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.
September 24, 1964
The Munsters first aired.
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.
September 26, 1969
The Brady Bunch premieres.
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.
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.
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