This Week in Television History: January 2025 PART III

 

January 22, 2010

Conan O’Brien makes final appearance as The Tonight Show host. 

Conan O’Brien hosts his final episode of The Tonight Show, following an announcement by NBC earlier in the month that Jay Leno would return as the host of the long-running, late-night program. The decision to replace O’Brien was met with protests by his fans and became a public-relations debacle for the network. 

In its early years The Tonight Show, which debuted in 1954, was hosted by entertainers including Steve Allen and Jack Paar. Under Johnny Carson, who assumed hosting duties in 1962, the program, with its opening monologue, celebrity interviews, musical performances and comedy sketches, became a late-night institution for millions of Americans. When Carson retired in 1992 he was replaced by Leno. On September 27, 2004, the 50th anniversary of the show’s launch, NBC announced O’Brien would take over from Leno in 2009.

Born in Massachusetts in 1963, O’Brien graduated from Harvard University and went on to work as a writer for such television shows as Saturday Night Live and “The Simpsons.” In 1993, the lanky redhead began hosting his own TV show on NBC, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, which followed The Tonight Show. After recording the final Late Night show on February 20, 2009, O’Brien and his staff relocated from New York City to Los Angeles for The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, which premiered on June 1, 2009.

Meanwhile, Leno went on to helm his own weeknight comedy series in primetime. However, the program earned less-than-stellar ratings, and after a strong start O’Brien’s Tonight Show ratings also slumped. In early January 2010, NBC executives proposed rearranging the late-night lineup: Leno would host a half-hour show at 11:35 p.m. ET (the long-standing start time for Tonight Show) while The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien would move to 12:05 a.m. O’Brien objected to this plan, publicly stating on January 12:  "I sincerely believe that delaying The Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t The Tonight Show."

O’Brien’s fans held rallies outside NBC studios in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities and organized an “I’m with CoCo” online support movement. Nevertheless, on January 21 it was reported that O’Brien had reached a deal with NBC worth more than $30 million to leave “The Tonight Show.” His last episode aired the following night and included guests Tom Hanks, Will Ferrell and Neil Young. During the program O’Brien said: “Walking away from The Tonight Show is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. …Every comedian dreams of hosting ‘The Tonight Show’ and, for seven months, I got to. I did it my way, with people I love, and I do not regret a second.”

Leno returned as host of “The Tonight Show” on March 1, 2010. On November 8 of that year, O’Brien launched a new late-night program, “Conan,” on cable channel TBS. A book about the Tonight Show conflict, titled “The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy” by New York Times reporter Bill Carter, was published that same month.

 

January 23, 1975

Barney Miller first aired.

Set in a New York City police station in Greenwich Village. The series originally was broadcast from January 23, 1975, to May 20, 1982, on ABC. It was created byDanny Arnold and Theodore J. Flicker. Noam Pitlik directed the majority of the episodes.

January 23, 2005

Johnny Carson Died. 

On March 19, 1999, Carson, then 73, suffered a severe heart attack at his home in Malibu, California. Carson was sleeping when he suddenly awoke with severe chest pains. He was rushed to a hospital in nearby Santa Monica where he underwent quadruple-bypass surgery.

At 6:50 AM PST on January 23, 2005, Carson died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, of respiratory arrest arising from emphysema. He was 79 years old. Carson had revealed his illness to the public in September 2002. Following Carson's death his body was cremated, and the ashes were given to his wife. In accordance with his family's wishes, no public memorial service was held. There were numerous tributes paid to Carson upon his death, including a statement by then President George W. Bush, recognizing the deep and enduring affection held for him.

On January 24, 2005, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno paid tribute to Carson with guests Ed McMahon, Bob Newhart, Don Rickles, Drew Carey and k.d. lang. Letterman followed suit on January 31 with former Tonight Show executive producer Peter Lassally and bandleader Doc Severinsen. During the beginning of this show, Letterman said that for 30 years no matter what was going on in the world, no matter whether people had a good or bad day, they wanted to end the day by being "tucked in by Johnny." Letterman also told his viewers that the monologue he had just given had consisted entirely of jokes sent to him by Carson in the last few months of his life. Doc Severinsen ended the Letterman show that night by playing one of Carson's two favorite songs, "Here's That Rainy Day" (the other was "I'll Be Seeing You"). It had been reported over the decades of Carson's fame that he was, off-camera, so intensely private that he had never once invited McMahon to his home. After Carson's death, though, McMahon disputed those rumors and claimed that a close friendship existed. On his final Tonight Show appearance, Carson himself said that while sometimes people who work together for long stretches of time on television don't necessarily like each other, this was not the case with him and McMahon: They were good friends who would have dinner together, and the camaraderie that they had on the show could not be faked. Carson and McMahon were friends for 30 years.

