This Week in Television History: August 2025 PART III

   

August 23, 2000

First Survivor finale airs.

On this day in 2000, Richard Hatch, a 39-year-old corporate trainer from Rhode Island, wins the season-one finale of the reality television show Survivor and takes home the promised $1 million prize. In a four-to-three vote by his fellow contestants, Hatch, who was known for walking around naked on the island in Borneo where the show was shot, was named Sole Survivor over the river raft guide Kelly Wiglesworth. Survivor, whose slogan is “Outwit, Outplay, Outlast,” was a huge ratings success and spawned numerous imitators in the reality-competition genre.

Produced by Mark Burnett (The Apprentice, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?), Survivor premiered on May 31, 2000, on CBS. The show centers around a group of sixteen strangers who are stranded for 39 days in a remote location where they must fend for food, water and shelter and compete in various challenges to win rewards and immunity from being voted out of the competition by their fellow contestants. The voting takes place at the so-called “Tribal Council” ceremony and after a contestant is voted off, the show’s host Jeff Probst informs that person that “the tribe has spoken” and asks the evictee to extinguish his or her torch.

As of May 2008, Survivor had been on the air for 16 seasons. The show has been filmed in a variety of locations around the world, including the Australian Outback (season two), the Amazon (season six) and Fiji (season 14). Season 13, which was set in the Cook Islands, stirred up controversy when the contestants were initially divided by race into four competing tribes: African-American, Asian, Caucasian and Hispanic.

In 2006, season-one winner Richard Hatch was found guilty of tax evasion for failing to report his Survivor prize money to the IRS. He was sentenced to more than four years in prison. Other former Survivor contestants have gone on to reap more success from their appearance on the reality show: Season one’s Colleen Haskell landed a co-starring role in the forgettable 2001 comedy The Animal, while season two’s Elisabeth Hasselbeck (nee Filarski) went on to become a co-host of the daytime TV talk show The View.

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Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: August 2025 PART II

  

July 12, 1990

Northern Exposure airs its first episode.

The offbeat show, about a Manhattan doctor contractually forced to work in the fictional of town Cicely, Alaska for four years to repay a student loan from the state.  Rob Morrow stared as Dr. Joel Fleischman. Most of Northern Exposure's story arcs are character-driven, with the plots revolving around the eccentricities of the Cicely citizens. The show consistently ranked in the Top 20 most-watched TV shows until it was canceled in 1995.

July 13, 1985

Live Aid, a massive concert for African famine relief, takes place simultaneously in Philadelphia and London. 

In addition to 162,000 fans that attended the all-day event were 1.5 billion viewers worldwide who watched the show on MTV or other television stations. An estimated 75 percent of all radio stations around the world broadcast at least part of the concert.

Irish musician Bob Geldof, of the Boomtown Rats, organized the event. Among the participants were Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, the Beach Boys, Carlos Santana, Madonna, Sting, and Tina Turner. Several disbanded groups came together again for the day, including Crosby, Stills and Nash; The Who; and surviving members of Led Zeppelin, including Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones. All performers worked for free, as did many other concert workers. The production, which ordinarily would have cost $20 million to stage, cost only $4 million and raised more than $70 million for famine relief.

Despite the number of acts, the show ran surprisingly smoothly. Rotating stages allowed bands to set up and dismantle their equipment while other bands were onstage. Acts from one stadium were telecast across the Atlantic to the other. Such organization, however, did not characterize the group's later charitable efforts: Live Aid was later criticized for its disorganized and slow efforts to channel aid to Africa.

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Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: August 2025 PART I

 

July 5, 1970

PBS began airing concerts by the Boston Pops Orchestra. 

Evening at Pops is an American concert television series produced by WGBH-TV. It is one of the longest-running programs on PBS, airing from 1970 to 2005.^[1] The program was a public television version of a variety show, featuring performances by the Boston Pops Orchestra. It was taped at Symphony Hall in Boston, Massachusetts.

Most shows featured a guest star, usually a well known singer or musician, most commonly within popular music or sometimes rock, folk, jazz or other musical genres. After one or two opening numbers by the Pops, the guest would be brought onstage. Usually the guest would sing several their own hits or songs associated with them, with accompaniment by the Pops. After concluding their set, the guest artist would leave the stage, and the Pops would play one or two closing numbers. The three men who served as Boston Pops Conductor during the show's run – Arthur Fiedler (1970-79), John Williams (1979-95) and Keith Lockhart (1996-2005) – appeared. Gene Galusha provided narration and announced most of the pieces played.

Evening at Symphony, a companion series produced by WGBH and featuring performances of the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa, aired on PBS from 1974 to 1979.

July 6, 1925

Mervyn "Merv" Edward Griffin, Jr. the American television host and media mogul is born. 

He began his career as a radio and big band singer who went on to appear in movies and on Broadway. During the 1960s, Griffin hosted his own talk show, The Merv Griffin Show, and created the game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. A billionaire at his death, he is considered an entertainment business magnate.

July 10, 1995

Hugh Grant appears on Tonight Show after Hollywood arrest.

On this day in 1995, Hugh Grant appears on late-night television’s The Tonight Show less than two weeks after being arrested with a Hollywood prostitute. The show’s host, Jay Leno, famously asked the English actor, “What the hell were you thinking?”

Grant, who shot to stardom with the 1994 hit British film Four Weddings and a Funeral, was arrested on June 27, 1995, in a parked car near Sunset Boulevard with a prostitute named Divine Brown and charged with lewd conduct in a public place. At the time of his arrest, Grant, then age 34, was already scheduled to appear on The Tonight Show to promote Nine Months, his first major Hollywood movie. The actor kept his agreement and went on the program, speaking publicly about the incident for the first time. “What the hell were you thinking?” Leno asked him, to which Grant simply responded “I did a bad thing.” The show garnered huge ratings (enabling Leno to beat his late-night talk show rival David Letterman) and Grant was praised for apologizing for his behavior, in contrast to other scandal-plagued celebrities who went into seclusion or blamed their mistakes on others.

Grant pled no contest to the charges against him, paid a fine and received probation. Although the arrest surprised many fans of the actor, who was known for his charm and wit, his career did not seem to suffer in the end and he went on to star in a number of films, most often romantic comedies, including Notting Hill (1999), Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001),  About a Boy (2002), Love Actually (2003) and Music and Lyrics (2007). Though Grant’s long-term girlfriend, the English model and actress Elizabeth Hurley, stuck by him during the scandal, the couple announced their separation in 2000 after 13 years together.

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Tony Figueroa

Loni Anderson

As a brunette, I had previously been this serious actress.

Then I became a blonde and got to play a completely different, comic role.

-Loni Anderson

Loni Anderson

(August 5, 1945 – August 3, 2025)

Loni Anderson's acting debut came with a bit part in the film Nevada Smith (1966), starring Steve McQueen. After that, she was mostly unemployed as an actress for nearly a decade, then she received guest roles on television series in the mid-1970s. 

She appeared in two episodes of S.W.A.T., then on the sitcom Phyllis, and the detective series Police Woman and Harry O.
She auditioned for the role of Chrissy on the sitcom Three's Company. She did not win the role, but in 1978 guest-starred as Susan Walters on a season two episode,^[4] an appearance that brought her to the attention of the ABC network.^{[citation needed]}
Anderson's most famous acting role came as the sultry receptionist Jennifer Marlowe on the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati (1978–1982). She was offered the role when producers saw a poster of her in a red swimsuit—a pose similar to Farrah Fawcett's famous 1976 poster. Hugh Wilson, the sitcom's creator, later said Anderson got the role because her body resembled Jayne Mansfield's and because she possessed the innocent sexuality of Marilyn Monroe. For her role, she was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards and two Emmy Awards.

Although the series suffered in the Nielsen ratings throughout most of its four-year run, it had a strong following among teens, young adults, and disc jockeys. Owing to her rising popularity as the series' so-called "main attraction", Anderson walked out on the sitcom during the 1980 summer hiatus, requesting a substantial salary increase. While she was renegotiating her contract, she starred in the television film The Jayne Mansfield Story (1980). When the network agreed to her requests, she returned to the series and remained until its cancellation in 1982.
Aside from her acting career, Anderson has become known for her colorful personal life, particularly her relationship with and marriage to actor Burt Reynolds. They starred in the comedy film Stroker Ace (1983), which was a critical and box-office failure. She later appeared as herself in the romantic comedy The Lonely Guy (1984), starring Steve Martin. She voiced Flo, a collie in the animated film All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989).

In the mid-to-late 1980s, Anderson was teamed with Wonder Woman actress Lynda Carter in the television series Partners in Crime (1984), and starred in short-lived comedy series Easy Street (1986–1987). She appeared in television adaptations of classic Hollywood films, such as A Letter to Three Wives (1985) with Michele Lee, and Sorry, Wrong Number (1989), both of which received little attention. After starring in Coins in the Fountain (1990), Anderson received considerable praise for her portrayal of comedian actress Thelma Todd in the television movie White Hot: The Mysterious Murder of Thelma Todd (1991). In the early 1990s, she attempted to co-star with her husband Burt Reynolds on his sitcom Evening Shade, but the network was not fond of the idea, thus replacing Anderson with Marilu Henner. After Delta Burke was fired from the sitcom Designing Women in 1991, producers offered Anderson a role as Burke's replacement, which never came to pass because the network refused to pay Anderson the salary she had requested. She agreed to return as Jennifer Marlowe on two episodes of The New WKRP in Cincinnati, a sequel to the original series. In 1993, Anderson was added to the third season of the sitcom Nurses, playing hospital administrator Casey MacAffee. Although her entering the series was an attempt to boost the series' ratings, the series was canceled shortly thereafter.
In April 2018, Anderson was seen promoting WKRP in Cincinnati and other television series on the MeTV television network.
Though less frequent since the start of the 21st century, Anderson continued to act in television series, and played a lead role in the 2016–2020 web series My Sister is So Gay.

On October 3, 2023, it was announced that Anderson would feature in the Lifetime film Ladies of the '80s: A Divas Christmas. According to the official synopsis, the movie follows five soap opera divas readying for a reunion show who take on playing cupid during Christmas to bring together their director and producer as they all learn the meaning of the true Christmas spirit. The ensemble cast is made up of Anderson, Linda Gray, Morgan Fairchild, Donna Mills, and Nicollette Sheridan.

Good Night Loni

Stay Tuned 

Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: July 2025 PART IV

         

July 28, 2000

Kathie Lee Gifford made her final appearance as co-host of the ABC talk show Live with Regis and Kathie Lee. 

August 3, 1940

Actor Martin Sheen is born Ramon Estevez in Dayton, Ohio. 

The son of a Spanish immigrant, Sheen was the seventh of 10 children. He moved to New York after high school and began pursuing an acting career while working as a janitor, car washer, and messenger. After several successful Broadway roles, he appeared in his first film, The Incident, in 1967. His film and TV career has included numerous political roles, most recently as fictional U.S. president Josiah Bartlett on the popular TV show The West Wing. Previously, he played Robert Kennedy in the TV movie The Missiles of October (1974), John F. Kennedy in the miniseries Kennedy (1983), and the White House chief of staff in The American President (1995). Sheen is the father of film stars Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen.

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Tony Figueroa

Hulk Hogan Gets Emotional When Asked About Final Legacy

 

Terry Gene Bollea
Hulk Hogan

August 11, 1953 – July 24, 2025 

Ozzy Osbourne sits down with his son Jack

 

John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne

3 December 1948 – 22 July 2025

Chuck Mangione on King of the Hill

 

Charles Frank Mangione

November 29, 1940 – July 22, 2025

Malcolm-Jamal Warner

Theater is my favorite platform. Television is my favorite paycheck. The more television I can do, the more theater I can do.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner

Malcolm-Jamal Warner

August 18, 1970 – July 20, 2025

Malcolm-Jamal Warner was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, on August 18, 1970. He was named after Malcolm X and jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal. He was raised in Los Angeles from age five. At the age of nine, he demonstrated an interest in show business that led to enrollment in acting schools. His career as a child performer later led him to graduate high school from The Professional Children's School in New York City, New York.

With appearances and roles on many television shows and films, he landed his most successful role as Theo Huxtable, the only son of Heathcliff Huxtable, who was played by Bill Cosby on the NBC sitcom, The Cosby Show from 1984 to 1992. Warner auditioned for the role on the final day of the nationwide search. In 1986, he was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series at the 38th Primetime Emmy Awards.

Warner guest starred in an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, playing the role of Hilary Banks' boyfriend. Warner hosted the literacy-promoting children's show CBS Storybreak in 1993 and 1994. In 1995, Warner appeared as a homeless man on Touched by an Angel.^[8] He also portrayed U.S. Marshal Terry Nessip in the film Drop Zone (1994), and Leroy Cappy in the HBO film The Tuskegee Airmen (1995).

From 1996 to 2000, Warner co-starred with comedian Eddie Griffin on the UPN sitcom Malcolm & Eddie.^[11] He went on to co-star as Kurdy Malloy in Jeremiah (2002–2004), was the voice of The Producer character on The Magic School Bus, and appeared in the 2004 CBS sitcom Listen Up with Jason Alexander.

In 2008, he portrayed Cordell in the Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson rom-com film Fool's Gold.

In 2009 he guest starred in an episode in the TNT series HawthoRNe. In 2011 and 2012, he guest starred in four episodes of the NBC series Community as Andre, the ex-husband of Shirley Bennett (Yvette Nicole Brown). His character subtly referenced his Cosby Show past by wearing a "Cosby sweater" that he stated was from his dad.

Warner co-starred in BET's 2011 scripted comedic television series Reed Between the Lines. He played the role of Alex Reed, an English professor married to Carla Reed, a psychologist played by former Girlfriends star Tracee Ellis Ross. The couple had three children: Kaci and Kenan Reynolds, Carla's children from a previous relationship, and Alexis Reed, their child together.^[19] The show highlighted the couple's ups and downs together as a blended family. In 2012, Warner was nominated for Outstanding Actor in a comedy series at the NAACP Image Awards for his role in Reed Between the Lines.

On the third season (2014–2015) of TNT police procedural Major Crimes, Warner portrayed Lt. Chuck Cooper, a member of the LAPD's Special Investigation's Section. Warner portrayed Al Cowlings in the 2016 crime series American Crime Story production The People v. O.J Simpson, based on the events of the O. J. Simpson trial. Warner played prison counselor Julius Rowe on the sixth season (2016–2017) of USA's Suits. He also played the role of parole officer James Bagwell on Amazon Prime's show Sneaky Pete. In 2018, he appeared as Dr. AJ "The Raptor" Austin on FOX's The Resident.

During his tenure on The Cosby Show, Warner turned his hand to directing, making music videos including New Edition's "N.E. Heart Break" (1989), rapper Special Ed's "I'm the Magnificent" (1989) and British R&B group Five Star's "I Love You For Sentimental Reasons" (1994). He directed episodes of sitcoms including The Cosby Show, All That, Kenan & Kel, Malcolm & Eddie, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Warner also directed the teen-oriented public health video Time Out: The Truth About HIV, AIDS, and You (1992), which featured Arsenio Hall and Earvin "Magic" Johnson discussing the realities of HIV and AIDS and the best ways to prevent its spread.

In 2003, Warner released his debut jazz-funk EP, The Miles Long Mixtape. In 2007, Warner followed up with his second CD entitled Love & Other Social Issues. In 2015, he received a Grammy Award for Best Traditional R&B Performance for his contribution to a cover of Stevie Wonder's "Jesus Children of America". Warner performed a poem on the track, dedicated to the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, along with musicians Robert Glasper Experiment and Lalah Hathaway.

Warner played bass guitar, performing in a band where he recited his poetry over the music.

Warner performed at the National Black Theatre Festival from 2003 onwards, in addition to hosting its Poetry Jam. Warner's 2022 spoken word poetry album Hiding in Plain View was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Poetry Album in the 65th Annual Grammy Awards, the first year the category was included in the awards.

In June 2024, Warner and cohosts Weusi Baraka and Candace Kelley created the Not All Hood (NAH) podcast to discuss the lives and experiences of Black Americans.

Good Night Malcolm

Stay Tuned 


Tony Figueroa