This Week in Television History: October 2019 PART I

September 30, 1954

Barry Williams is born Barry William Blenkhorn. 

Best known for his role as Greg Brady on theABC television series, The Brady Bunch. Williams continued to be cast in guest roles on other TV series including Adam-12, The Invaders, That Girl, Mission: Impossible, The Mod Squad, Here Come the Brides and Bartleby, the Scrivener before being cast in 1969 as Greg Brady on The Brady Bunch.

Following the cancellation of The Brady Bunch in 1974, Williams continued to appear in guest roles on television, and became involved in musical theater, touring with productions such as Grease, The Sound of Music, and West Side Story.

In 1988, Williams appeared on Broadway in the musical Romance/Romance with Tony Award-nominee Alison Fraser. Williams took over the lead male role of “Alfred/Sam” when Scott Bakula left the production. Years later, Williams was able to capitalize on being typecast as Greg Brady. Amid a procession of appearances in TV and movies that played up his famous teen role, he ended up landing a role that was a departure from the Brady image. He was tapped to play English con man Hannibal in 1984, who conspired with Holly Sutton Scorpio (Emma Samms) on the top-rated General Hospital. Williams has appeared in variousBrady Bunch TV movie reunions, including the 1988 Christmas movie, A Very Brady Christmas, in which his sole family problem is missing his wife, Nora. The issue with his wife is solved when Nora shows up at the Brady house on Christmas, poinsettia in hand.

In 1989, Williams was honored by the Young Artist Foundation with its Former Child Star “Lifetime Achievement” Award for his role as Greg Brady.

His 1992 autobiography, Growing Up Brady: I Was a Teenage Greg, co-written with Chris Kreski, stayed on The New York Times bestseller list for three months. The book was adapted into a 2000 TV movie titled Growing Up Brady starring Adam Brody as Williams.

September 30, 1984

The pilot episode of Murder, She Wrote aired on CBS. 

The mystery series starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher. The series aired for twelve seasons from 1984 to 1996 on the CBS network. It was followed by four TV films and a spin-off series, The Law & Harry McGraw. It is one of the most successful and longest-running television shows ever for CBS, pulling in close to 23 million viewers in its prime, during its Sunday night slot. It is also hugely successful across the world.

Angela Lansbury has been nominated for a total of ten Golden Globes and twelve Emmies. She holds the record for the most Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress in a television drama series and the most Emmy nominations ever for outstanding lead actress in a drama series for Murder She wrote. It is now considered to be a TV cult classic around the world.

October 2, 1959

The first TheTwilight Zone episode Where Is Everybody? Aired.

Opening narration

“The place is here, the time is now, and the journey into the shadows that we're about to watch, could be our journey”.

This was the only Twilight Zone episode filmed at Universal Studios, the rest of the entire series was filmed at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The centerpiece of the episode is the Courthouse Square set, most well known for being used as the town square of "Hill Valley" in the Back to the Future series of films over 25 years later.
The haunting score composed by Bernard Herrmann (Psycho) for this episode would be reused for several episodes of the series, most notably "The After Hours" and "The Last Flight". 

October 3, 1954

Father Knows Best began airing on CBS-TV.

The May 27, 1954 episode of The Ford Television Theatre show was called "Keep It in the Family". This 26-minute episode stars Robert Young as Tim Warren, head of the Warren Family. With him was wife Grace (Ellen Drew), older daughter Peggy (Sally Fraser), younger daughter Patty (Tina Thompson) and son Jeff (Gordon Gerbert). Developed by Young and his partner Eugene Rodney, it was intended as a pilot for a Father Knows Best television series. In the episode, Peggy dreams of making it as an actress but a talent scout who has raised her hopes just wants people for his acting school.

Only Robert Young remained of the radio cast when the series moved to CBS Television:

·        James "Jim" Anderson, Sr.–Robert Young

·        Margaret Anderson–Jane Wyatt

·        Betty "Princess" Anderson–Elinor Donahue

·        James "Bud" Anderson, Jr.–Billy Gray

·        Kathy "Kitten" Anderson–Lauren Chapin

The series began on CBS on October 3, 1954. Originally sponsored by Lorillard's Kent cigarettes in its first season, Scott Paper Company became the primary sponsor when the series moved to NBC in the fall of 1955, remaining as sponsor even after it moved back to CBS in September 1958, with Lever Brothers as an alternate sponsor from 1957 through 1960. A total of 203 episodes were produced, running until September 17, 1960, and appearing on all three of the television networks of the time, including prime-time repeats from September 1960 through April 1963.

October 3, 1964

Underdog debuted on NBC. 

Underdog, Shoeshine Boy's heroic alter-ego, appeared whenever love interest Sweet Polly Purebred was being victimized by such villains as Simon Bar Sinister or Riff Raff. Underdog nearly always speaks in rhyme, as in, "There's no need to fear, Underdog is here!" His voice was supplied by Wally Cox.

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

October 3, 2004

The first season of Desperate Housewives began. 

Created by Marc Cherry and produced by ABC Studios and Cherry Productions. It aired Sundays at 9 P.M. Eastern/8 P.M. Central, on ABC from October 3, 2004, until May 13, 2012.Executive producer Cherry served as showrunner. Other executive producers since the fourth season included Bob Daily, George W. Perkins, John Pardee, Joey Murphy, David Grossman, and Larry Shaw.

The main setting of the show was Wisteria Lane, a street in the fictional American town of 'Fairview' in the fictional 'Eagle State'. The show followed the lives of a group of women as seen through the eyes of a dead neighbor who committed suicide in the very first episode. The storyline covers thirteen years of the women's lives over eight seasons, set between the years 2004–2008, and later 2013–2017 (the story arc included a 5 year passage of time). They worked through domestic struggles and family life, while facing the secrets, crimes and mysteries hidden behind the doors of their — at the surface — beautiful and seemingly perfect suburban neighborhood.

The show featured an ensemble cast, headed by Teri Hatcher as Susan Mayer, Felicity Huffman as Lynette Scavo, Marcia Cross asBree Van de Kamp, and Eva Longoria as Gabrielle Solis. Brenda Strong narrated the show as the deceased Mary Alice Young, appearing sporadically in flashbacks or dream sequences.

October 4, 1949

The television series Life of Riley debuts, starring Jackie Gleason as bullheaded family man Chester Riley.

The show originated on the radio in the early 1940s and starred William Bendix. In 1953, Bendix took over the TV role from Gleason and stayed with the show until its cancellation in 1958.

October 4, 1954

December Bride debuted on CBS-TV. 

The series centered around the adventures of Lily Ruskin, a spry widow played by Spring Byington, who was not, in fact, a "December" (rather old) bride but very much desired to become one if the right man would come along. Aiding Lily in her search for this prospective suitor were her daughter Ruth Henshaw (Frances Rafferty) and son-in-law Matt Henshaw (Dean Miller), and her close friend Hilda Crocker (character-actress Verna Felton). A next-door neighbor, insurance agent Pete Porter (Harry Morgan), was frequently seen. Married miserably himself, according to his constant complaints about his unseen wife Gladys, he also envied Matt's positive relationship with Lily, as he despised his own mother-in-law. The pilot episode premiered on October 4, 1954 and involved Lily Ruskin moving in with her daughter and son-in-law. December Bride was unusual in that all five stars appeared in all 111 episodes of the sitcom. Most of the scenes filmed for the series took place in the Henshaws' living room.

First-run episodes of December Bride aired for 5 seasons (1954-1959), sponsored by General Foods' Instant Maxwell House Coffee. During the first four seasons, the program was not shown in the summer, supplanted by "summer replacement" series (such as Ethel and Albert) but in its final year, repeat episodes were run in its timeslot during the summer months. On March 26, 1959, as the program wound down, Rory Calhoun, star of CBS's western series, The Texan, appeared as himself in the episode "Rory Calhoun, The Texan".

December Bride was sufficiently popular that even after its production had ceased, CBS used repeat episodes to fill slots in its primetime programming. In July 1960, December Bride repeats were used to fill in for the second half of the Friday 9 pm Eastern timeslot vacated by Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, running until the beginning of the fall 1960 schedule, and again as a temporary replacement on Thursday nights in April 1961. Additionally, repeats were shown on CBS as a daytime program from October 1959 until March 1961. The Pete Porter character became so popular that he and Gladys were spun off into their own series, Pete and Gladys, shortly after the last broadcast of first-run episodes of December Bride.

October 5, 1924

Bill Dana is born. 

Comedian, actor and screenwriter. He often appeared on television shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show, frequently in the guise of a heavily accented Puerto Rican character named José Jiménez. Dana often portrayed the Jiménez character as an astronaut.

October 5, 1969

Monty Python's Flying Circus debuted on BBC television. 

The British sketch comedy series commissioned by David Attenborough, created by the comedy group Monty Python and broadcast by the BBC from 1969 to 1974. The shows were composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines. It also featured animations by Terry Gilliam, often sequenced or merged with live action. The first episode was recorded on 7 September and broadcast on 5 October 1969 on BBC One, with 45 episodes airing over four series from 1969 to 1974, plus two episodes for German TV.

The show often targets the idiosyncrasies of British life, especially that of professionals, and is at times politically charged. The members of Monty Python were highly educated. Terry Jones and Michael Palin are Oxford University graduates; Eric Idle, John Cleese, and Graham Chapman attended Cambridge University; and American-born member Terry Gilliam is an Occidental Collegegraduate. Their comedy is often pointedly intellectual, with numerous erudite references to philosophers and literary figures. The series followed and elaborated upon the style used by Spike Milligan in his ground breaking series Q5, rather than the traditional sketch show format. The team intended their humour to be impossible to categorise, and succeeded so completely that the adjective "Pythonesque" was invented to define it and, later, similar material.

The Pythons play the majority of the series characters themselves, including the majority of the female characters, but occasionally they cast an extra actor. Regular supporting cast members include Carol Cleveland (referred to by the team as the unofficial "Seventh Python"), Connie Booth (Cleese's first wife), series Producer Ian MacNaughton, Ian Davidson, Neil Innes (in the fourth series), and the Fred Tomlinson Singers (for musical numbers).

The series' theme song is the first segment of John Philip Sousa's The Liberty Bell, chosen because it was in the public domain and thus could be used without charge.

October 5, 1989

Jim Bakker was convicted of using his television show to defraud his viewers. 

After deliberating for a day and a half, a jury in Charlotte, North Carolina, convicts Jim Bakker of using his television show to defraud his viewers. Bakker's trial started on August 28 and was interrupted briefly while he was sent to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation after suffering a breakdown.

The government has argued that Bakker solicited donations in exchange for free vacation lodging at his Heritage USA theme park, lodging which he knew he would never be able to provide.

Jim Bakker sold 153,000 of these partnerships between 1984 and 1987. In exchange for $1,000, people were promised three free nights lodging every year for life. Bakker claimed to have accommodations for 214,000 partners, but the government provided evidence that only 258 rooms were actually available.

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

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: September 2019 PART IV

September 24, 1964

The Munsters first aired. 

The show featured  the home life of a family of benign monsters. It stars Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster and Yvonne De Carlo as his wife, Lily Munster. The series was a satire of both traditional monster movies and the wholesome family fare of the era, and was produced by the creators of Leave It to Beaver. It ran concurrently with The Addams Family.

It was canceled after ratings dropped to a low due to the premiere of ABC's Batman, which was in color. Though ratings were low during its initial two-year run, The Munsters found a large audience in syndication. This popularity warranted a spin-off series, as well as several films, including one with a theatrical release.

September 25, 1929

Barbara Jill Walters is born. 

Walters was first known as a popular TV morning news anchor for over 10 years on NBC's Today, where she worked with Hugh Downs and later Frank McGee and Jim Hartz. Walters later spent 25 years as co-host of ABC's newsmagazine 20/20. She was the first female co-anchor of network evening news, working with Harry Reasoner on the ABC Evening News and was later a correspondent for ABC World News Tonight with Charles Gibson.

September 25, 1944

Michael Douglas born.

On this day in 1944, Michael Douglas, who will become one of Hollywood’s A-list stars in the 1980s with such blockbuster films as Wall Street and Fatal Attraction, is born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Douglas is the son of the Academy Award-winning actor Kirk Douglas, whose best-known films include Spartacus and The Bad and the Beautiful. Michael Douglas shares a birthday with his wife, the Welsh-born actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, who was born 25 years earlier, in 1969.

Douglas made his feature film debut in 1969’s Hail Hero! and rose to fame playing a police inspector on the television series The Streets of San Francisco from 1972 to 1976. He scored his first major movie success behind the cameras, as the producer of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), which starred Jack Nicholson as an inmate at a mental institution. The film was the first to triumph in all five major Academy Award categories, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress (Louise Fletcher), Best Screenplay (Adapted) and Best Director (Milos Forman). Among Douglas’ other movie credits in the 1970s was The China Syndrome, which he produced and co-starred in with Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon. In the 1980s, Douglas had a string of blockbusters, including Romancing the Stone (1984), which co-starred Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito (Douglas’ college roommate at the University of California at Santa Barbara) and its 1985 sequel Jewel of the Nile. In 1987, Douglas appeared opposite Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, a thriller about a married man who becomes involved with a woman who becomes obsessed with him and stalks his family after he ends their affair. Also that year, Douglas starred in director Oliver Stone’s Wall Street as the ruthless corporate raider Gordon Gekko, whose motto is “Greed is good.” Douglas won a Best Actor Oscar for his performance.
In the 1990s, Douglas starred in such films as Basic Instinct (1992), with Sharon Stone; Disclosure (1994), with Demi Moore; and The American President (1995), with Annette Bening. In 2000, he earned acclaim for his performances in Steven Soderbergh’s drug-war drama Traffic and Curtis Hanson’s Wonder Boys. That same year, on November 18, Douglas married Zeta-Jones, his second wife and co-star (though they had no scenes together) in Traffic, in a star-studded ceremony at New York City’s Plaza Hotel. Zeta-Jones later won a Best Actress in a Supporting Role Oscar for her performance in Chicago (2002). Her movie credits also include The Mask of Zorro (1998), The Terminal (2004) and No Reservations (2007).

In August 2010, it was announced that Douglas was beginning treatment for an advanced case of throat cancer. The actor confirmed the news on an episode of “Late Show with David Letterman” on August 31.

September 26, 1964

Gilligan's Island first aired. 

Created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz and originally produced by United Artists Television. The situation comedy series featured Bob Denver; Alan Hale, Jr.; Jim Backus; Natalie Schafer; Tina Louise; Russell Johnson; and Dawn Wells. It aired for three seasons on the CBS network from September 26, 1964, to September 4, 1967. Originally sponsored by Philip Morris & Company and Procter & Gamble, the show followed the comic adventures of seven castaways as they attempted to survive (and in a later movie escape from) the island on which they had been shipwrecked. Most episodes revolve around the dissimilar castaways' conflicts and their failed attempts (invariably Gilligan's fault) to escape their plight.

September 26, 1969

The Brady Bunch premieres. 

The show was panned by critics and, according to the Museum of Broadcast Communications, during “its entire network run, the series never reached the top ten ranks of the Nielsen ratings. Yet, the program stands as one of the most important sitcoms of American 1970s television programming, spawning numerous other series on all three major networks, as well as records, lunch boxes, a cookbook, and even a stage show and feature film.”

Created by Sherwood Schwartz (whose previous hit sitcom was Gilligan’s Island), The Brady Bunch followed the story of Carol (Florence Henderson), a widowed mother of three blonde daughters, who marries architect Mike Brady (Robert Reed), a widower and the father of three brown-haired boys. The blended family lives together in a suburban Los Angeles home with their cheerful housekeeper, Alice (Ann B. Davis). The show focused primarily on issues related to the Brady kids--Greg (Barry Williams), Marcia (Maureen McCormick), Peter (Christopher Knight), Jan (Eve Plumb), Bobby (Mike Lookinland) and Cindy (Susan Olsen)--who ranged from grade-school age to teenage. Although set in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a time of political and social upheaval in the United States, The Brady Bunch generally avoided controversial topics and instead presented a wholesome view of family life, tackled subjects such as sibling rivalry (including Jan’s now-famous complaint about the focus on her sister: “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia”), braces and dating.

After 177 episodes, ABC cancelled The Brady Bunch and the last original episode aired on August 30, 1974. However, the show soon became a massive hit in rerun syndication. The show’s various spin-offs have included a 1977 variety program, The Brady Bunch Hour; a 1988 TV movie A Very Brady Christmas; the 1995 big-screen parody The Brady Bunch Movie (with Shelley Long and Gary Cole as Carol and Mike) and its follow-up A Very Brady Sequel (1996); and the 2002 TV movie The Brady Bunch in the White House. In 1992, Barry Williams published a best-selling memoir titled Growing Up Brady: I Was a Teenage Greg, which provided a behind-the-scenes look at the show and revealed that life behind the Brady Bunch cameras was less wholesome than it seemed on TV.

September 27, 1954

Steve Allen becomes the first host of The Tonight Show.

The first Tonight!  announcer was Gene Rayburn. Allen's version of the show originated such talk show staples as an opening monologue, celebrity interviews, audience participation, and comedy bits in which cameras were taken outside the studio, as well as music, including guest performers and a house band under Lyle "Skitch" Henderson.

When the show became a success, Allen got a prime-time Sunday comedy-variety show in June 1956, leading him to share Tonight hosting duties with Ernie Kovacs during the 1956–1957 season. To give Allen time to work on his Sunday evening show, Kovacs hosted Tonight on Monday and Tuesday nights, with his own announcer and bandleader.
During the later Steve Allen years, regular audience member Lillian Miller became such an integral part that she was forced to join AFTRA, the television/radio performers union.

Allen and Kovacs departed Tonight in January 1957 after NBC ordered Allen to concentrate all his efforts on his Sunday night variety program, hoping to combat CBS's Ed Sullivan Show's dominance of the Sunday night ratings.

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

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Your Mental Sorbet: The Cars - You Might Think

There's more to light than the opposite of dark.

Ric Ocasek

Richard (Ric) Theodore Otcasek(March 23, 1944 – September 15, 2019)

Here is another "Mental Sorbet" 

A little spark of madness

that we could use to momentarily forget about those

things that leave a bad taste in our mouths

The music video is one of the first videos to use computer graphics. The video features band leader Ric Ocasek and model Susan Gallagher in a series of encounters. Ocasek appears in her bathroom mirror, inside a submarine in her bathtub, in her mouth, as a fly, as King Kong swatting attacking airplanes on top of the Empire State Building and as the Robot Monster, among other incarnations.

"You Might Think" won the first MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year and was nominated for five more awards (best special effects, best art direction, viewer's choice, best concept video, and most experimental video) at the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards. The video also won five awards (best overall, best conceptual, most innovative, best editing, and best special effects) at Billboard's 1984 Video Music Awards and four awards (best achievement in music video, best editor in music video, best engineer in music video, and best camera in music video) at the Videotape Production Association's 1985 Monitor Awards.

Good Night Mr. Ocasek

Stay Tuned
Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: September 2019 PART III

September 16, 1949

Edward James Begley, Jr. was born. The actor and environmentalist. 

Begley is perhaps best known for his role as Dr. Mark Craig's intern, Dr. Victor Ehrlich on the television series St. Elsewhere, for which he received six consecutive Emmy Award nominations. He also had a reality show about green living called Living With Ed on with his wife, actress Rachelle Carson. Commenting in 2006 on the appeal of the show, Begley said:

"In the format of the show, everyone who watches—even people who have never thought about living a low-impact, environmentally conscious life—will be able to relate. They’ll come away with a raised awareness, but they’ll also enjoy seeing the differences between the Rachelle and me." 

September 16, 1949

Warner. Bros. introduces the Road Runner in the cartoon short "Fast and Furry-ous." 

Like the sounds of countless other Warner Bros. cartoon characters, the Road Runner's cheerful "beep, beep!" was provided by Mel Blanc.

September 16, 1964

Shindig! premiered on ABC. 

The show was hosted by Jimmy O'Neill, a disc jockey in Los Angeles at the time who also created the show along with his wife Sharon Sheeley and production executive Art Stolnitz. The original pilot was rejected by ABC and David Sontag, then Executive Producer of ABC, redeveloped and completely redesigned the show. A new pilot with a new cast of artists was shot starring Sam Cooke, The Everly Brothers, The Wellingtons, The Righteous Brothers, Bobby Sherman and Alan Sues. That pilot aired as the premiere episode.

September 16, 1984

The first episode of Miami Vice aired on NBC. 

The crime drama series created by Anthony Yerkovich and was produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series starred Don Johnson as James "Sonny" Crockett and Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs, two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami. The series ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984–1989. The USA Network later began airing reruns the next year, in 1990, and actually broadcast an originally unaired episode during its syndication run of the series on January 25, 1990.

Unlike standard police procedurals, the show drew heavily upon 1980s new wave culture and music. The show became noted for its heavy integration of music and visual effects to tell a story. It is recognized as one of the most influential television series of all time. People magazine stated that Miami Vice "was the first show to look really new and different since color TV was invented". Seasons two to five were aired in stereo. Episodes of the show have become popular in syndication since its cancellation both in the U.S. and in several foreign markets, a testament to the show's ongoing appeal.

Michael Mann directed a film adaptation of the television series, which was released on July 28, 2006.

September 17, 1964

Bewitched first aired.

The fantasy situation comedy originally broadcast for eight seasons on ABC from 1964 to 1972. It was created by Sol Saks under executive director Harry Ackerman, and stars Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York (1964–1969), Dick Sargent (1969–1972), Agnes Moorehead, and David White. The show is about a witch who marries an ordinary mortal man and tries to lead the life of a typical suburban housewife. Bewitched enjoyed great popularity, finishing as the number two show in America during its debut season, and becoming the longest-running supernatural-themed sitcom of the 1960s–1970s. The show continues to be seen throughout the world in syndication and on recorded media.

September 18, 1964

The Addams Family first aired. 

Based on the characters in Charles Addams' New Yorker cartoons. The 30-minute series was shot in black-and-white and aired for two seasons on ABC. It is often compared to its CBS rival, The Munsters, which ran for the same two seasons and achieved somewhat higher Nielsen ratings. The show is the first adaptation of the characters to feature The Addams Family Theme.

The Addams Family was originally produced by Filmways, Inc. at General Service Studios in Hollywood, California. Successor company MGM Television (via The Program Exchange for broadcast syndication and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment for home video/DVD) now own the rights to the show.

September 19, 1964

Flipper first aired on NBC. 

Flipper, a bottlenose dolphin, is the companion animal of Porter Ricks, Chief Warden at fictional Coral Key Park and Marine Preserve in southern Florida, and his two young sons, Sandy and Bud. The show has been dubbed an "aquatic Lassie", and a considerable amount of juvenile merchandise inspired by the show was produced during its first-run.

September 20, 1984

The Cosby Show first aired. 

Bill Cosby starred in the show that focused on the Huxtable family, an upper middle-class African-American family living in Brooklyn, New York, at 10 Stigwood Avenue. The patriarch is Heathcliff "Cliff" Huxtable, an obstetrician, son of a prominent jazz trombonist. The matriarch is his wife, attorneyClair Huxtable née Hanks. They have five children, four daughters and one son: Sondra, Denise, Theodore (Theo for short), Vanessa and Rudy. Despite its comedic tone, the show sometimes involves serious subjects, such as Theo's experiences dealing with dyslexia, inspired by Cosby's son Ennis, who was also dyslexic. The show also deals with teenage pregnancy when Denise's friend, Veronica, played by Lela Rochon, becomes pregnant.

The show's theme music, "Kiss Me", was composed by Stu Gardner and Bill Cosby. Seven versions of this theme were used during the run of the series, making it one of the few television series to use multiple versions of the same theme song over the course of a series. For season four, the theme song music was performed by musician Bobby McFerrin. Due to legal complications regarding the background mural, the opening for season seven was replaced with the one from the previous season. The original season seven opening, with slight modifications, was also used in season eight.

September 22, 1964

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. first aired on NBC. 

It follows the exploits of two secret agents, played by Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, who work for a fictitious secret international espionage and law-enforcement agency called U.N.C.L.E. Originally co-creator Sam Rolfe wanted to leave the meaning of U.N.C.L.E. ambiguous so it could be viewed as either referring to "Uncle Sam" or the United Nations. Concerns by the MGM Legal department about possible New York law violations for using the abbreviation "U.N." for commercial purposes resulted in the producers clarifying that U.N.C.L.E. was an acronym for the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. Each episode of the television show had an "acknowledgement" credit to the U.N.C.L.E. on the end titles.

September 22, 1964

Land of the Giants first aired

Land of the Giants is an hour-long American science fiction television program lasting two seasons beginning on September 22, 1968, and ending on March 22, 1970. The show was created and produced by Irwin Allen. Land of the Giants was the fourth of Allen's science fiction TV series. The show was aired on ABC and released by 20th Century Fox Television. The series was filmed entirely in color and ran for 51 episodes. The show starred Gary Conway and special guest star Kurt Kasznar.

Five novels based on the television series, including three written by acclaimed science fiction author Murray Leinster, were published in 1968 and 1969.

Set fifteen years in the then future year 1983, the series tells the tale of the crew and passengers of a sub-orbital transport ship named Spindrift. In the pilot episode, the Spindrift is en route from Los Angeles to London, on an ultra fast sub-orbital flight. Just beyond Earth's boundary with space, the Spindrift encounters a magnetic space storm, and is dragged through a space warp to a mysterious planet where everything is twelve times larger than on Earth, whose inhabitants the Earthlings nickname "the Giants." The Spindrift crash-lands, and the damage renders it inoperable.

September 22, 1979

ABC began airing the first episode of Hart to Hart. 

The premise of the show is summed up in its famous opening lines, spoken by the character Max: "This is my boss: Jonathan Hart, a self-made millionaire. He’s quite a guy. This is Mrs. H -- she’s gorgeous. She’s one lady who knows how to take care of herself. By the way, my name is Max. I take care of both of them -- which ain’t easy; ‘cause when they met, it was murder."

Jonathan Hart (Robert Wagner) was a self-made millionaire and the CEO of Hart Industries, a Los Angeles-based global electronics conglomerate. His wife Jennifer (Stefanie Powers) was a beautiful freelance journalist. Living the jetset lifestyle, the glamorous couple spent their free time as amateur detectives and in every episode they found themselves involved in cases of smuggling, theft, international espionage, or most commonly, murder. At their opulent California estate, they were assisted by Max (Lionel Stander), their loyal, gravelly-voiced butler, cook, and chauffeur who also helped with their "cases." The Harts' beloved pet dog was a Löwchencalled "Freeway," so named because he was a stray that they found wandering on the freeway. The Harts own a Mercedes-Benz 300 TD diesel wagon, a dark green Rolls Royce Corniche convertible (replacing the Series III Bentley custom cabriolet in the first season), and a yellow Mercedes-Benz SL roadster (1979 450 SL, replaced by a 1981 380 SL) with personalized California vanity plates 3 HARTs, 2 HARTs, and 1 HART respectively. The trailer also shows a side view of Jonathan Hart driving a red Dino 246 GTS. They also own a Grumman Gulfstream II private jet, which is featured at the start of each episode. Max describes the couple as well as himself at the start of each episode.

September 22, 1989

NBC began airing the series Baywatch. 

Baywatch is an American action drama series about the Los Angeles County Lifeguards who patrol the beaches of Los Angeles County, California, starring David Hasselhoff. The show was canceled after its first season on NBC, but survived and later became one of the most watched television shows in the world. The show ran in its original title and format from 1989 to 1999, except for the 1990–1991 season, during which it was not in production. From 1999 to 2001, with a setting change and large cast overhaul, it was known as Baywatch Hawaii.

Baywatch premiered on NBC in 1989, but was canceled after only one season when it placed 73rd out of 103 shows in the seasonal ratings and also because the studio, GTG, went out of business. Feeling the series still had potential, Hasselhoff along with creators and executive producers Michael Berk, Douglas Schwartz and Greg Bonann revived it for the first-run syndication market in 1991. Hasselhoff was given the title of executive producer for his work on bringing the show back. The series was hugely successful, especially internationally. The show led to a spin-off: Baywatch Nights, and a reunion movie, Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding.

In 1999, with production costs rising in Los Angeles, and the syndication market shrinking, the plan was to move the show to Australia and launch Baywatch Down Under. A pilot was filmed but the series was stopped when residents of Avalon put forth strong objections, including potential damage to a fragile ecosystem. Pittwater Council permanently barred all future filming. This pilot finally aired as a two-part episode of Baywatch.