A week or so after the tributes, Dennis Miller was on the Tonight Show and told Jay Leno about the first time he tried to host a talk show, and how miserably it went. He said that he got a call immediately after the first show, from Carson, telling him, "It's not as easy as it looks, is it, kid?"

The 2005 film The Aristocrats was dedicated to Carson, as well as The Simpsons episode Mommie Beerest.

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Bob Uecker “Mr. Baseball”

Sporting goods companies pay me not to endorse their products.

-Bob Uecker

Robert George Uecker

January 26, 1934 – January 16, 2025

Bob Uecker was an American professional baseball catcher and sportscaster who served as the primary broadcaster for the Milwaukee Brewers of Major League Baseball (MLB) for 54 seasons.

Uecker signed with his hometown Milwaukee Braves in 1956, spending several years in the minor leagues with various affiliate clubs before making his major league debut in 1962. As a backup catcher, he played for the Milwaukee Braves, St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies, and Atlanta Braves from 1962 to 1967. He won a World Series with the Cardinals in 1964.

After retiring, Uecker started a broadcasting career and served as a play-by-play announcer for Milwaukee Brewers radio broadcasts since 1971. Uecker became known for his self-deprecating wit and became a regular fixture on late night talk shows in the 1970s and 1980s, facetiously dubbed "Mr. Baseball" by TV talk show host Johnny Carson. He hosted several sports blooper shows and had an acting career that included his role as George Owens on the TV show Mr. Belvedere and as play-by-play announcer Harry Doyle in the film Major League and its two sequels.

Uecker was honored by the National Baseball Hall of Fame with its 2003 Ford C. Frick Award in recognition of his broadcasting career.

Good Night “Mr. Baseball”

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa 

This Week in Television History: October 2024 PART II

 

January 14, 1990

The Simpsons began airing regularly.

The Simpsons is an American adult animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The show is set in the fictional town of Springfield and parodies American culture, society, television, and many aspects of the human condition.

The family was conceived by Groening shortly before a solicitation for a series of animated shorts with the producer James L. Brooks. Groening created a dysfunctional family and named the characters after members of his own family, substituting Bart for his own name. The shorts became a part of The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. After a three-season run, the sketch was developed into a half-hour prime time show and was an early hit for Fox, becoming the network's first series to land in the Top 30 ratings in a season (1989–1990).

Since its debut on December 17, 1989, the show has broadcast 561 episodes, and the 26th season began on September 28, 2014. The Simpsons is thelongest-running American sitcom, the longest-running American animated program, and in 2009 it surpassed Gunsmoke as the longest-running American scripted primetime television series. The Simpsons Movie, a feature-length film, was released in theaters worldwide on July 26 and 27, 2007, and grossed over $527 million. On October 28, 2014, executive producer Al Jean announced that Season 27 had started production, renewing the series through the 2015–16 season.

Time magazine's December 31, 1999, issue named it the 20th century's best television series, and on January 14, 2000, the Simpson family was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It has won dozens of awards since it debuted as a series, including 31 Primetime Emmy Awards, 30 Annie Awards, and a Peabody Award. Homer's exclamatory catchphrase "D'oh!" has been adopted into the English language, while The Simpsons has influenced many adult-oriented animated sitcoms.

January 15, 1995

The first episode of Star Trek: Voyager aired.

Star Trek: Voyager is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe.

The show takes place during the 2370s, and begins on the far side of the Milky Way galaxy, 75,000 light-years from Earth. It follows the adventures of theStarfleet vessel USS Voyager, which became stranded in the Delta Quadrant while pursuing a renegade Maquis ship.  The two ships' crews merge aboardVoyager to make the estimated 75-year journey home.

The show was created by Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor, and is the fifth incarnation of Star Trek, which began with the 1960s series Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry. It was produced for seven seasons, from 1995 to 2001, and is the only Star Trek TV series with a female captain, Kathryn Janeway, as a main character.

Star Trek: Voyager aired on UPN and was the network's second longest running series, as well as the final show from its debut lineup to end.

January 17, 1975

The television show Baretta debuted on ABC.

Baretta is an American detective television series which ran on ABC from 1975 to 1978. The show was a milder version of a successful 1973–74 ABC series, Toma, starring Tony Musante as chameleon-like, real-life New Jersey police officer David Toma. While popular, Toma received intense criticism at the time for its realistic and frequent depiction of police and criminal violence. When Musante left the series after a single season, the concept was retooled asBaretta, with Robert Blake in the title role.

Detective Anthony Vincenzo "Tony" Baretta is an unorthodox plainclothes cop (badge #609) with the 53rd precinct, who lives with Fred, his Triton sulphur-crested cockatoo, in apartment 2C at the run-down King Edward Hotel in an unnamed Eastern city (presumably Newark, New Jersey). Like his model David Toma, Tony Baretta wore many disguises on the job. When not in disguise, Baretta usually wore a short-sleeve sweatshirt, casual slacks, a brown suede jacket and a newsboy cap. He often carried an unlit cigarette in his lips or behind his ear. His catchphrases included "You can take dat to da bank" and "And dat‘s the name of dat tune." When exasperated he would occasionally speak in asides to his late father, Louie Baretta.

Baretta drove a rusted-out Mist Blue 1966 Chevy Impala four-door sport sedan nicknamed "The Blue Ghost" (license plate 532 BEN). In the series Baretta hung out at Ross’s Billiard Academy and referred to his numerous girlfriends as his "cousins".

Supporting characters include:

• Billy Truman (Tom Ewell), the elderly hotel manager/house detective, who used to work with Tony’s father Louie at the 53rd Precinct.
• Rooster (Michael D. Roberts), a streetwise pimp and Tony's favorite informant.
• Tony's supervisors Inspector Shiller (Dana Elcar) and Lieutenant Hal Brubaker (Edward Grover).
• Detective Foley (John Ward), an irritating stick-in-the-mud.
• "Fats" (Chino 'Fats' Williams), a gravelly-voiced black detective who goes on stakeouts with Tony.
• Detective Nopke (Ron Thompson), a rookie who admires Baretta‘s street smarts.
• Little Moe (Angelo Rossitto), a shoeshine man and informant.
• Mr. Nicholas (Titos Vandis), a mob boss.
• Mr. Muncie (Paul Lichtman), the owner of a liquor store at 52nd and Main.

January 18, 1975

 The Jeffersons began its ten-year run on CBS. 

A spin-off, the series had its "pilot" episode air on All in the Family (on Jan. 11). The Jeffersons began in a period in TV history when African-American characters were becoming the leads of their own shows. Isabel Sanford, in fact, was the first African-American Emmy winner as Best Actress in a Comedy Series (in 1981). The series broke ground in its inclusion of an interracial marriage (in Tom and Helen Willis) and explored the same types of topical issues as All in the Family. Although, as the Museum of Broadcast Communications' Encyclopedia of Television notes, "America's black community remained divided in its assessment of the program," the show was unique in the television landscape for its portrayal of an affluent African-American family.

January 19, 1955

Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes the first president to hold news conferences to be filmed by TV and newsreels. 

On this day in 1955, Eisenhower gave a 33-minute conference in the treaty room at the State Department, recorded by NBC and shared with CBS, ABC, and the DuMont Network.

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: January 2025 PART I

 

January 6, 1975

ABC-TV debuted A.M. America. 

AM America was a morning news program produced by ABC in an attempt to compete with the highly rated Today on NBC. The show never found an audience after its premiere on January 6, 1975. Lasting just under ten months, its final installment aired on October 31.

The program's concept was based on Ralph Story's AM, the local morning show on the network's owned-and-operated Los Angeles station KABC-TV. LikeToday, AM America employed two hosts and a news anchor. ABC chose Bill Beutel, who was co-anchor of Eyewitness News on the network's New York Cityflagship station WABC-TV, and Stephanie Edwards from Ralph Story's AM to host the program. Peter Jennings, who at the time was ABC's Washington correspondent, provided the news reports.

One notable episode of AM America aired on April 25, 1975, when members of the British comedy troupe Monty Python (with the exception of John Cleese, who had temporarily left the group) made one of their earliest appearances on American television.

Edwards quit the show by the end of May, and Beutel followed her out a few months later. On November 3, the Monday following its final broadcast, AM America was replaced by Good Morning America. Theme music written by William Goldstein.

January 8, 1965

The TV dance show "Hullabaloo" debuted on NBC. Directed by Steve Binder, who went on to direct Elvis Presley's '68 Comeback Special, Hullabaloo served as a big-budget, quality showcase for the leading pop acts of the day, and was also competition for another like-minded television showcase, ABC's Shindig!. A different host presided each week—among these were Sammy Davis, Jr., Petula Clark, Paul Anka, Liza Minnelli, Jack Jones, and Frankie Avalon—singing a couple of his or her own hits and introducing the different acts. Chart-topping acts who performed on the show included Dionne Warwick, The Lovin' Spoonful, The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, Sonny & Cher, the Supremes, Herman's Hermits, The Animals, Roy Orbison and Marianne Faithfull. Many early episodes included black and white segments taped in the UK and hosted by Brian Epstein. Sid Bernstein was the booking agent for Hullabaloo. Peter Matz, formerly of The Carol Burnett Show, was the orchestra leader.

Some of the programs in the series were videotaped at NBC Studios in Burbank, California. Most were taped in New York City either at NBC's Studio 8H (built for Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra and which would later house Saturday Night Live), or in NBC's color studio in the Midwoodsection of Brooklyn. Much of the series' color videotaped footage was later transferred over to kinescope on film - as such copied in black and white. Only three half-hour episodes are known to exist in their original color videotaped form.

January 10, 1980

The final episode of The Rockford Files aired on NBC. 

Jim meets John Traynor while on a fishing trip in Parma. When John takes ill Jim takes him to hospital where John gives Jim his Proxy for the upcoming vote on the town’s Proposition 46D. Not knowing what it is Jim registers the proxy with Mayor Sindell, the pharmacist. Jim is then escorted out to see Henry Gersch at his mobile home. Gersch wants Jim to vote “for” the proposition, so Jim agrees. Jim returns to his motel and is visited by a mysterious figure who tells him to get out of town. This proves difficult as the Firebird is stolen and later found at the Parma Mechanic’s who believed Jim called and requested it fixed. Jim meets with Carrie Osgood, a journalist, who saw Jim fishing and again at the pharmacy. Jim is taken to the bus stop by the Sheriff, in an effort to have him leave town, but when the bus stops at Santa Barbara, Jim is collected by Gersch’s goons and taken back to Parma. Carrie recognises the mysterious figure as Stan Belding, a businessman from Las Vegas. Jim and Carrie manage to read Proposition 46D, which is identical to the previous legalisation which legalised gambling. Jim then finds out that John Traynor discharged himself from hospital. Jim now realises that John set him up, and figures out that John must be hiding out under canvas in the hills. Using the local pizza boy as a distraction, Jim leaves his motel room disguised as the pizza man to evade Gersch’s goons who are watching him. Jim finds John in his tent – murdered, which cancels the proxy. Jim reports this to the police, who find nothing, so arrest Jim for filing a false report – without a body, the proxy is still valid. Jim is in a cell, while outside the police hounds are barking at the trunk of the sheriff’s vehicle. Lee Melvin – an official – grants Jim an amnesty so that he can vote. Jim works out where Traynor’s body is, and goes to vote while Carrie calls the state police. They enter just in time to arrest Sindell, the Sherriff, Belding and Gersch’s goons, but Jim must lead the chase to catch Gersch himself, sitting in his mobile home on the outskirts of town.

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: Lin-Manuel Miranda explains the magic of Three Kings Day

Here is a

"HOLIDAY SOR-BAY"

a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

Wayne Osmond

Melvin Wayne Osmond

August 28, 1951 – January 1, 2025

Wayne Osmond was the second-oldest of the original Osmond Brothers singers and the fourth oldest of the nine Osmond children. Starting in 1958, Wayne and three of his brothers (Alan, Merrill, and Jay in their respective age orders) began singing as a barbershop quartet. They were later discovered in 1961 by Jay Emerson Williams, the father of Andy Williams, at a performance at Disneyland which was being filmed for the Disneyland After Dark episode of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. In 1962, the four Osmonds were cast over a seven-year period on NBC's The Andy Williams Show, a musical variety program. Each of these four Osmond brothers were also cast in nine episodes of the 1963–1964 ABC Western series, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, with Wayne in the role of young Leviticus Kissel.

In the band's rock formation, Wayne played guitar and occasionally drums, among many other instruments, with Wayne recalling shortly before his death that he learned to play eight instruments during his time with the band. Wayne was found to have perfect pitch.

His last intended appearance with the Osmonds was October 13, 2018, although he made an additional appearance with his brothers a year later as a birthday present to their sister, Marie.

Good Night Wayne

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa