This Week in Television History: January 2023 PART III

January 16, 1973

Long-running western series

Bonanza is cancelled after 14 seasons. The episode The Hunter was written and directed by Michael Landon.

The show, which debuted in 1959, was the first western to be televised in color. Throughout the 1960s, the show, which featured the adventures of the Cartwright family on their ranch, the Ponderosa, was one of the most highly rated programs on television. Its trademark theme song rose to No. 19 on Billboard's Top Singles chart in 1961.

January 18, 1948

Original Amateur Hour debuts

One of TV's first talent shows was a spin-off of a popular radio show, Major Bowes' Amateur Hour, the program where Frank Sinatra was discovered in 1937. The show, which aired for 12 years, was one of the few programs to be aired by all four early TV networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, and the ill-fated DuMont network) at different times. Seven-year-old Gladys Knight and 18-year-old Pat Boone were both grand prize winners on the show.

January 19, 1953

Lucy gives birth to Little Ricky. 

Episode #56, “Lucy Goes to the Hospital,” of hit 1950s sitcom I Love Lucy airs for the first time. The episode, in which Lucy Ricardo, played by Lucille Ball, gives birth to a son, was one of the most popular in television history. The ground-breaking episode was one of the first American television programs to deal with the issue of pregnancy, a taboo subject in conservative 1950s America, when even married couples were not shown on television sharing the same bed. Forty-four million viewers, a full 72 percent of all U.S. homes with a television, tuned in; only 29 million viewers had watched President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s televised inauguration the previous night.

January 19, 1993

Fleetwood Mac reunite to play "Don't Stop" at Bill Clinton's first Inaugural gala. On this day in 1993, the band Fleetwood Mac reunites to perform at the recently elected U.S. President Bill Clinton's first inaugural gala.

Fleetwood Mac had faced much intra-band squabbling since their 1970s heyday, why they released one of the biggest albums of all time—Rumours—and a string of decade-defining hits like "Landslide," "Rhiannon," "Say You Love Me" and "Go Your Own Way." And then, of course, there was "Don't Stop" (as in "thinking about tomorrow"), which was candidate Bill Clinton's unofficial theme song during the 1992 presidential campaign.

Along with Truman's "I'm Just Wild About Harry," Eisenhower's "I Like Ike" and Ross Perot's "Crazy," Clinton's "Don't Stop" can certainly be placed within the catchy-and-memorable subset of Presidential campaign songs—in contrast to, say, "Buckle Down with Nixon,"  "Get on a Raft with Taft" and "Huzzah for Madison." Clinton's theme song may have lacked specificity regarding his political agenda, but it had a good beat, a warm vibe and a chorus that audiences could sing along to. Fleetwood Mac's 1977 recording of "Don't Stop" played in a seemingly endless loop from the night of Clinton's nomination at the 1992 Democratic National Convention that previous summer through to election night in November, so that by the time January rolled around, the mere playing of the record would have seemed a disappointing way to end the evening of the Inaugural gala.

And so the Clinton transition team sprang into action and accomplished a political feat that certainly seemed to bode well for the new president's ambitious plans to bring peace and stability to Haiti and overhaul the nation's health-care system. It had been more than five years since Lindsay Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks had shared a stage, but in a true coup of diplomacy, the Clinton team convinced the entire Rumours-era lineup of Fleetwood Mac to reunite for a truly historic live performance of "Don't Stop" on this day in 1993.

January 20, 1998

The first episode of Dawson's Creek aired on the WB network. 

The teen drama television series about the fictional lives of a close-knit group of friends beginning in high school and continuing in college that ran from 1998 to 2003. The series stars James Van Der Beek as Dawson Leery, Katie Holmes as his best friend and love interest Joey Potter, Joshua Jackson as their fellow best friend Pacey Witter, and Michelle Williams as Jen Lindley, a New York City transplant to the fictional town of Capeside, Massachusetts, where the series was set. The show was created by Kevin Williamson and debuted on The WB on January 20, 1998. It was produced by Columbia TriStar Television (renamed Sony Pictures Television before the sixth and final season) and was filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Part of a new craze for teen-themed movies and television shows in America in the late 1990s, it catapulted its leads to stardom and became a defining show for The WB. The show placed at No. 90 on Entertainment Weekly's "New TV Classics" list in 2007. The series ended on May 14, 2003. During the course of the series, 128 episodes of Dawson's Creek aired over six seasons.

January 20, 2008

The pilot episode of Breaking Bad aired.

Breaking Bad is an American neo-western crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. The show originally aired on the AMC network for five seasons, from January 20, 2008 to September 29, 2013. It tells the story of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a struggling high school chemistry teacher diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. Together with his former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), White turns to a life of crime by producing and selling crystallized methamphetamine to secure his family's financial future before he dies, while navigating the dangers of the criminal world. The title comes from the Southern colloquialism "breaking bad", meaning to "raise hell" or turn toward crime.^[5] Breaking Bad is set and was filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Walter's family consists of his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) and children, Walter, Jr. (RJ Mitte) and Holly (Elanor Anne Wenrich). The show also features Skyler's sister Marie Schrader (Betsy Brandt), and her husband Hank (Dean Norris), a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent. Walter hires lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), who connects him with private investigator and fixer Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) and in turn Mike's employer, drug kingpin Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito). The final season introduces the characters Todd Alquist (Jesse Plemons) and Lydia Rodarte-Quayle (Laura Fraser).

Breaking Bad is widely regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time. By the time the series finale aired, it was among the most-watched cable shows on American television. The show received numerous awards, including 16 Primetime Emmy Awards, eight Satellite Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, two Peabody Awards, two Critics' Choice Awards and four Television Critics Association Awards. For his leading performance, Cranston won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series four times, while Aaron Paul won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series three times; Anna Gunn won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series twice. In 2013, Breaking Bad entered the Guinness World Records as the most critically acclaimed show of all time.

January 22, 1968

Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In first aired. 

It was hosted by comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin and featured, at various times, Chelsea Brown, Johnny Brown, Ruth Buzzi, Judy Carne, Richard Dawson, Henry Gibson, Arte Johnson, Goldie Hawn, Larry Hovis, Jeremy Lloyd, Dave Madden, Pigmeat Markham, Gary Owens, Pamela Rodgers, Barbara Sharma, Alan Sues, Lily Tomlin and Jo Anne Worley.

Laugh-In originally aired as a one-time special on September 9, 1967 and was such a success that it was brought back as a series, replacing The Man from U.N.C.L.E. on Mondays at 8 pm (EST). The title of the show was a play on the "love-ins" or "be-ins" of the 1960s hippie culture, terms that were, in turn, derived from "sit-ins", common in protests associated with civil rights and anti-war demonstrations of the time.

In 2002, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In was ranked #42 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.

Laugh-In had its roots in the humor of vaudeville and burlesque, but its most direct influences were from the comedy of Olsen and Johnson (specifically, their free-form Broadway revue Hellzapoppin'), the innovative television works of Ernie Kovacs, and the topical satire of That Was The Week That Was. The show was characterized by a rapid-fire series of gags and sketches, many of which conveyed sexual innuendo or were politically charged. The co-hosts continued the exasperated straight man (Rowan) and "dumb" guy (Martin) act which they had established as nightclub comics. This was a continuation of cartoonist Chic Young's "Dumb Dora", and acts from vaudeville, best popularized by Burns and Allen.

Each episode followed a somewhat similar format, often including recurring sketches. The show would start with a short dialogue between Rowan and Martin. Shortly afterward, Rowan would intone: "C'mon Dick, let's go to the party". This live-to-tape segment comprised all cast members and occasional surprise celebrities dancing before a 1960s "Mod" party backdrop, delivering one- and two-line jokes interspersed with a few bars of dance music (later adopted on The Muppet Show, which had a recurring segment that is similar to "The Cocktail Party" with absurd moments from characters). The show would then proceed through rapid-fire comedy bits, pre-taped segments, and recurring sketches.

At the end of every show, Dan Rowan turned to his co-host and said, "Say good night, Dick", to which Martin replied, "Good night, Dick!" (varying a bit from the Burns and Allen old-time radio show). The show then featured cast members opening panels in a psychedelically-painted "joke wall" and telling jokes. As the show drew to a close and the applause died, executive producer George Schlatter's solitary clapping continued even as the screen turned blank and the production logo, network chimes, and NBC logo appeared.

Although most episodes included most of the above segments, the arrangement of the segments would often be changed, so that the audience couldn't predict what was next.

The show often featured guest stars. Sometimes the guest had a prominent spot in the program, other times the guest would pop up in short "quickies" (one- or two-liner jokes) interspersed throughout the show. While the guest was available, other bits were recorded, and would be added to other episodes of the series.

Ruth Buzzi, Judy Carne, Henry Gibson, Larry Hovis, Arte Johnson and Jo Anne Worley were originally in the pilot special from 1967. Gary Owens (announcer), Eileen Brennan, Roddy Maude-Roxby, and Goldie Hawn came on in the show. Most of the cast members were not in all 14 episodes from the season. Only the two hosts, announcer, and Judy, Henry, and Arte were in all 14 episodes. Eileen only appears in half of the episodes. She, Larry, and Roddy left after the first season.

The second season saw a handful of new people, including Alan Sues, Dave Madden, and Chelsea Brown. All of the new cast members from the second season left at the end of that season, except Alan Sues who stayed on until 1972.

At the end of the 1968–1969 season, Judy Carne chose not to renew her contract, though she did make appearances during 1969–1970; producer George Schlatter blamed her for breaking up the "family." The show also survived the departures of Goldie Hawn and Jo Anne Worley to remain a top-20 show in 1970–1971. Schlatter tried to replace Hawn with other wide-eyed starlets acting dumb: first Pamela Rodgers, then Sarah Kennedy, and finally Donna Jean Young, but Hawn's ditzy characterization proved inimitable.

The third season saw several new people who only stayed on for that season, Teresa Graves, Jeremy Lloyd, Pamela Rodgers, and Stu Gilliam. Lily Tomlin joined in the middle of the season. Jo Anne Worley, Goldie Hawn, and Judy Carne left after the season.

New faces in the 1970–1971 season included tall, sad-eyed Dennis Allen, who alternately played quietly zany characters and straight man for anybody's jokes; comic actress Ann Elder, who also contributed to scripts, tap dancer Barbara Sharma, who would later appear on Rhoda, and beefy Johnny Brown, who played the superintendent Nathan "Buffalo Butt" Bookman on Good Times.

Arte Johnson, who created many characters, insisted on star billing, apart from the rest of the cast. The producer mollified him, but had announcer Gary Owens read Johnson's credit as a separate sentence: "Starring Dan Rowan and Dick Martin! And Arte Johnson! With Ruth Buzzi ..." This maneuver gave Johnson star billing, but made it sound like he was still part of the ensemble cast. Johnson left the show after the 1970–1971 season. NBC aired the pilot for his situation comedy Call Holme, but it never became a series.

Henry Gibson also departed after the 1970–1971 season. He and Johnson were replaced by Richard Dawson and Larry Hovis, both of whom had appeared occasionally in the first season. Both of them were on Hogan's Heroes. However, the loss of Johnson's many characters caused ratings to drop farther. The show celebrated its 100th episode during the 1971–1972 season, with Carne, Worley, Johnson, Gibson, Graves, and Tiny Tim all returning for the festivities. John Wayne was also on hand for his first cameo appearance since 1968.

For the show's final season (1972–1973), Rowan and Martin assumed the executive producer roles from George Schlatter (known on-air as "CFG", which stood for "Crazy Fucking George") and Ed Friendly. Except for holdovers Dawson, Owens, Buzzi, and only occasional appearances from Tomlin, a new cast was brought in. This final season featured future Match Game panelist Patti Deutsch, folksy singer-comedian Jud Strunk, and ventriloquist act Willie Tyler and Lester. Deutsch, Strunk, and Tyler caught on to the spirit of the show and made valuable contributions (Deutsch did celebrity impressions — in the presence of the celebrity — and took over Worley's role in "The Farkel Family"). The shows were still amusing, but without the usual gang, viewers didn't respond as they once had.

These last shows never aired in the edited half-hour rerun syndicated (through Lorimar Productions) to local stations in 1983 and later aired on Nick at Nite. The cable network Trio started airing the show in its original one-hour form in the early 2000s, but only the pilot and the first 69 episodes (extending to the fourth episode of the 1970–1971 season) were included in Trio's package. Two "Best-of" DVD packages are also available; they only contain six episodes each.

Of over three dozen entertainers to grace the cast, only Rowan, Martin, Owens and Buzzi were there from beginning to end. However, Owens was not in the 1967 pilot and Buzzi missed two first-season episodes.

Lily Tomlin and Goldie Hawn later became noted film stars (Hawn won an Academy Award while still a member of the cast; Tomlin was later nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1975 for Nashville). Henry Gibson later co-starred in the Robert Altman film Nashville and was nominated for a Golden Globe. Ruth Buzzi became a regular on the Sesame Street children's television series. Dave Madden, whose trademark was to throw confetti (representing an unspoken impure thought) while keeping a dour expression at the punchline of a joke, played Reuben Kincaid on the television sitcom The Partridge Family. Richard Dawson, who previously had a regular supporting role on the sitcom Hogan's Heroes, went on to success on the game shows Match Game and Family Feud. Larry Hovis, also a regular on Hogan's Heroes, appeared on Laugh-In during the first and the fifth seasons. Teresa Graves parlayed her season on the show into the title role of the police drama Get Christie Love! Flip Wilson took Geraldine and his other characters to his own variety show from 1970 through 1974.

Laugh-In writers included: George Schlatter, Jack Mendelsohn, Lorne Michaels, Phil Hahn, Jim Mulligan, Jack Hanrahan, Gene Farmer, Jim Abell, Bill Richmond, Don Reo, Allan Katz, Jack Wohl, Larry Siegel, John Rappaport, Allan Manings, Jack Margolis, Bob Howard, John Jay Carsey, Richard Goren (also credited as Rowby Greeber and Rowby Goren), Chris Bearde (credited as Chris Beard), Chet Dowling, David Panich, Marc London, Paul Keyes,^[3] Dave Cox, Jack Kaplan, Stephen Spears, Hugh Wedlock Jr., Coslough Johnson (Arte Johnson's twin brother), Hart Pomerantz, Barry Took, Digby Wolfe, Jeremy Lloyd.

The Musical Director for Laugh-In was Ian Bernard. Ian Bernard wrote the opening theme music, plus the infamous "What's the news across the nation" number. Ian Bernard also wrote all the cute musical "play-ons" that introduced comedy sketches like Lilly Tomlin's little girl character who sat in a giant rocking chair, and Arte Johnson's old man who always got hit with a purse. Ian Bernard also appeared in many of the cocktail scenes where he directed the band as they stopped and started between jokes. Composer-lyricist Billy Barnes, who wrote all of the original musical production numbers in the show. Barnes is the creator of the famous Billy Barnes Revues of the 1950s and 1960s, and composed such popular hits as "(Have I Stayed) Too Long at the Fair" recorded by Barbra Streisand and the jazz standard "Something Cool" recorded by June Christy.

The show was recorded at NBC's Burbank facility using two-inch quadruplex videotape. Since computer-controlled online editing had not been invented at the time, post-production video editing of the montage was achieved by the error-prone method of visualizing the recorded track with ferrofluid and cutting it with a razor blade or guillotine cutter and splicing with video tape, in a manner similar to film editing. This had the incidental benefit of ensuring that the master tape would be preserved, since a spliced tape could not be recycled for further use. Laugh-In Editor Arthur Schneider won an Emmy Award in 1968 for his pioneering use of the "jump cut" – the unique editing style in which a sudden cut from one shot to another was made without a fade-out.

During the September 16, 1968 episode, Richard Nixon, running for president, appeared for a few seconds with a disbelieving vocal inflection, asking "Sock it to me?" Nixon was not doused or assaulted. An invitation was extended to Nixon's opponent, Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, but he declined. According to George Schlatter, the show's creator, "Humphrey later said that not doing it may have cost him the election", and "[Nixon] said the rest of his life that appearing on Laugh-In is what got him elected. And I believe that. And I've had to live with that."

In 1977, Schlatter and NBC briefly revived the property as a series of specials – entitled simply Laugh-In – with a new cast, including former child evangelist Marjoe Gortner. The standout was a then-unknown Robin Williams, whose starring role on ABC's Mork & Mindy one year later prompted NBC to rerun the specials as a summer series in 1979. Rowan and Martin, who owned part of the Laugh-In franchise, were not involved in this project. They sued Schlatter for using the format without their permission, and won a judgment of $4.6 million in 1980.

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa