Monday, March 02, 2015

This Week in Television History: March 2015 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.

March 3, 1985
The television show Moonlighting premiered.
Moonlighting is an American television series that aired on ABC from March 3, 1985, to May 14, 1989. The network aired a total of 66 episodes (67 in syndication as the pilot is split into two episodes). Starring Bruce Willisand Cybill Shepherd as private detectives, the show was a mixture of drama, comedy, and romance, and was considered to be one of the first successful and influential examples of comedy-drama, or "dramedy", emerging as a distinct television genre.
The show's theme song was performed by jazz singer Al Jarreau and became a hit. The show is also credited with making Willis a star, while providing Shepherd with a critical success after a string of lackluster projects. In 1997, the episode "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice" was ranked #34 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time. In 2007, the series was listed as one of Time magazine's "100 Best TV Shows of All-Time." The relationship between David and Maddie was included in TV Guide '​s list of the best TV couples of all time.

 March 7, 1955
The first Broadway play to be televised in color, featuring the original cast, airs. 

The play was Peter Pan, starring Mary Martin.

March 7, 1960
Jack Paar returns to the Tonight Show. 

A month after walking off The Tonight Show to protest censorship, host Jack Paar returns to the show. Paar, who had been hosting the show since July 1957, shortly after host Steve Allen left, was protesting NBC's censorship of a joke about a "water closet," which the network deemed inappropriate.
March 7, 1975
The final episode of The Odd Couple aired on ABC.

March 8, 1945
George Michael "Micky" Dolenz, Jr. is born. 
The actor, musician, television director, radio personality and theater director, best known as a member of the 1960s made-for-television band The Monkees.
Dolenz was born at the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, Los Angeles California, the son of George Dolenz and Janelle Johnson, both of whom were Hollywood actors.


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


 
Stay Tuned

 

Tony Figueroa

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