As an alternative to Australia, Hawaii offered the producers large financial incentives to move the show to the islands instead, and in Season 10, Baywatch Hawaii was launched.

Baywatch filmed for two seasons in Hawaii, from 1999 until 2001. The proposal to relocate Baywatch to Hawaii rather than Australia was initiated by April Masini in a telephone call to executive producer Greg Bonann. The deal to provide the incentives necessary to secure the series was presented to Governor Ben Cayetano by Al Masini and April Masini; Tony Vericella, president of the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau; and Cayetano's executive assistant, Joe Blanco. The agreement required the production to change its name from Baywatch to Baywatch Hawaii, hire local leads, and film in the state for at least two years, guaranteeing 44 episodes, each at a cost of about $870,000, 60% of which was to be spent in Hawaii.

September 22, 1994

Friends debuts, debuts on NBC. 

The show, which featured a group of relatively unknown actors, went on to become a huge hit and air for 10 seasons. It also propelled the cast--Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer--to varying degrees of stardom and success in Hollywood.

Of the six main Friends cast members, Jennifer Aniston emerged as arguably the most famous. Aniston played the fashion-loving Rachel Green, who, when the show began, worked as a waitress at Central Perk, a coffee shop that served as a gathering spot for the friends. The actress’s blonde, layered hairstyle during the first season became known as “The Rachel” and was copied by women around the globe. Off-screen, Aniston, whose film credits include The Good Girl (2002), Bruce Almighty (2003), Rumor Has It (2005) and The Break-Up (2006), became a tabloid-media fixture for her relationship with the actor Brad Pitt. The couple married in a lavish ceremony in Malibu, California, in 2000 and announced their separation in early 2005 amid soon-to-be-confirmed rumors of Pitt’s involvement with the actress Angelina Jolie.

Courteney Cox, the best known of the cast members when Friends debuted, played Monica Geller, a neurotic, hyper-organized chef. The actress, who first gained notice when she appeared in the 1984 Bruce Springsteen video “Dancing in the Dark,” acted in the popular sitcom Family Ties and co-starred opposite Jim Carrey in 1994’s hit comedy Ace Ventura, Pet Detective (1994). She was later featured in the successful Scream movies and the TV series Dirt. Since 1999, she has been married to the actor David Arquette and goes by the professional name Courtney Cox Arquette. The third female Friends cast member, Lisa Kudrow, portrayed the wacky masseuse-musician Phoebe Buffay. Kudrow’s film credits include Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion (1997), The Opposite of Sex (1998), Analyze This (1999) and its sequel Analyze That (2002) and P.S. I Love You (2007). In 2005, she headlined the well-reviewed but short-lived HBO comedy series The Comeback.

The male Friends included Matt LeBlanc as Joey Tribbiani, a handsome but dim-witted struggling actor. From 2004 to 2006, LeBlanc starred in the spin-off TV series Joey.

David Schwimmer played Ross Geller, a sensitive paleontologist and Monica’s older brother. One of the main storylines on Friends was Ross’s on-again, off-again relationship with Aniston’s Rachel. Schwimmer’s other acting credits include the 2001 TV mini-series Band of Brothers. Rounding out the Friends cast was Matthew Perry, who played the wisecracking businessman Chandler Bing. Perry’s film credits include Fools Rush In (1997), The Whole Nine Yards (2000) and The Whole Ten Yards (2004); more recently, he co-starred on the short-lived NBC comedy-drama series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

On May 6, 2004, more than 50 million viewers reportedly tuned in to the final episode of Friends, making it one of the most-watched TV finales in history.

September 22, 2004

The Federal Communications Commission voted to fine CBS a record $550,000 for indecency related to the Super Bowl in which Janet Jackson's right breast was exposed. 

The FCC fined each of the 20 CBS-owned television stations the maximum penalty of $27,500.


September 22, 2004

CBS News announced that a panel would investigate the 60 Minutes story that used forged documents to question U.S. President George W. Bush's National Guard Service. 

The segment was based on several alleged memos from Bush's days in the National Guard. The memos were called forged or fake by many document experts. 

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

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Tony Figueroa