This Week in Television History: July 2020 PART II

July 13, 1985

Live Aid, a massive concert for African famine relief, takes place simultaneously in Philadelphia and London. 

In addition to 162,000 fans that attended the all-day event were 1.5 billion viewers worldwide who watched the show on MTV or other television stations. An estimated 75 percent of all radio stations around the world broadcast at least part of the concert.

Irish musician Bob Geldof, of the Boomtown Rats, organized the event. Among the participants were Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, the Beach Boys, Carlos Santana, Madonna, Sting, and Tina Turner. Several disbanded groups came together again for the day, including Crosby, Stills and Nash; The Who; and surviving members of Led Zeppelin, including Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones. All performers worked for free, as did many other concert workers. The production, which ordinarily would have cost $20 million to stage, cost only $4 million and raised more than $70 million for famine relief.

Despite the number of acts, the show ran surprisingly smoothly. Rotating stages allowed bands to set up and dismantle their equipment while other bands were onstage. Acts from one stadium were telecast across the Atlantic to the other. Such organization, however, did not characterize the group's later charitable efforts: Live Aid was later criticized for its disorganized and slow efforts to channel aid to Africa.

To quote the Bicentennial Minute, "And that's the way it was".

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Your Mental Sorbet: Hamilton Mask-up Parody Medley

Here is another

"Mental Sorbet" 

A little spark of madness

that we could use to momentarily forget about those

things that leave a bad taste in our mouths

Stay Tuned and Wash Your Hands 

Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: July 2020 PART I

July 6, 1925

Mervyn "Merv" Edward Griffin, Jr. the American television host and media mogul is born. 

He began his career as a radio and big band singer who went on to appear in movies and on Broadway. During the 1960s, Griffin hosted his own talk show, The Merv Griffin Show, and created the game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. A billionaire at his death, he is considered an entertainment business magnate.

July 10, 1995

Hugh Grant appears on Tonight Show after Hollywood arrest.

On this day in 1995, Hugh Grant appears on late-night television’s The Tonight Show less than two weeks after being arrested with a Hollywood prostitute. The show’s host, Jay Leno, famously asked the English actor, “What the hell were you thinking?”

Grant, who shot to stardom with the 1994 hit British film Four Weddings and a Funeral, was arrested on June 27, 1995, in a parked car near Sunset Boulevard with a prostitute named Divine Brown and charged with lewd conduct in a public place. At the time of his arrest, Grant, then age 34, was already scheduled to appear on The Tonight Show to promote Nine Months, his first major Hollywood movie. The actor kept his agreement and went on the program, speaking publicly about the incident for the first time. “What the hell were you thinking?” Leno asked him, to which Grant simply responded “I did a bad thing.” The show garnered huge ratings (enabling Leno to beat his late-night talk show rival David Letterman) and Grant was praised for apologizing for his behavior, in contrast to other scandal-plagued celebrities who went into seclusion or blamed their mistakes on others.

Grant pled no contest to the charges against him, paid a fine and received probation. Although the arrest surprised many fans of the actor, who was known for his charm and wit, his career did not seem to suffer in the end and he went on to star in a number of films, most often romantic comedies, including Notting Hill (1999), Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001),  About a Boy (2002), Love Actually (2003) and Music and Lyrics (2007). Though Grant’s long-term girlfriend, the English model and actress Elizabeth Hurley, stuck by him during the scandal, the couple announced their separation in 2000 after 13 years together.

July 12, 1990

Northern Exposure airs its first episode. 

The offbeat show, about a Manhattan doctor contractually forced to work in the fictional of town Cicely, Alaska for four years to repay a student loan from the state.  Rob Morrow stared as Dr. Joel Fleischman. Most of Northern Exposure's story arcs are character-driven, with the plots revolving around the eccentricities of the Cicely citizens. The show consistently ranked in the Top 20 most-watched TV shows until it was canceled in 1995. 

To quote the Bicentennial Minute, "And that's the way it was".

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Your Mental Sorbet: Tom and Jerry in the Hollywood Bowl

Summertime in Hollywood means seeing a concert at the world famous Hollywood Bowl. 
Sadly, it was announced that for the first time in 98 years, the Hollywood Bowl has canceled its summer season for safety reasons amid the coronavirus pandemic. 
Tom and Jerry in the Hollywood Bowl was my introduction to a Bowl Concert (I would love to see it on a big screen one of these days). The back drops are beautifully drawn. 
Pack a picnic basket and enjoy the concert.
See you next year. 

Here is another

"Mental Sorbet" 

A little spark of madness

that we could use to momentarily forget about those

things that leave a bad taste in our mouths

 

Stay Tuned and Wash Your Hands 

Tony Figueroa

Hugh Downs

A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances,

but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.

Hugh Downs

Hugh Malcolm Downs
February 14, 1921 – July 1, 2020

Hugh Downs was born in Akron, Ohio, to Edith (née Hicks) and Milton Howard Downs, who worked in business. He was educated at Lima Shawnee High School in Lima, Ohio; Bluffton College, a Mennonite school in Bluffton, Ohio; and Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, during the period 1938–41.

Downs worked as a radio announcer and program director at WLOK in Lima, Ohio, after his first year of college. In 1940 he moved on to WWJ in Detroit. Downs served in the United States Army during World War II in 1943 and then joined the NBC radio network at WMAQ as an announcer in Chicago, Illinois, where he lived until 1954.^[11] While at WMAQ Downs also acted, including as the "co-pilot" in the "Uncle Ned's Squadron" program in 1951. He married a coworker, Ruth Shaheen, in 1944, three days after his 23rd birthday. He also attended Columbia University in New York City during 1955–56.

On August 25, 1958, Downs concurrently began a more than ten-year run hosting the original version of the game show Concentration. Also, he hosted NBC's Today Show for nine years from September 1962 to October 1971, plus co-hosting the syndicated television program Not for Women Only with Barbara Walters in 1975–76. Downs also appeared as a panelist on the television game show To Tell the Truth and played himself in an episode of NBC's sitcom Car 54, Where Are You?

In March 1954, Downs moved to New York City to accept a position as announcer for Pat Weaver's The Home Show starring Arlene Francis. That program lasted until August 1957. He was the announcer for Sid Caesar's Caesar's Hour for the 1956–57 season, and one of NBC Radio's Monitor "Communicators" from 1955–1959. 

This is one of my earliest TV memories.

Downs became a bona fide television "personality" as Jack Paar's announcer on The Tonight Show from mid-1957, when he replaced Franklin Pangborn, until Paar's departure in March 1962, and then continued to announce for The Tonight Show until the summer of 1962, when Ed Herlihy took the announcing reins. Herlihy held that post until October 1, 1962, when Johnny Carson took over the show, and brought Ed McMahon as his announcer. Downs made his first television news broadcast in September 1945 from the still experimental studio of WBKB-TV (now WBBM-TV) in Chicago, a station then owned by the Balaban and Katz theater subsidiary of Paramount Pictures. Downs later recalled that when he went for his first job, he had never seen a television before, and he was unsure whether television would last. Downs became a television regular, announcing for Hawkins Falls in 1950, the first successful television soap opera, which was sponsored by Lever Brothers Surf detergent. 

He also announced the Burr Tillstrom children's show Kukla, Fran and Ollie from the NBC studios at Chicago's Merchandise Mart after the network picked up the program from WBKB.

Downs earned a postgraduate degree in gerontology from Hunter College while he was hosting Over Easy, a PBS television program about aging that aired from 1977 to 1983. He was probably best known in later years as the Emmy Award-winning co-anchor — again paired with Walters — of the ABC news TV show 20/20, a primetime news magazine program, from the show's second episode in 1978 until his retirement in 1999.

Downs was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum in 1984. In that same year, he was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as holding the record for the greatest number of hours on network commercial television (15,188 hours), though he lost the record for most hours on all forms of television to Regis Philbin in 2004.

A published composer, Downs hosted the PBS showcase for classical music, Live from Lincoln Center from 1990–96. Downs made a cameo appearance on Family Guy in addition to other TV shows.

Downs was seen in infomercials for Bottom Line Publications, including their World's Greatest Treasury of Health Secrets, as well as another one for a personal coach. He did an infomercial for Where There's a Will There's an A in 2003. His subsequent infomercial work aroused some controversy, with many arguing the products were scams.

Downs appeared in regional public service announcements in Arizona, for that state's Motor Vehicles Division; for Hospice of the Valley, a Phoenix-area non-profit organization specializing in hospice care, as well as in many public, short-form programs in which he serves as host of educational interstitials.

On October 13, 2007, Downs was one of the first inductees into the American TV Game Show Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Downs publicly expressed support for libertarian viewpoints. He opposed the U.S. "war on drugs". He did several pieces about the war on drugs and hemp. On his last 20/20 he was asked if he had any personal opinions he would like to express and responded that marijuana should be legalized.

Good Night Mr. Downs

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Your Mental Sorbet: The 2000 Year Old Man - 1975 Animated Special

Here is another

"Mental Sorbet" 

A little spark of madness

that we could use to momentarily forget about those

things that leave a bad taste in our mouths

Stay Tuned and Wash Your Hands 

Tony Figueroa

Your Mental Sorbet: Ferris Bueller's Day Off | Reunited Apart with Josh Gad

Here is another

"Mental Sorbet" 

A little spark of madness

that we could use to momentarily forget about those

things that leave a bad taste in our mouths

Bueller? Bueller? Josh gathers the cast of Ferris Bueller--as well as some VERY special surprise guests--to pay tribute to one of the most iconic films of the 80's and the man who created it. Be here at 9am PT/12pm ET on June 28th, because you know, life moves pretty fast.... and you are not going to want to miss this! Directed by James Merryman Produced by Meghan Monaco Executive Produced by Taylor Stuewe Edited by Will Newell & Alex Stuewe FEATURING: Matthew Broderick Alan Ruck Mia Sara Jennifer Grey ....and many more!

For this episode, Reunited Apart is fundraising for CORE.

CORE provides financial relief when a food and beverage employee with children faces a health crisis, death or natural disaster. As the world faces the biggest pandemic in our lifetime, they continue to honor their mission by providing support to families affected by COVID-19.

Stay Tuned and Wash Your Hands 

Tony Figueroa