This Week in Television History: April 2018 PART I

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.

April 2, 1978

Dallas first aired

Dallas the prime time television soap opera that aired on CBS from April 2, 1978, to May 3, 1991. The series revolves around a wealthy and feuding Texas family, the Ewings, who own the independent oil company Ewing Oil and the cattle-ranching land of Southfork. The series originally focused on the marriage of Bobby Ewing and Pamela Barnes, whose families were sworn enemies with each other. As the series progressed, oil tycoon J. R. Ewing became the show's breakout character, whose schemes and dirty business became the show's trademark.^[1] When the show ended in May 1991, J.R. was the only character to have appeared in every episode.

The show was famous for its cliffhangers, including the "Who shot J.R.?" mystery. The 1980 episode "Who Done It" remains the second highest rated prime-time telecast ever.^[2] The show also featured a "Dream Season", in which the entirety of the ninth season was revealed to have been a dream of Pam Ewing. After 14 seasons, the series finale "Conundrum" aired in 1991.

The show is mostly an ensemble cast, with Larry Hagman as greedy, scheming oil tycoon J.R. Ewing, stage/screen actress Barbara Bel Geddes as family matriarch Miss Ellie and movie Western actor Jim Davis as Ewing patriarch Jock, his last role before his death in 1981. The series won four Emmy Awards, including a 1980 Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series win for Bel Geddes.

With its 357 episodes, Dallas remains one of the longest lasting full-hour prime time dramas in American TV history, behind Law & Order: Special Victims Unit(400+ episodes), Bonanza (430 episodes), Law & Order (456 episodes), and Gunsmoke (635 episodes). In 2007, Dallas was included in TIME magazine's list of "100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME".

Dallas also spawned the spin-off series Knots Landing in 1979 which also lasted 14 seasons. In 2010, TNT announced it had ordered a new, updated continuation of Dallas. The revival series, continuing the story of the Ewing family, premiered on TNT on June 13, 2012, and ran for three seasons, ending its run on September 22, 2014.

April 3, 1953

"TV Guide" was published for the first time. The cover was a photo of Lucille Ball's infant Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV. 

April 4, 1973

NBC aired the Elvis Presley movie Aloha From Hawaii. 

Aloha from Hawaii Via Satellite is a concert that was headlined by Elvis Presley, and was broadcast live via satellite on January 14, 1973. The concert took place at the Honolulu International Center (HIC) in Honolulu (now known as the Neal S. Blaisdell Center) and aired in over 40 countries across Asia and Europe (who received the telecast the next day, also in primetime). Despite the satellite innovation, NBC did not broadcast an edited version of the concert in the United States until April 4, 1973 because the concert took place the same day as Super Bowl VII. The decision paid off handsomely for the network, attracting 51 percent of the television viewing audience to become NBC’s highest rated program of the year. Viewing figures were estimated to be between 1 and 1.5 billion viewers worldwide: more people than saw man landing on the moon. The show was the most expensive entertainment special at the time, costing $2.5 million.

April 4, 2013

Legendary movie critic Roger Ebert dies.

On this day in 2013, one of America's best-known and most influential movie critics, Roger Ebert, who reviewed movies for The Chicago Sun-Times for 46 years and on TV for 31 years, dies at age 70 after a battling cancer. In 1975, Ebert started co-hosting a movie review program on TV with fellow critic Gene Siskel that eventually turned them both into household names and made their thumbs-up, thumbs-down rating system part of American pop culture.

Born on June 18, 1942, in Urbana, Illinois, Ebert was the only child of an electrician father and bookkeeper mother. At age 15, Ebert he began writing about high school sports for his local newspaper. In 1964, he graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where majored in journalism and served as editor of the school's newspaper. Two years later, he went to work for the Chicago Sun-Times. When the paper's film critic retired in 1967, Ebert was named as her replacement.

Ebert's column soon became a must-read for movie lovers, and in 1975 he became the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize. That same year, he and rival critic Gene Siskel, of The Chicago Tribune, were paired as co-hosts of a monthly movie-review show, "Opening Soon at a Theater Near You," on Chicago’s public broadcasting station. In 1978, the show, renamed "Sneak Previews," went into national syndication, and later became the highest-rated half-hour series in the history of public television. In the early 1980s, the program was acquired by another broadcasting company and rechristened "At the Movies." Its name was changed to "Siskel & Ebert at the Movies" in 1986, the same year the two hosts, who became known for their sometimes contentious on-screen chemistry, debuted their thumbs-up, thumbs-down judgments. The program helped turn Siskel and Ebert into some of the planet's most powerful film critics as well as celebrities in their own right. After Siskel died in 1999 at age 53 from a brain tumor, Ebert selected his Sun-Times colleague Richard Roeper as his new co-host and the program was rechristened "At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper."

Ebert reportedly watched 500 movies a year and penned reviews of at least half that many on an annual basis. (In 2012, when asked to name the 10 greatest films of all time, his list included such titles as "Apocalypse Now," "Citizen Kane," "Raging Bull" and "Vertigo.") His work was syndicated in hundreds of newspapers around the world, and he was the author of more than 15 books, including the acclaimed 2011 memoir "Life Itself." Ebert had a brief foray into movie making when he wrote the script for 1970’s "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls." Upon its release, the film was trashed by critics, including Siskel.

Diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2002 and salivary gland cancer the following year, Ebert lost the ability to speak, drink and eat in 2006 following surgery for jaw cancer.  However, he continued to work, writing for the Sun-Times, blogging for his own website and developing a large following on Facebook and Twitter. On April 2, 2013, Ebert publicly announced he would be writing fewer reviews due to a recurrence of cancer. He died two days later. The Sun-Times published his final movie review on April 6, for "To the Wonder." Ebert awarded it 3.5 out of 4 stars.

April 7, 1978

The final episode, number 37, of Black Sheep Squadron aired on NBC. 

Baa Baa Black Sheep (later syndicated as Black Sheep Squadron) is a period military television series that aired on NBC from 1976 until 1978. Its premise was based on the experiences of United States Marine Corps aviator Greg Boyington and his World War II "Black Sheep Squadron". The series was created and produced by Stephen J. Cannell. The opening credits read: "In World War II, Marine Corps Major Greg 'Pappy' Boyington commanded a squadron of fighter pilots. They were a collection of misfits and screwballs who became the terrors of the South Pacific. They were known as the Black Sheep."

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

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa