January 15, 1974
The first episode of Happy Days airs.
January 16, 1949
KNBC Channel 4 in Los Angeles first went on the air with the call letters KNBH (NBC Hollywood).
The station debuted with
three hours and forty minutes of programming, which followed a fifteen-minute
test pattern-and-music session. The programming included an eighteen-minute
newsreel, a Review of 1948, LA’s
first variety show called On the Show,
and station’s first live program The Pickard Family, featuring Dad and Mom Pickard and their four
children singing familiar American songs. By October 1949, KNBH had extended
its operating schedule from five to seven days a week, with approximately
twenty-six hours of television programming each week.
In 1954 the station changed its call letters to KRCA-TV for NBC's then-parent company, RCA (the Radio Corporation of America).
In November 1962 the station relocated to the network's color broadcast studio facility in "Beautiful Downtown Burbank" known then as NBC Color City. With the move the call letters were changed again to KNBC. NBC took the KNBC identity from its San Francisco radio station (which then became KNBR).
NBC Studio in Burbank became home to Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (Where announcer Gary Owens first coined the term “Beautiful downtown Burbank)". It was also the home to Sanford and Son, Chico and the Man, the daytime drama Days of Our Lives, countless game shows and most notably since 1972 The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and later Jay Leno.
On October 11, 2007,
NBC-Universal announced that it would sell its Burbank studios and construct a
new, all-digital facility near the Universal
Studios lot. This is in an effort to
merge all of NBC-Universal's West Coast operations into one area. When Conan
O'Brien took over The Tonight
Show he shot in
Universal’s Sound Stage 1 (The former home to The Jack Benny Program).
And now for the news.
Tom Brokaw, Bryant Gumbel, Pat Sajak, Tom Snyder and Nick Clooney (George’s dad) worked at KNBC news early in their careers.
On a personal note: As someone who grew up in Southern California there were many local news stories that later received national or even international attention. I can also say that Channel 4 was making news while they were covering the news.
May 17th 1974 Channel 4 and other local TV stations covered a house in Compton that had been commandeered by the Symbionese Liberation Army, the revolutionary group that three months earlier had kidnapped 19-year-old Patricia Hearst (The granddaughter of the legendary newspaper baron). This was the first time I ever remember channel surfing because the event was being covered LIVE (not “Film at 11). Viewers got to see events play out as they happened. Shortly after 5 p.m. Los Angeles police, sheriffs and FBI agents closed in on the house. The house caught fire and 6 bodies were later recovered. Patty Hearst was not there.
In the summer of 1987 during an afternoon newscast, a gun-wielding mental patient took consumer reporter David Horowitz and the rest of the Channel 4 news team hostage while they were live on the air. The gunman was the son of a former Channel 4 News contributor and an invited guest of one of the news team members. As soon as the gunman appeared on camera the station stopped broadcasting the news, but as far as the gunman knew they were ON THE AIR. Viewers would later see tape of Horowitz calmly reading the gunman's statement on camera with a gun pointed at him. After Horowitz finished reading the statement the gunman surrendered his toy gun and was arrested. This event led Horowitz (whose long running syndicated series, Fight Back! originated from Channel 4) to start a successful campaign to ban "look-alike" toy guns in several states, including California and New York.
Later that year on October 1st
1987 viewers watched anchorman Kent Shocknek
and weatherman Christopher Nance dive under their news desk during an after
shock from the Whittier Narrows earthquake. Kent Shocknek would never live down
this event and forever be known as Kent “After-Shocknek”. It should also be
noted that Kent Shocknek was later honored by the Red Cross and by a few cities
for demonstrating how to behave during an earthquake.
On April 30th
1992, the second day of the Los Angeles Riots, KNBC News was covering the
historic event nonstop. But that evening the station decided to suspend it’s
around the clock riot coverage to air the series finale of The Cosby Show giving viewers a brief Mental Sorbet.
Following the broadcast Bill Cosby
went on the air and asked Angelinos to pray for peace.
This studio hosted production of many of the
best-remembered game and variety shows from the 1950s through the 1990s,
including The Tonight Show beginning in 1972. In that year, Johnny
Carson moved the show to California from New York where it remained until 2009
when Jay Leno handed hosting duties to Conan O'Brien. During the late 1960s,
the Carson Tonight Show would move for periods to Burbank, using the Bob
Hope Stage 3 to video-tape a live feed to the East Coast. After the
permanent move to Burbank, Bob Hope's show taped on Stage 3, with The
Tonight Show taking a hiatus while Hope produced his specials.
January 17, 1949
The Goldbergs debuts as television's first situation comedy.
In each episode, the
family would face another typical middle-class problem--and Molly enjoyed
trying to help the neighbors in her apartment complex solve their problems,
too. Later, when the fictitious family moved from the Bronx to suburban
Haverville, the cast was joined by philosophical Uncle David, Sammy's fiancee
(who later became his wife), her mother, and new neighbors. In 1952, Loeb was
blacklisted for alleged Communist sympathies.
The
show's sponsor, General Foods, dropped the series, and the show moved to
NBC-without Loeb, though Berg had fought to keep him aboard. Loeb declared
under oath he had never been a member of the Communist Party, and the charges
were never proved, but his career was destroyed. He died in 1955 after taking a
fatal overdose of sleeping pills in a hotel room. The show ran until 1954.
January 17, 1994
The Northridge earthquake at 04:31 Pacific Standard Time in Reseda, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, lasting for about 10–20 seconds.
Television, movie, and
music productions affected
The earthquake disrupted production of movies and TV
shows filming in the area at the time. The Star
Trek: Deep Space Nine episode
"Profit
and Loss" was being filmed at
the time and actors Armin Shimerman and Edward Wiley left the Paramount
Pictures lot in full Ferengi and Cardassian makeup respectively. The season
five episode of Seinfeld entitled "The Pie" was due to begin shooting on the day of the earthquake before
stage sets were damaged. CBS's The
Price is Right which shoots live
in the CBS Television Center, had minor set damage. NBC's The Tonight Show, hosted by Jay Leno, took place in the NBC Studios in Burbank, close to the epicenter of
the quake. Also, ABC's General Hospital, which shoots in Los Angeles, was heavily affected by
the Northridge earthquake. The set, which is at ABC Television Center, suffered
major damage including partial structural collapse and water damage.
All of the earthquake sequences in the Wes Craven film New
Nightmare were filmed a month
prior to the Northridge quake. The real quake struck only weeks before filming
was completed. Subsequently, a team was sent out to film footage of the quake
damaged areas of the city. The cast and crew had initially thought that the scenes
that were filmed before the real quake struck were a bit overdone, but when
viewed after the real quake hit, they were horrified by the realism of it.
Michael Jackson had been due to begin recording of his new album HIStory on the day of the earthquake, but Jackson's entourage
moved recording to New York City. They returned to the studio in Los Angeles some six months later.
Some archives of film and entertainment programming were also affected. For
example, the original 35 mm master films for the 1960s sitcom My Living Doll were destroyed in the
earthquake. The earthquake knocked Los Angeles' radio and television stations off
the air. However, they later came back on the air for earthquake coverage.
NBC affiliate KNBC was the first
television station to go off the air while reporters and anchors Kent Shocknek, Colleen Williams and Chuck Henry were producing special reports throughout the
morning. Other stations KTLA, KCAL, KCBS and KABC were also knocked off the
air. Afterward, anchors and reporters Stan Chambers and Hal Fishman of KTLA, Laura
Diaz and Harold Greene of KABC,
John
Beard of KTTV, and Tritia Toyota of KCBS
were doing coverage throughout the morning.
Radio stations such as KFI, KFWB and KNX were on the
air during the main tremor, causing severe static on the airwaves. KROQ-FM's Kevin and Bean morning show asked those people tuned in to stay out
of their homes. KLOS
Morning Duo Mark &
Brian's morning show was also
affected. The duo spoke to Los Angeles area residents about their situation.
FM radio stations such as KRTH, KIIS-FM, KOST-FM and
KCBS-FM were bringing special reports on the earthquake when morning show host Robert W. Morgan, Rick Dees and Charlie Tuna were calling Los Angeles residents and others from
its sister stations to bring their belongings to the station and advising
people not to drink water.
January 18, 1974
Six Million Dollar Man debuts.
Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers returned in three subsequent made-for-television
movies:
The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1987), Bionic
Showdown (1989) — which featured Sandra Bullock in an early role as a new bionic woman; and Bionic
Ever After? (1994) in which Austin and Sommers finally marry. Majors
reprised the role of Steve Austin in all three productions, which also featured
Richard Anderson and Martin E. Brooks.
January 21, 1959
Carl Switzer, better known as Alfalfa from the Our Gang comedies, is shot and killed in a brawl.
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