This Week in Television History: June 2017 PART II

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.

June 16, 1952

My Little Margie debuted on CBS-TV. 

The situation comedy starring Gale Storm and Charles Farrell that alternated between CBS and NBC from 1952 to 1955. The series was created by Frank Fox and produced in Los Angeles, California at Hal Roach Studios by Hal Roach, Jr. and Roland D. Reed.

My Little Margie premiered on CBS as the summer replacement for I Love Lucy on June 16, 1952, under the sponsorship of Philip Morris cigarettes (when the series moved to NBC for its third season in the fall of 1953, Scott Paper Company became its sponsor). In an unusual move, the series—with the same leads—aired original episodes on CBS Radio, concurrently with the TV broadcasts, from December 1952 through August 1955. Only 23 radio broadcasts are known to exist in recorded form.

June 16, 2002

The first episode of The Dead Zone aired. 

The Dead Zone, a.k.a. Stephen King's Dead Zone (in USA) is an American/Canadian science fiction drama television series starring Anthony Michael Hall as Johnny Smith, who discovers he has developed psychic abilities after a coma. The show, credited as "based on characters" from Stephen King's 1979 novel of the same name, first aired in 2002, and was produced by Lionsgate Television and CBS Paramount Network Television (Paramount Network Television 2002-06) for the USA Network.

The show was originally commissioned for UPN, but the network later dropped the show and it was picked up instead by USA. 03nmThe series was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada for its first five seasons. The sixth and last season was billed as "The season that changes everything" and production was moved to Montreal.
The Dead Zone was expected to be renewed for a seventh season; however, due to low ratings and high production costs the series was canceled in December 2007, without a proper series finale.

Some rumors spread that Syfy would pick up the series after it was canceled by USA, but it did not happen. Rumors of a made-for-TV movie have all but faded with time.

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

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa