Monday, October 06, 2014

This Week in Television History: October 2014 PART I


Listen to me on TV CONFIDENTIAL:




As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history, the more that fact and legend become intertwined. It's hard to say where the truth really lies.

October 6, 1949
The Ed Wynn Show became the first regularly scheduled network show to be broadcasted from the West Coast of the United States. 
In the 1949-50 season, Ed Wynn hosted one of the first comedy-variety television shows, on CBS, and won both a Peabody Award and an Emmy Award in 1949. Buster Keaton,Lucille Ball, and The Three Stooges all made guest appearances with Wynn. This was the first CBS variety television show to originate in Los Angeles, with programs filmed via kinescope for distribution in the Midwest and East. Wynn was also a rotating host of NBC's Four Star Revue from 1950 through 1952.

October 7, 1949
Anthology series Ford Theatre debuts. 
The program featured a different one-hour dramatic play each week in its early seasons, later shortened to a half-hour. Plays ranged from comedy to serious drama and featured many stars of the era, including Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy Davis. The show ran until 1957.


October 7, 1964
The made-for-television movie See How They Run premiered. Three orphans head for the US, unknowingly carrying important evidence pointing to the existence of a corrupt international cartel, which has just murdered their father. The cartel is desperate to retrieve the evidence.

October 9, 1954
Scott Stewart Bakula is born. 
His most prominent roles have been as Sam Beckett in the science fiction television series Quantum Leap
and as Captain Jonathan Archer in Star Trek: Enterprise. He also co-starred with Maria Bello in the short-lived CBS television series Mr. & Mrs. Smith and had a recurring role in the sitcom Murphy Brown.

October 10, 1964
NBC-TV aired the opening ceremonies of the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. It was the first live color TV program to be transmitted to the U.S. by satellite. 


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


Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

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