I represent the first generation who, when we were born, the television was now a permanent fixture in our homes. When I was born people had breakfast with Barbara Walters, dinner with Walter Cronkite, and slept with Johnny Carson.
Read the full "Pre-ramble"
This
American sitcom which ran on the ABC network
from November 11, 1980, to May 5, 1983, and in first-run syndication from April 7, 1984, to February 7, 1987. It was modeled after
the British seriesKeep It in the Family, which premiered nine
months before Too Close for Comfort debuted in the United States. Its name was changed
to The Ted Knight Show when the show was retooled for
what would turn out to be its final season.
Henry
is a conservative cartoonist who authors a comic strip called Cosmic
Cow. During scenes in which Henry draws in his bedroom, Knight used
his earlier acquired ventriloquism talents for comical conversations with a
hand-puppet version of "Cosmic Cow." Muriel is a laid back freelance
photographer, having been a band singer in her earlier days. They have two
grown children, older daughter, brunette Jackie (Deborah Van Valkenburgh) who works for a bank and younger daughter Sara (Lydia Cornell), a blonde bombshell and a
college student atSan Francisco State University.
At
the start of the premiere episode, Jackie and Sara are living with their
parents in a cramped, awkward arrangement. Their longtime downstairs tenant,
Myron (later called Neville) Rafkin, recently died. The family discovers Rafkin
was a transvestite and the many strange
women Henry had been opening the door for all those years were actually Rafkin
himself. Jackie and Sara convince their parents to allow them to move into the
now-vacant downstairs apartment. In a running gag, Henry falls off the girls'
ultra-modern chairs or couch every time he attempts to sit down. Despite the
daughters' push for independence and moving into the downstairs apartment,
Henry proves to be a very protective father and constantly meddles in their
affairs.
November 12, 1990
Actress Eve Arden, best known for playing the title
role in the radio and TV series Our Miss Brooks, dies at age 78.
Arden was born in Mill Valley, California, and began
acting as a teenager. By age 22, she was appearing in the Ziegfeld Follies. She
made two films under her birth name-Eunice Quedens-before her first picture as
Eve Arden (Oh, Doctor! in 1937). She frequently played the
kind-but-sarcastic girlfriend of the lead female role. Her films included No,
No, Nanette (1940), Mildred Pierce (1945), and Anatomy of a
Murder (1959). Her last film was Grease II (1982). She published an
autobiography, The Three Phases of Eve, in 1985.
GMA expanded to weekends with the debut of a Sunday
edition on January 3, 1993. The Sunday edition was later canceled in 1999;
weekend editions returned on both Saturdays and Sundays on September 4, 2004.
The weekday program airs from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. in all U.S. time
zones (live in the Eastern Time Zone and on tape delay elsewhere
across the country); the Saturday and Sunday editions are one hour long and is
transmitted to ABC's stations live at 7:00 a.m. Eastern Time, although
stations in some markets air
the weekend broadcasts either one hour earlier or later than the 7:00 a.m.
slot. A third hour of the weekday broadcast aired from 2007 to 2008,
exclusively on ABC News Now.
The program features news,
interviews, weather forecasts, special-interest stories, and feature segments
such as "Pop News" (featuring pop culture and
entertainment news, and viral videos),
the "GMA Heat Index" (featuring a mix of entertainment, lifestyle and
human-interest stories) and "Play of the Day" (featuring a selected
viral video or television program clip). It is produced by ABC News and
broadcasts from the Times Square
Studios in New York City's Times Square district.
The primary anchors are Robin Roberts, George
Stephanopoulos and Lara Spencer,
along with newsreader Amy Robach,
social media anchor Tony Reali and
weather anchor Ginger Zee.
Good Morning America has been the most watched morning show in total
viewers and key demos each year since Summer 2012. GMA generally
placed second in the ratings, behind NBC's Today from 1995 to 2012. It
overtook its rival for a period from the early to mid-1980s with anchors David
Hartman and Joan Lunden,
from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s with Charles Gibson and
Lunden, and in April 2012 with Roberts and Stephanopoulos.
Good Morning America won the first three Daytime Emmy Awards for "Outstanding Morning Program",
sharing the inaugural 2007 award with Today and winning the
2008 and 2009 awards outright.
November 4, 1950
Marjorie Armstrong
“Markie” Post is born.
Best known for her roles as bail bondswoman Terri Michaels in The Fall Guy on ABC from 1982 to 1985, as public defender Christine
Sullivan on the NBCsitcomNight Court from 1985 to 1992, and as Georgie Anne Lahti
Hartman on the CBSsitcomHearts Afire from 1992 to 1995. Post died aged 70 at her home in Los Angeles, on August 7, 2021; she had been suffering from cancer.
Poppin' Fresh, more widely known as the Pillsbury
Doughboy, is an advertising icon and mascot of the Pillsbury Company, appearing in many of their commercials. Many
commercials from 1965 until 2004 (returned in 2009 to 2011 and 2013 in a Geico Commercial)
conclude with a human finger poking the Doughboy's stomach. The Doughboy
responds when his stomach is poked by giggling (Hoo-Hoo!, or earlier on,
a slight giggle "hee hee").
The show had its origins in a
November 1975 American television movie entitled The New, Original
Wonder Woman starring Carter. It followed a 1974 TV movie
entitled Wonder Woman starring blond actress Cathy Lee Crosby, who neither resembled the super-hero character nor exhibited any
apparent super-human powers. (John D. F. Black wrote and produced the 1974 TV movie.) In this second movie, set
during World War II and produced by Douglas S. Cramer and Wilford Lloyd "W.L." Baumes, who were working from
a script by Stanley Ralph Ross, Carter as Wonder Woman matched the original comic
book character. Its success led the ABC
television network to order two
more one-hour episodes which aired in April 1976. That success led ABC to order
an additional 11 episodes which the network aired weekly (for the most part)
during the first half of the 1976–77 television season. The episodes ran on Wednesday
nights between October 1976 and February 1977.
Wonder Woman achieved solid ratings on ABC during its first
season, but the network was reluctant to renew the series for another
season. Wonder Woman was a period piece, and as such, it was
more expensive to produce than a series set in the present day. Also, ABC
thought that the 1940s setting limited possible storylines, with the major
villains being Nazis. ABC did not renew the series, so Jerry Lieder,
then-president of Warner Bros. Television, went to CBS with the notion of shifting the series to the
present-day 1970s, which would cost less to produce and allow for more creative
storylines. Unlike 20th Century
Fox Television's Batman, the series was produced without having a theatrical
feature film in the middle of its production. In addition, none of the villains
had recurring appearances. CBS agreed and picked up the show in 1977, and it
continued for another two seasons.
She was the tenth of 18
children (children who included siblings and fellow actresses Estelle Evans and Rosanna Carter).
Rolle
is best known for her television role as Florida Evans, the character she played
on two 1970s sitcoms. The character was
introduced as Maude Findlay's housekeeper on Maude, and was spun off in the show's second
season into Good
Times,
a show about Florida's family. Rolle was nominated in 1975 for the Best Actress
in a Musical/Comedy Golden Globe Award for her role in Good Times. Rolle was 19 years older
than the actor (John
Amos) who
played her husband James Evans. The James Evans character was only added after
Esther Rolle fought hard for a father figure and husband to be added to the
show. Rolle had fought for the father character on the show, more relevant
themes and scripts and was unhappy when the success of Jimmie Walker's character, J.J. Evans,
took the show in what she thought was a frivolous direction. John Amos agreed
with Rolle about Walker's character and was fired from the show after the third
season ended. Later on, in a stand-off with Good Times producer Norman Lear, Rolle also quit when her
contract ended. Although the show continued without her for the fifth season,
she returned for the show's final season. In 1979 she won an Emmy for her role in Summer of My German Soldier, a made-for-television
movie.
Among
her guest star roles was one on The Incredible Hulk in an episode entitled
"Behind the Wheel" where she played a taxicab business owner. In
the 1990s, Rolle was a surprise guest on RuPaul's VH-1 talk show. Her Maude co-star Bea Arthur was the guest, and
Rolle was brought out to surprise Arthur. The two had not seen each other in
years, Arthur said, and embraced warmly. Rolle also appeared in a series
of psychic hotline TV commercials
in the 1990s. "Tell them Esther sent you," was her trademark line.
Rolle
died on November 17, 1998 in Culver City, California, from complications of diabetes, nine days after her 78th
birthday. Her body was flown back to her hometown ofPompano Beach, Florida. A devout Methodist, Rolle requested that her
funeral be held at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The family
requested that any flower donations be sent to such organizations as the
African American Chapter of the American Diabetes Association, The Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Florida, The Black Academy
of Arts and Letters in Dallas, Texas, The Jenesse Center in Los Angeles, and
Marcus Garvey Elementary and Junior High School in Los Angeles.
November 8, 1965
Days of our Lives first aired on November 8, 1965.
The series was created by husband-and-wife team Ted Corday
and Betty Corday along with Irna Phillips
in 1964, and many of the first stories were written by William J. Bell.
The original title sequence voiced by MacDonald Carey
is still used to this day. The series expanded from 30 minutes to a full hour
on April 21, 1975. The co-creator and original executive producer, Ted Corday,
was only at the helm for eight months before dying of cancer in 1966. His
widow, Betty, was named executive producer upon his death. She
continued in that role, with the help of H. Wesley Kenney and Al Rabin as supervising producers, before she semi-retired in
1985. When Mrs. Corday semi-retired in 1985, and later died in 1987, her son,
Ken, became executive producer and took over the full-time, day-to-day running
of the show, a title he still holds today.
When Days of our Lives
debuted the cast consisted of seven main characters (Tom Horton, Alice Horton,
Mickey Horton, Marie Horton,
Julie Olson,
Tony Merritt, and Craig Merritt). The series first focused on its core family,
the Hortons. Several other families have been added to the cast, and many of
them still appear on the show. Frances Reid
the matriarch of the series' Horton family remained with the show from its
inception to her death on February 3, 2010.
The Cordays and Bell combined the "hospital soap" idea with the
tradition of centering a series on a family, by making the show about a family
of doctors, including one who worked in a mental hospital. Storylines in the
show follow the lives of middle and upper-class professionals in Salem, a middle-America town, with the
usual threads of love, marriage, divorce, and family life, plus the medical
storylines and character studies of individuals with psychological problems.
Former executive producer Al Rabin took pride in the characters' passion, saying
that the characters were not shy about "sharing what's in their gut."
Critics originally praised the show for its non-reliance on nostalgia and its
portrayal of "real American contemporary families." By the 1970s,
critics deemed Days to be the most daring daytime drama, leading the way in
using themes other shows of the period would not dare touch, such as artificial insemination and interracial romance. The January 12, 1976
cover of Time magazine featured Days of our Lives' Bill Hayes and Susan Seaforth Hayes, the first daytime actors
to ever appear on its cover. The Hayeses themselves were a couple whose
onscreen and real-life romance (they met on the series in 1970 and married in
1974) was widely covered by both the soap opera magazines and the mainstream press.
One of the longest-running storylines involved the rape of Mickey
Horton's wife Laura by Mickey's brother Bill.
Laura confides in her father-in-law Dr. Tom, and the two agree that her husband
Mickey should never know. The secret, involving the true parentage of Michael
Horton (a product of the rape) and Mickey's subsequent health issues as a
result of the revelation, spanned episodes from 1968 to 1975. The storyline was
the first to bring the show to prominence, and put it near the top of the Nielsen
daytime ratings. Another love triangle, between lounge singer Doug Williams, Tom and Alice's
daughter Addie, and Addie's own daughter, Julie,
proved to be very popular around the same time. The storyline culminated in the
death of Addie in 1974 and the marriage of Doug and Julie in 1976.
In the 1980s, the Brady and DiMera
families were introduced, and their rivalry quickly cemented their places as
core families in Salem beside the Hortons. Around the same time, with the help
of head writers Sheri Anderson, Thom Racina,
and Leah
Laiman, action/adventure storylines and supercouples
such as Bo
and Hope, Shane and Kimberly, and Patch
and Kayla reinvigorated the show, previously focused primarily on the domestic
troubles of the Hortons.
November 8, 2010
Conan premiered
on TBS.
Describing
itself as a traditional late-night talk show, Conan draws its
comedy from recent news stories, political figures and prominent celebrities,
as well as aspects of the show itself. The show typically opens with a monologue from
Conan O'Brien relating to recent headlines and frequently features exchanges
with his sidekick, Andy Richter,
and members of the audience. The next segment is devoted to a celebrity
interview, with guests ranging from actors and musicians to media personalities
and political figures. The show then closes with either a musical or comedy
performance.
On
TBS, Conan airs Monday through Thursday beginning at
11:00 p.m. eastern time. Comedian and actor Andy Richter continues
his role as sidekick to O'Brien, and as the show's announcer. Conan's long-time
house band continues with the host under the new moniker Jimmy
Vivino and the Basic Cable Band,
with Max Weinberg being replaced as bandleader by guitarist Jimmy Vivino and
as drummer by regular substitute James Wormworth,
both of whom regularly substituted for Weinberg during his brief departures.
Popular radio personality Jack Benny moves to
television with The Jack Benny Program. The TV version of the show ran for the next 15 years.
Jack Benny was born
Benjamin Kubelsky in 1894. His father, a Lithuanian immigrant, ran a saloon in
Waukegan, Illinois, near Chicago. Benny began playing violin at age six and
continued through high school. He began touring on the vaudeville circuit in 1917.
In 1918, he joined the navy and was assigned to entertain the troops with his
music but soon discovered a flair for comedy as well. After World War I, Benny
returned to vaudeville as a comedian and became a top act in the 1920s. In
1927, he married an actress named Sadye Marks; the couple stayed together until
Benny's death in 1974.
Benny's success in
vaudeville soon won him attention from Hollywood, where he made his film debut
in Hollywood Revue of 1929. Over the years, he won larger roles, notably
in Charley's Aunt (1941) and To Be or Not to Be (1942). Movies
were only a sideline for Benny, though, who found his natural medium in radio
in 1932.
In March 1932,
then-newspaper columnist Ed Sullivan, dabbling in radio, asked Benny to do an
on-air interview. Benny reluctantly agreed. His comedy, though, was so
successful that Benny was offered his own show almost immediately, which
debuted just a few months later. At first a mostly musical show with a few
minutes of Benny's comedy during interludes, the show evolved to become mostly
comedy, incorporating well-developed skits and regular characters. In many of
these skits, Benny portrayed himself as a vain egomaniac and notorious
pinchpenny who refused to replace his (very noisy) antique car and who kept his
money in a closely guarded vault. His regulars included his wife, whose
character, Mary Livingstone, deflated Benny's ego at every opportunity; Mel
Blanc, who used his famous voice to play Benny's noisy car, his exasperated
French violin teacher, and other characters; and Eddie Andersen, one of radio's
first African American stars, who played Benny's long-suffering valet,
Rochester Van Jones. The program ran until 1955.
In
the 1950s, Benny began experimenting with television, making specials in 1950,
1951, and 1952. Starting in 1952, The Jack Benny Show aired regularly,
at first once every four weeks, then every other week, then finally every week
from 1960 to 1965. Benny was as big a hit on TV as on the radio. Despite the
stingy skinflint image he cultivated on the air, Benny was known for his
generosity and modesty in real life. He died of cancer in Beverly Hills in
1974.
Winkler is best known for his role as Fonzie on the 1970s American sitcomHappy Days.
"The Fonz", a leather-clad greaser
and auto mechanic, started out as a minor character
at the show's beginning, but had achieved top billing by the time the show
ended. Winkler started acting by appearing in a number of television
commercials. In October 1973, he was cast for the role of Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli,
nicknamed The Fonz or Fonzie, in the TV show Happy Days. The show was first aired in
January 1974. During his decade on Happy Days, Winkler also starred in a
number of movies, including The Lords of
Flatbush (1974), playing a troubled Vietnam veteran
in Heroes (1977), The One and Only (1978), and a morgue
attendant in Night Shift
(1982), which was directed by Happy Days co-star Ron
Howard.
After Happy Days, Winkler put his acting career on the back burner,
as he began concentrating on producing and directing. He quickly worked on
developing his own production company and, within months, he had opened Winkler-Rich
Productions.
As the 1990s continued, Winkler began a return to acting. In 1994 he
returned to TV with the short-lived right-wing comedy Monty on Fox
which sank in mere weeks. Also in 1994, he co-starred with Katharine Hepburn in
the holiday TV movie "One Christmas", her last film. In 1998, Adam Sandler asked Winkler to play a
college football coach, a supporting role in The Waterboy (1998). He would later
appear in three other Sandler films, Little Nicky
(2000) where he plays himself and is covered in bees, Click (2006, as the main character's
father), and You
Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008). He has also played small roles
in movies such as Down to You
(2000), Holes (2003), and I Could
Never Be Your Woman (2007).
Winkler recently had a recurring role as incompetent lawyer Barry Zuckerkorn in the Fox Television comedy Arrested
Development. In one episode, his character hopped over a dead
shark lying on a pier, a reference to his role in the origin of the phrase
"jumping the shark".
After that episode, Winkler in interviews stated that he was the only person to
have "jumped the shark" twice.
When Winkler moved to CBS for one season to star in 2005–06's Out of Practice, his role as the Bluth
family lawyer on Arrested Development was taken over by Happy Days
co-star Scott Baio in the fall of 2005, shortly
before the acclaimed but Nielsen-challenged show ceased production.
The rally was a combination of what initially were
announced as separate events: Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity" and
Colbert's counterpart, the "March to Keep Fear Alive." Its stated
purpose was to provide a venue for attendees to be heard above what Stewart
described as the more vocal and extreme 15–20% of Americans who "control
the conversation" of American
politics, the argument being that
these extremes demonize each other and engage in counterproductive actions,
with a return to sanity intended to promote reasoned discussion. Despite
Stewart's insistence to the contrary, news reports cast the rally as a spoof of
Glenn Beck's
Restoring Honor
rally and Al Sharpton's
Reclaim
the Dream rally.
November
2, 1985
Miami Vice soundtrack begins an 11-week run at
#1
Almost from its beginnings, television showed a
remarkable ability to influence the pop charts, and not only by giving exposure
to popular musical artists on programs like American Bandstand and The
Ed Sullivan Show. Many television programs also launched legitimate pop
hits in the form of their theme songs—songs like "The Peter Gunn Theme,"
"Welcome Back" and "Theme from S.W.A.T." But prior
to 1985, no television program had ever launched a smash-hit, movie-style
soundtrack album. The first one to do so was NBC's Miami Vice, a show
that not only altered the landscapes of television and fashion, but also sent
the soundtrack album of the same name to the top of the Billboard 200 on
this day in 1985—a spot it would hold for the next 11 weeks
The genesis of Miami Vice is the stuff of
television legend. It came about in the form of a memo from NBC head of
programming Brandon Tartikoff in which he documented one of his brainstorms
simply as "MTV Cops." Inspired by MTV's growing influence on the
music industry, Tartikoff reasoned that a slickly produced, visually arresting
cop show could become to television essentially what Duran Duran was to music.
Under the creative guidance of producer Michael Mann, Tartikoff's vision took
shape in 1984, when it debuted on NBC's fall schedule.
Scheduled opposite the ratings juggernaut Falcon
Crest on Friday nights at 10 pm, Miami Vice struggled in its first
season but catapulted into the Nielson Top 10 in the autumn of 1985.
Simultaneous with the television show's rise to popularity, its instrumental
theme song, by Czech composer Jan Hammer, was climbing the Billboard pop
singles chart. The popularity of that single, in turn, drove sales of the
soundtrack album Miami Vice, which featured not only Jan Hammer's theme
song and other examples of his incidental soundtrack music, but also several
original songs written expressly for the show's fall season, including
"Smuggler's Blues" and "You Belong To The City" by Glenn
Frey. The album also featured previously released songs that had been featured
prominently in the program's signature musical montages—songs such as Phil
Collins' "In The Air Tonight" and Tina Turner's "Better Be Good
To Me."
In demonstrating how five scenes' worth of difficult
expository dialogue could easily be replaced with a 90-second visual montage
set to mood-appropriate pop music, Miami Vice made a significant
creative impact on the future of American television. In demonstrating how much
additional revenue a television show could generate by releasing soundtrack
albums of pre-existing popular music, it had a significant business impact as well.
Barbara
Eden reprises
her world-famous role as the magical Jeannie; also reprising their roles from
the original series were Bill Daily as Tony's fellow
astronaut and best friend Roger Healy, and Hayden Rorke (in his final film role)
as NASA psychiatrist Dr. Alfred Bellows. The role of Tony Nelson was played
by Wayne
Rogers,
best known for his role as Trapper John McIntyre on the 1970s series M*A*S*H. Larry
Hagman was
unavailable to reprise his role as Tony Nelson reportedly because he was too
busy filming his CBS series Dallas at the time.
The
film was directed by William Asher (who was also director
of the 1960s show Bewitched) and the teleplay was
written by Irma Kalish.
October 23, 1925
Talk show host Johnny Carson is born in Corning, Iowa.
After studying journalism in college, Carson began
working in radio and television. He began writing for TV shows in the 1950s and
hosted his own show, Carson's Cellar, in 1951. He began occasionally
guest hosting for Jack Paar on The Tonight Show and became the show's
permanent host in 1962. He retired in 1992 and died in Los Angeles on January
23, 2005.
The
series was originally slated to consist of thirteen variety episodes, thirteen
dramas starring Sinatra, and ten dramas hosted by Sinatra, filmed at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood rather
than broadcast live. Sinatra was paid $3 million for the series, and granted
near total artistic freedom.
The
drama segments of the show fared less well against the variety episodes in
ratings and the final total was fourteen live variety shows, eight filmed
variety shows, four dramas starring Sinatra, and six dramas hosted by Sinatra.
Rather than 36 episodes for the season, ABC cut its losses and reduced the
total number to 32.
Sinatra
hated rehearsing, and tried to make eleven shows in fifteen days; the series
subsequently received a critical mauling and was Sinatra's last attempt at a
television series.
October 7, 1960
Route
66 primered.
The show ran
weekly on CBS from 1960 to 1964.
It starred Martin Milner as Tod Stiles and, for
two and a half seasons, George Maharis as Buz Murdock. Maharis
was ill for much of the third season, during which time Tod was shown traveling
on his own. Tod met Lincoln Case, played by Glenn Corbett, late in
the third season, and traveled with him until the end of the fourth and final
season.
The series is best remembered for its Corvette convertible and its
instrumental theme song (composed and performed by Nelson
Riddle), which became a major pop hit.
Route 66 was a hybrid between episodic television drama, which has
continuing characters and situations, and the anthology
format (e.g., The Twilight Zone),
in which each week's show has a completely different cast and story. Route
66 had just three continuing characters, no more than two of whom appeared
in the same episode. Like Richard Kimble from The Fugitive, the
wanderers would move from place to place and get caught up in the struggles of
the people there. Unlike Kimble, nothing was forcing them to stay on the move
except their own sense of adventure, thus making it thematically closer to Run for Your Life,
Movin' On, and Then
Came Bronson. Later examples of this traveling protagonist
format are programs such as Bearcats!, Quantum Leap, The Incredible Hulk,
The
A-Team, and Supernatural.
This semi-anthology concept, where the drama is centered on the guest stars
rather than the regular cast, was carried over from series creator Stirling Silliphant's previous
drama Naked City (1958-1963).
Both shows were recognized for their literate scripts and rich
characterizations. The open-ended format, featuring two roaming
observers/facilitators, gave Silliphant and the other writers an almost
unlimited landscape for presenting a wide variety of dramatic (or comedic)
story lines. Virtually any tale could be adapted to the series. The two
regulars merely had to be worked in and the setting tailored to fit the
location. The two men take odd jobs along their journey, like toiling in a California
vineyard or manning a Maine
lobster boat, bringing them in contact with dysfunctional families or
troubled individuals in need of help.
Tod and Buz (and later, Linc) symbolized restless youth searching for
meaning in the early 1960s,
but they were essentially non-characters. We learn almost nothing about them
over the course of the series. All we are told is that, after the death of his
father, Tod Stiles inherits a new Corvette and decides to drive across America
with his friend Buz. Tod, portrayed by clean-cut Martin Milner, is the epitome
of the decent, honest, all-American type. He is the moral anchor of the series.
By contrast, the working-class Buz (George Maharis) is looser, hipper, more Beat
Generation in attitude. His third-season replacement, Lincoln Case
(Glenn Corbett), is a darker character, an army veteran haunted by his
past. He's more introspective with a sometimes explosive temper, but is
nonetheless a reliable companion on this soul-searching journey.
The series concluded in Tampa with the two-part episode "Where There's
a Will, There's a Way," in which Tod Stiles got married, and he and Linc
finally settled down. This made the series one of the earliest prime-time
television dramas to have a planned series finale resolving the fate of its
main characters.
The show was filmed and presented in black and white throughout its run.
This was not unusual for early 1960s episodic TV.
U.S.
Route 66 is well-remembered for its cinematography and location
filming. Writer-producer Stirling Silliphant traveled the country with a
location manager (Sam Manners), scouting a wide range of locales and writing
scripts to match the settings. The actors and film crew would arrive a few
months later. Memorable locations include a logging camp, shrimp boats, an
offshore oil rig, and Glen Canyon Dam, the latter
while still under construction. It is one of very few series in the history of
television to be filmed entirely on the road. This was done at a time when the United
States was much less homogeneous than it is now. People, their
accents, livelihoods, ethnic backgrounds and attitudes varied widely from one
location to the next. Scripted characters reflected a far less mobile society,
in which people were more apt to spend their entire lives in one small part of
the country. Similarly, the places themselves were very different from one
another visually, environmentally, architecturally, in goods and services
available, etc. Stars Martin Milner and George Maharis both mentioned this in
1980s interviews. "Now you can go wherever you want," Maharis added
by way of contrast, "and it's a Denny's."
The roster of guest stars on Route 66 includes quite a few actors who
later went on to fame and fortune, as well as major stars on the downward side
of their careers. One of the most historically significant episodes of the
series in this respect was "Lizard's Leg and Owlet's Wing." It
featured Lon Chaney, Jr., Peter
Lorre and Boris Karloff as themselves,
with Karloff donning his famous Frankenstein monster make-up
for the first time in 25 years and Chaney reprising his role as the Wolfman.
The show was filmed at the O'Hare Inn, near O'Hare
Airport, Chicago, Illinois. Dutch
singer Ronnie Tober had a small guest role with Sharon Russo, Junior Miss
America.
In a 1986 interview, Martin Milner reported that Lee Marvin credited him
with helping his career by breaking Marvin's nose "just enough" to
improve his look. This happened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
during a scripted fistfight for "Mon Petit Chou," the second of two
episodes in which Marvin appeared.
Two late third-season episodes, which aired one week apart, each featured a
guest star in a bit part playing a character with a profession with which they
would later become associated as stars of their own respective mega-hit
television series. In "Shadows of an Afternoon," Michael
Conrad can be seen as a uniformed policeman, many years before he
became famous in his regular role as Police Sgt. Phil Esterhaus on Hill
Street Blues. And in "Soda Pop and Paper Flags," Alan
Alda guested as a surgeon, a precursor to his career-defining role
as Dr. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce on M*A*S*H. Also in the first
season episode The Strengthening Angels that aired November 4, 1960 Hal Smith, who played town
drunk Otis Campbell in The Andy Griffith Show,
also plays a drunk named Howard and is listed in the credits as
"Drunk".
A 4th season episode, "Is It True There Are Poxies at the Bottom of
Landfair Lake?", featured guest stars Geoffrey
Horne and Collin Wilcox. In the
episode's storyline, Wilcox's character pretended to get married to Horne's,
although it turned out to be a practical joke. A few years after appearing in
this episode, Horne and Wilcox would in real life be briefly married to each
other.
A noteworthy in-joke
occurs during the 4th season episode "Where Are the Sounds of Celli
Brahams?" In this segment, Horace
McMahon guests as a Minneapolis, Minnesota,
festival promoter. At one point, his character confesses to Linc his failed
ambition to be a policeman. Linc remarks that he looks like a policeman Linc
once knew in New York City. McMahon had
starred as Lt. Mike Parker on the New York-based police drama Naked City from 1958-63,
another television series overseen by the creative team of Stirling Silliphant and Herbert B. Leonard.
The original
working title of the series was The Searchers, according to George
Maharis. That title was also the title of the 1956 film The Searchers directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne, so the series was renamed.
The
show actually had very little real connection with the US Highway providing its name. Most of the locations
visited throughout the series were far afield from the territory covered
by "The Mother Road." U.S. Route 66 the highway was briefly referred to in just
three early episodes of the series ("Black November," "Play
It Glissando," and "An Absence of Tears") and is shown only
rarely, as in the early first season episode "The Strengthening
Angels".
The
episode "I'm Here to Kill a King," which was originally
scheduled to air on November 29, 1963, was removed from the schedule
because of President John F. Kennedy's assassination one week earlier. It was not
aired until the series went into syndication. This episode, and "A
Long Way from St. Louie," are the only ones filmed outside the United
States. Both were filmed in Canada, the latter in Toronto.
Sam
Peckinpah wrote and directed an episode of season 2, "Mon Petit
Chou," in 1961.
Route 66 was devised by Stirling Silliphant, who wrote
the majority of the episodes. It was notable for its dark storylines and
exceptional realism. Tod and Buz would frequently become involved with
individuals whose almost nihilistic worldview made for
occasionally frightening television. Some 50 years after its premiere, Route
66 is still one of the few television series to offer such a range of
socially-conscious stories, including mercy
killing, the threat of nuclear annihilation, terrorism, runaways and
orphans. Other episodes dealt with the mentally ill, drug addiction or gang
violence. However, some stories were congenially lighthearted, such as a
memorable episode featuring Richard
Basehart as a folklorist trying to record the local music of an
isolated Appalachian
community, and a Halloween episode called "Lizard's Leg and Owlet's
Wing".
Even more unusual is the way it served up a kind of soaring dialog that has
been referred to as "Shakespearean" and
free-verse poetry. For instance, the boys encounter a Nazi hunter
named Bartlett on the offshore oil drilling rig where they work. Bartlett
describes the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust
thus: "Tod, I hope you live a long life and never know the blistering
forces that sear and destroy, turn men into enemies and sweep past the last
frontiers of compassion" and "once you've seen that dark, unceasing
tide of faces... of the victims...the last spark of dignity so obliterated that
not one face is lifted to heaven, not one voice is raised in protest even as
they died..." (from episode #4, "The Man on the Monkey Board").
The quirky, textured writing extended even to episode titles, which included
such oddities as "How Much a Pound is Albatross?" and "Ever Ride
the Waves in Oklahoma?". Other episode titles were drawn from a wide range
of literary sources, such as Shakespeare ("A Lance of Straw",
"Hell is Empty, All the Devils are Here") or Alfred
Tennyson ("A Fury Slinging Flame").
Many of the stories were character studies, like the above-mentioned one
featuring Richard Basehart as a man who uses people then tosses them away, as
if they are plastic spoons. The episode titled "You Can't Pick Cotton in
Tahiti" refers to small-town America as both a far-away, exotic Tahiti and
the "real America" compared to "phony-baloney" Hollywood,
and still offers food for thought. Many episodes offer moving soliloquies, into
which future Academy-Award-winning writer
Stirling Silliphant (In the Heat of the
Night) poured his deepest thoughts.
Despite all the adventure, travelogue, drama and poetry, the real subject of
the series was the human condition, with Tod and Buz often cast as a kind of
roving Greek
chorus, observers and mentors to broken-down prizefighters and rodeo
clowns, sadists and iron-willed matrons, surfers and heiresses, runaway kids
and people from all walks of life, forced by circumstances to confront their
demons.
One hallmark of the show was the way it introduced viewers, however briefly,
to new ways of life and new cultures. For instance, we get a glimpse of a
shrimper's life in episode 2 of season 1, "A Lance of Straw," and a
look at Cleveland, Ohio's Polish
community in episode 35, "First Class Mouliak". Here the young are
pushed by their parents into careers and even marriages they may not want, in
an effort to hold community and family together, albeit at the expense of the
happiness and well-being of the kids. This story featured Robert Redford, Martin
Balsam, Nehemiah Persoff and Nancy
Malone as guest stars.
One of the legacies Route 66 left behind is a dramatic and
photographic portrait of early-1960s America as a less crowded and less
complicated era—if not a less violent one—in which altruism and optimism still
had a place. That place was filled by two young men who seemed to represent the
best in us, the willingness to stand up for the weak, and who espoused
old-fashioned values like honesty and the physical courage necessary to fight
in their own and others' defense. In their role of wanderers, they appeared to
be peaceful rebels who seemed to reject, at least for a time, material
possessions and the American dream of owning a home. The boys were de facto
orphans adrift in American society; as such, they embodied facets of Jack
Kerouac's Beat Generation, a little bit
of Marlon
Brando's wild side from The
Wild One, James Dean's inability to
settle down and fit in from Rebel Without a Cause, and
the wanderlust of the above-mentioned Jim Bronson, the traveling writer and
loner who toured the USA on a motorcycle in the 1969-1970 series Then
Came Bronson. The use of the Corvette on Route 66, not
only as the boys' transportation but as their marquee and symbol of their
wandering spirit, created a link between America's Sports Car and America's
highways that endures to this day.
Given the unusual tenor of the show and the cost of keeping some 50 people
on the road filming for most of the year, it seems highly unlikely that
anything like Route 66 will ever be attempted again.
Nelson
Riddle was commissioned to write the instrumental theme when CBS
decided to have a new song, rather than pay royalties for the Bobby
Troup song "(Get
Your Kicks on) Route 66". Riddle's theme, however, offers an
unmistakable homage to the latter's piano solo (as originally recorded by Nat
King Cole) throughout the number. Riddle's Route 66
instrumental was one of the first television themes[1]
to make Billboard Magazine's Top 30,
following Henry Mancini's "Mr. Lucky Theme" in 1960. The song earned
two Grammy nominations in 1962.
George Maharis reported in a 1986 Nick
at Nite interview that people often ask him about "the red
Corvette." According to Maharis, the Corvette was never red. (The
misconception may partially stem from the box illustration on the official
board game, released by Transogram in 1962, which showed Tod and Buz in a
red-colored model.) It was light blue the first season, and fawn beige for the
second and third seasons. Both colors were chosen to photograph well in black
and white, but the show's cinematographer complained that the powder blue car
reflected too much light. The Corvette was replaced with a newer model annually
by series' sponsor General Motors but the show
itself never mentioned or explained the technicality.
October 10, 1950
The Federal Communications Commission issues the first
license to broadcast color television, to CBS. However, RCA charged that CBS's color technology was
inadequate and contested the license, which was to go into effect November 3.
RCA's challenge worked: A restraining order was issued on November 15. Despite
this setback, CBS did broadcast the first commercial color TV program in June
1951. Color TV technology continued to evolve during the 1950s. In 1956, a
Chicago TV station became the first to broadcast entirely in color. Color
television sets, however, remained less popular than black and white sets until
the late 1960s. In 1968, color televisions outsold black and white televisions
for the first time.
October 10, 2010
Discovery Kids was
relaunched and rebranded as The Hub. It was a joint operation by Discovery
Communications and Hasbro, Inc.
October 11, 1975
Saturday Night Live debuts.
The topical comedy sketch show featuring Chevy Chase,
John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin and
Laraine Newman, makes its debut on NBC; it will go on to become the
longest-running, highest-rated show on late-night television. The 90-minute
program, which from its inception has been broadcast live from Studio 8H in the
GE Building at Rockefeller Center, includes a different guest host and musical
act each week. The opening sketch of each show ends with one actor saying,
“Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”
Created by the Canadian-born comedy writer Lorne Michaels, SNL has
introduced a long list of memorable characters and catchphrases--from Gilda
Radner’s Roseanne Roseannada, to the Coneheads, to Billy Crystal’s Fernando
(“You look mahvelous”), to Dana Carvey’s Church Lady (“Isn’t that special?”),
to bodybuilders Hans and Franz (“We’re going to pump you up”), to Coffee
Talk host Linda Richman (“like buttah” and “I’m all verklempt”)--that have
become part of pop-culture history. The show, whose cast has changed
continually over the years, has also launched the careers of such performers as
Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley,
David Spade, Jon Lovitz, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tina Fey. Some SNL
sketches have even been turned into feature films, the two most successful
examples being 1980’s The Blues Brothers and 1992’s Wayne’s World.
The show was originally known as NBC’s Saturday Night because
there was another show on ABC called Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell.
However, NBC eventually purchased the naming rights, and since 1977 the edgy
comedy program has been called Saturday Night Live. Lorne Michaels
served as the show’s producer from 1975 to 1980, followed by Jean Doumanian
from 1980 to 1981. Dick Ebersol helmed the show from 1981 to 1985. Michaels
returned to the program that year, and has remained executive producer ever since.
The influential comedian George Carlin hosted the debut episode of SNL.
Later that year, Candace Bergen became the first woman to assume SNL hosting
duties. She went on to host the program four more times. In 1982,
seven-year-old Drew Barrymore hosted the show, becoming the youngest person
ever to do so. Starting in 1976, Steve Martin has hosted SNL 14 times.
Since 1990, Alec Baldwin has hosted the show 13 times. John Goodman has hosted
the show a dozen times, beginning in 1989. Other frequent guest hosts include
Buck Henry, Chevy Chase, Tom Hanks and Christopher Walken. Musical guests
who’ve performed on SNL five or more times include Paul Simon, Tom Petty
& The Heartbreakers, James Taylor, Sting, Beck and the Foo Fighters.
SNL is known for its topical parodies and impersonations, and for
pushing boundaries with its sketches. The show is also recognized for its
political humor. Chevy Chase famously portrayed President Gerald Ford as a
klutz, while Dana Carvey spoofed President George H.W. Bush and his “read my
lips” line. More recently, Amy Poehler has played Senator Hillary Clinton in
numerous skits (including one with the senator herself) and Tina Fey has
portrayed the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin.
October 12, 1950
The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, aka The Burns and Allen Show, began on CBS Television.
The show was originally staged live before a studio audience
(during its first three months, it originated from the Mansfield Theatre in New York, then
relocated to CBS' Columbia Square facilities in Los Angeles). Ever
the businessman, Burns realized it would be more efficient to do the series on
film (beginning in the fall of 1952); the half-hour episodes could then be
syndicated. From that point on, the show was shot without a live audience
present, however, each installment would be screened before an audience to
provide live responses prior to the episodes being broadcast. With 291
episodes, the show had a long network run through 1958 and continued in
syndicated reruns for years.
Cameron is also an active Christianevangelist,
currently partnering with Ray Comfort in the evangelical ministry The Way of the Master, and has
co-founded The Firefly Foundation with his wife, actress Chelsea
Noble. He stated that his main priorities in life are: "God, family,
career — in that order," and he says that this decision has had
negative consequences on his career.
