morgan's
many appearances on "TW3," but Morgan did host
an amateur show--actually a forerunner of "The Gong
Show" called "Henry Morgan's Great Talent Hunt"--on
NBC in 1951. With Arnold (Top Cat) Stang as his
assistant, he presented the most atrocious acts he
could find. Wonder if Chuck Barris was watching?

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

1984: The second episode of Alex Trebek's "Jeopardy!" featured the infamous 3-way $0 tie after Final Jeopardy--resulting in three new contestants for the next show.

I have found all 4 parts to the infamous second episode on YouTube (but with very poor video quality) at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFmpx6lpHqk&feature=related (Part 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2srzew30GBg&feature=related (Part 2)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBGxWueURE8&eurl=http:// (Part 3)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S7It9aUgdc&feature=related (Part 4--Final Jeopardy--"Calendar Date in Which the 20th Century Began")

The "Jeopardy! Archive" link to all the action (questions/answers, order of answer selection) from the second episode from 9/11/84 is at:

http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=174

 

[mleach]

On the subject of 9/11/01....not long after the attacks I seem to recall reading online ( it may very well have been this site ) where Lisa Beamer, whose husband Todd was killed on United 93 was planning on making the phrase "Let's Roll" a trademark on behalf of Lisa Beamer. I checked her Wikipedia page and it does bring that part up but....about a year or two after tha attacks I can remember hearing stories where Lisa was planning to sue any radio or TV station who was found to use the words "Let's Roll" and NOT to include a reference to Todd Beamer. At the time my radio station was airing Tom Leykus and I can remember when he really went off on this by screaming "Let's Roll...OK Lisa..you come and get ME..did you hear me LISA..LET'S ROLL !!". She was also to rumored to had gone after the radio host Deliliah and talk show host Jerry Springer when both had mentioned the phrase "Let's Roll" on their programs without of course, mentioning Todd Beamer. Whatever happened to these suits? A search online tuned up nothing so I assume they were either dropped and/or Lisa got wise knowing this is something she wouldn't win but I still have the memo in my collection dated Sepetmeber 14, 2002 from my then program director warning us NOT to say "Let's Roll"..at all on the air..even the mentioning of title of the tune "Roll ON Down The Highway" by BTO was off limits.. Yeah our PD back then was THAT paranoid of being sued !!

 

[Stanislav]

2009: Writer/producer Larry Gelbart (Caesar's Hour, M*A*S*H) dies of cancer in Beverly Hills, aged 81. He is best known to TV fans for his work developing M*A*S*H and guiding the show through its first four seasons, but Mr. Gelbart's credits in film and on the stage far outweigh his TV work. Among others, he co-wrote and won a Tony for "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," garnered another Tony for the book for the 1989-92 Broadway comedy musical "City of Angels," received Oscar nominations for the screen play of "Oh, God!" and for co-writing "Tootsie," wrote screenplays for many other movies like "Not With My Wife, You Don't!," "Movie Movie" and "Blame It on Rio," and several HBO movies such as "Barbarians at the Gate."

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-larry-gelbart12-2009sep12,0,2812430.story

 

[RicoGregg]

Not to put a damper on the well-deserved accolades for Mr. Gelbart, but in the 80s, he was the creator of a sitcom titled United States, which aired briefly on NBC after an incredibly massive promotional campaign. It was an incredible ratings bomb, and died with a soft thud.

Not Mr. Gelbart's proudest achievement, but there's no denying his many successes.

 

[Stanislav]

Two very nice reminiscences of Larry Gelbart from Mark Evanier and Ken Levine:

http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2009_09_13.html#017712

http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2009/09/my-thoughts-on-larry-gelbart.html

Apart from his obvious talent and enormous success, it sounds like he was one hell of a nice guy.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

Didn't John Ritter pass away 5 years ago this afternoon (Sept. 11, 2003) after becoming ill on the set of "8 Simple Rules?"

I believe Johnny Cash died the same day as Ritter as well at least I know it was announced at the same time. I remeber when many radio and TV stations took those two deaths and combined them into one big news story.

Actually, the Wikipedia article for Johnny Cash (and I apologize for checking that) indicates that he actually died at 2AM CDT in Nashville on the morning of Sept. 12, 2003. I just remember hearing Cash's death being among the breaking news that morning--and it was only en route to work (and then also hearing about it from co-workers later) that I first learned about John Ritter's passing.