I represent the first generation who, when we were born, the television was now a permanent fixture in our homes. When I was born people had breakfast with Barbara Walters, dinner with Walter Cronkite, and slept with Johnny Carson.
Read the full "Pre-ramble"
Barbara
Eden reprises
her world-famous role as the magical Jeannie; also reprising their roles from
the original series were Bill Daily as Tony's fellow
astronaut and best friend Roger Healy, and Hayden Rorke (in his final film role)
as NASA psychiatrist Dr. Alfred Bellows. The role of Tony Nelson was played
by Wayne
Rogers,
best known for his role as Trapper John McIntyre on the 1970s series M*A*S*H. Larry
Hagman was
unavailable to reprise his role as Tony Nelson reportedly because he was too
busy filming his CBS series Dallas at the time.
The
film was directed by William Asher (who was also director
of the 1960s show Bewitched) and the teleplay was
written by Irma Kalish.
October 23, 1925
Talk show host Johnny Carson is born in Corning, Iowa.
After studying journalism in college, Carson began
working in radio and television. He began writing for TV shows in the 1950s and
hosted his own show, Carson's Cellar, in 1951. He began occasionally
guest hosting for Jack Paar on The Tonight Show and became the show's
permanent host in 1962. He retired in 1992 and died in Los Angeles on January
23, 2005.
The
series was originally slated to consist of thirteen variety episodes, thirteen
dramas starring Sinatra, and ten dramas hosted by Sinatra, filmed at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood rather
than broadcast live. Sinatra was paid $3 million for the series, and granted
near total artistic freedom.
The
drama segments of the show fared less well against the variety episodes in
ratings and the final total was fourteen live variety shows, eight filmed
variety shows, four dramas starring Sinatra, and six dramas hosted by Sinatra.
Rather than 36 episodes for the season, ABC cut its losses and reduced the
total number to 32.
Sinatra
hated rehearsing, and tried to make eleven shows in fifteen days; the series
subsequently received a critical mauling and was Sinatra's last attempt at a
television series.
October 7, 1960
Route
66 primered.
The show ran
weekly on CBS from 1960 to 1964.
It starred Martin Milner as Tod Stiles and, for
two and a half seasons, George Maharis as Buz Murdock. Maharis
was ill for much of the third season, during which time Tod was shown traveling
on his own. Tod met Lincoln Case, played by Glenn Corbett, late in
the third season, and traveled with him until the end of the fourth and final
season.
The series is best remembered for its Corvette convertible and its
instrumental theme song (composed and performed by Nelson
Riddle), which became a major pop hit.
Route 66 was a hybrid between episodic television drama, which has
continuing characters and situations, and the anthology
format (e.g., The Twilight Zone),
in which each week's show has a completely different cast and story. Route
66 had just three continuing characters, no more than two of whom appeared
in the same episode. Like Richard Kimble from The Fugitive, the
wanderers would move from place to place and get caught up in the struggles of
the people there. Unlike Kimble, nothing was forcing them to stay on the move
except their own sense of adventure, thus making it thematically closer to Run for Your Life,
Movin' On, and Then
Came Bronson. Later examples of this traveling protagonist
format are programs such as Bearcats!, Quantum Leap, The Incredible Hulk,
The
A-Team, and Supernatural.
This semi-anthology concept, where the drama is centered on the guest stars
rather than the regular cast, was carried over from series creator Stirling Silliphant's previous
drama Naked City (1958-1963).
Both shows were recognized for their literate scripts and rich
characterizations. The open-ended format, featuring two roaming
observers/facilitators, gave Silliphant and the other writers an almost
unlimited landscape for presenting a wide variety of dramatic (or comedic)
story lines. Virtually any tale could be adapted to the series. The two
regulars merely had to be worked in and the setting tailored to fit the
location. The two men take odd jobs along their journey, like toiling in a California
vineyard or manning a Maine
lobster boat, bringing them in contact with dysfunctional families or
troubled individuals in need of help.
Tod and Buz (and later, Linc) symbolized restless youth searching for
meaning in the early 1960s,
but they were essentially non-characters. We learn almost nothing about them
over the course of the series. All we are told is that, after the death of his
father, Tod Stiles inherits a new Corvette and decides to drive across America
with his friend Buz. Tod, portrayed by clean-cut Martin Milner, is the epitome
of the decent, honest, all-American type. He is the moral anchor of the series.
By contrast, the working-class Buz (George Maharis) is looser, hipper, more Beat
Generation in attitude. His third-season replacement, Lincoln Case
(Glenn Corbett), is a darker character, an army veteran haunted by his
past. He's more introspective with a sometimes explosive temper, but is
nonetheless a reliable companion on this soul-searching journey.
The series concluded in Tampa with the two-part episode "Where There's
a Will, There's a Way," in which Tod Stiles got married, and he and Linc
finally settled down. This made the series one of the earliest prime-time
television dramas to have a planned series finale resolving the fate of its
main characters.
The show was filmed and presented in black and white throughout its run.
This was not unusual for early 1960s episodic TV.
U.S.
Route 66 is well-remembered for its cinematography and location
filming. Writer-producer Stirling Silliphant traveled the country with a
location manager (Sam Manners), scouting a wide range of locales and writing
scripts to match the settings. The actors and film crew would arrive a few
months later. Memorable locations include a logging camp, shrimp boats, an
offshore oil rig, and Glen Canyon Dam, the latter
while still under construction. It is one of very few series in the history of
television to be filmed entirely on the road. This was done at a time when the United
States was much less homogeneous than it is now. People, their
accents, livelihoods, ethnic backgrounds and attitudes varied widely from one
location to the next. Scripted characters reflected a far less mobile society,
in which people were more apt to spend their entire lives in one small part of
the country. Similarly, the places themselves were very different from one
another visually, environmentally, architecturally, in goods and services
available, etc. Stars Martin Milner and George Maharis both mentioned this in
1980s interviews. "Now you can go wherever you want," Maharis added
by way of contrast, "and it's a Denny's."
The roster of guest stars on Route 66 includes quite a few actors who
later went on to fame and fortune, as well as major stars on the downward side
of their careers. One of the most historically significant episodes of the
series in this respect was "Lizard's Leg and Owlet's Wing." It
featured Lon Chaney, Jr., Peter
Lorre and Boris Karloff as themselves,
with Karloff donning his famous Frankenstein monster make-up
for the first time in 25 years and Chaney reprising his role as the Wolfman.
The show was filmed at the O'Hare Inn, near O'Hare
Airport, Chicago, Illinois. Dutch
singer Ronnie Tober had a small guest role with Sharon Russo, Junior Miss
America.
In a 1986 interview, Martin Milner reported that Lee Marvin credited him
with helping his career by breaking Marvin's nose "just enough" to
improve his look. This happened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
during a scripted fistfight for "Mon Petit Chou," the second of two
episodes in which Marvin appeared.
Two late third-season episodes, which aired one week apart, each featured a
guest star in a bit part playing a character with a profession with which they
would later become associated as stars of their own respective mega-hit
television series. In "Shadows of an Afternoon," Michael
Conrad can be seen as a uniformed policeman, many years before he
became famous in his regular role as Police Sgt. Phil Esterhaus on Hill
Street Blues. And in "Soda Pop and Paper Flags," Alan
Alda guested as a surgeon, a precursor to his career-defining role
as Dr. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce on M*A*S*H. Also in the first
season episode The Strengthening Angels that aired November 4, 1960 Hal Smith, who played town
drunk Otis Campbell in The Andy Griffith Show,
also plays a drunk named Howard and is listed in the credits as
"Drunk".
A 4th season episode, "Is It True There Are Poxies at the Bottom of
Landfair Lake?", featured guest stars Geoffrey
Horne and Collin Wilcox. In the
episode's storyline, Wilcox's character pretended to get married to Horne's,
although it turned out to be a practical joke. A few years after appearing in
this episode, Horne and Wilcox would in real life be briefly married to each
other.
A noteworthy in-joke
occurs during the 4th season episode "Where Are the Sounds of Celli
Brahams?" In this segment, Horace
McMahon guests as a Minneapolis, Minnesota,
festival promoter. At one point, his character confesses to Linc his failed
ambition to be a policeman. Linc remarks that he looks like a policeman Linc
once knew in New York City. McMahon had
starred as Lt. Mike Parker on the New York-based police drama Naked City from 1958-63,
another television series overseen by the creative team of Stirling Silliphant and Herbert B. Leonard.
The original
working title of the series was The Searchers, according to George
Maharis. That title was also the title of the 1956 film The Searchers directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne, so the series was renamed.
The
show actually had very little real connection with the US Highway providing its name. Most of the locations
visited throughout the series were far afield from the territory covered
by "The Mother Road." U.S. Route 66 the highway was briefly referred to in just
three early episodes of the series ("Black November," "Play
It Glissando," and "An Absence of Tears") and is shown only
rarely, as in the early first season episode "The Strengthening
Angels".
The
episode "I'm Here to Kill a King," which was originally
scheduled to air on November 29, 1963, was removed from the schedule
because of President John F. Kennedy's assassination one week earlier. It was not
aired until the series went into syndication. This episode, and "A
Long Way from St. Louie," are the only ones filmed outside the United
States. Both were filmed in Canada, the latter in Toronto.
Sam
Peckinpah wrote and directed an episode of season 2, "Mon Petit
Chou," in 1961.
Route 66 was devised by Stirling Silliphant, who wrote
the majority of the episodes. It was notable for its dark storylines and
exceptional realism. Tod and Buz would frequently become involved with
individuals whose almost nihilistic worldview made for
occasionally frightening television. Some 50 years after its premiere, Route
66 is still one of the few television series to offer such a range of
socially-conscious stories, including mercy
killing, the threat of nuclear annihilation, terrorism, runaways and
orphans. Other episodes dealt with the mentally ill, drug addiction or gang
violence. However, some stories were congenially lighthearted, such as a
memorable episode featuring Richard
Basehart as a folklorist trying to record the local music of an
isolated Appalachian
community, and a Halloween episode called "Lizard's Leg and Owlet's
Wing".
Even more unusual is the way it served up a kind of soaring dialog that has
been referred to as "Shakespearean" and
free-verse poetry. For instance, the boys encounter a Nazi hunter
named Bartlett on the offshore oil drilling rig where they work. Bartlett
describes the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust
thus: "Tod, I hope you live a long life and never know the blistering
forces that sear and destroy, turn men into enemies and sweep past the last
frontiers of compassion" and "once you've seen that dark, unceasing
tide of faces... of the victims...the last spark of dignity so obliterated that
not one face is lifted to heaven, not one voice is raised in protest even as
they died..." (from episode #4, "The Man on the Monkey Board").
The quirky, textured writing extended even to episode titles, which included
such oddities as "How Much a Pound is Albatross?" and "Ever Ride
the Waves in Oklahoma?". Other episode titles were drawn from a wide range
of literary sources, such as Shakespeare ("A Lance of Straw",
"Hell is Empty, All the Devils are Here") or Alfred
Tennyson ("A Fury Slinging Flame").
Many of the stories were character studies, like the above-mentioned one
featuring Richard Basehart as a man who uses people then tosses them away, as
if they are plastic spoons. The episode titled "You Can't Pick Cotton in
Tahiti" refers to small-town America as both a far-away, exotic Tahiti and
the "real America" compared to "phony-baloney" Hollywood,
and still offers food for thought. Many episodes offer moving soliloquies, into
which future Academy-Award-winning writer
Stirling Silliphant (In the Heat of the
Night) poured his deepest thoughts.
Despite all the adventure, travelogue, drama and poetry, the real subject of
the series was the human condition, with Tod and Buz often cast as a kind of
roving Greek
chorus, observers and mentors to broken-down prizefighters and rodeo
clowns, sadists and iron-willed matrons, surfers and heiresses, runaway kids
and people from all walks of life, forced by circumstances to confront their
demons.
One hallmark of the show was the way it introduced viewers, however briefly,
to new ways of life and new cultures. For instance, we get a glimpse of a
shrimper's life in episode 2 of season 1, "A Lance of Straw," and a
look at Cleveland, Ohio's Polish
community in episode 35, "First Class Mouliak". Here the young are
pushed by their parents into careers and even marriages they may not want, in
an effort to hold community and family together, albeit at the expense of the
happiness and well-being of the kids. This story featured Robert Redford, Martin
Balsam, Nehemiah Persoff and Nancy
Malone as guest stars.
One of the legacies Route 66 left behind is a dramatic and
photographic portrait of early-1960s America as a less crowded and less
complicated era—if not a less violent one—in which altruism and optimism still
had a place. That place was filled by two young men who seemed to represent the
best in us, the willingness to stand up for the weak, and who espoused
old-fashioned values like honesty and the physical courage necessary to fight
in their own and others' defense. In their role of wanderers, they appeared to
be peaceful rebels who seemed to reject, at least for a time, material
possessions and the American dream of owning a home. The boys were de facto
orphans adrift in American society; as such, they embodied facets of Jack
Kerouac's Beat Generation, a little bit
of Marlon
Brando's wild side from The
Wild One, James Dean's inability to
settle down and fit in from Rebel Without a Cause, and
the wanderlust of the above-mentioned Jim Bronson, the traveling writer and
loner who toured the USA on a motorcycle in the 1969-1970 series Then
Came Bronson. The use of the Corvette on Route 66, not
only as the boys' transportation but as their marquee and symbol of their
wandering spirit, created a link between America's Sports Car and America's
highways that endures to this day.
Given the unusual tenor of the show and the cost of keeping some 50 people
on the road filming for most of the year, it seems highly unlikely that
anything like Route 66 will ever be attempted again.
Nelson
Riddle was commissioned to write the instrumental theme when CBS
decided to have a new song, rather than pay royalties for the Bobby
Troup song "(Get
Your Kicks on) Route 66". Riddle's theme, however, offers an
unmistakable homage to the latter's piano solo (as originally recorded by Nat
King Cole) throughout the number. Riddle's Route 66
instrumental was one of the first television themes[1]
to make Billboard Magazine's Top 30,
following Henry Mancini's "Mr. Lucky Theme" in 1960. The song earned
two Grammy nominations in 1962.
George Maharis reported in a 1986 Nick
at Nite interview that people often ask him about "the red
Corvette." According to Maharis, the Corvette was never red. (The
misconception may partially stem from the box illustration on the official
board game, released by Transogram in 1962, which showed Tod and Buz in a
red-colored model.) It was light blue the first season, and fawn beige for the
second and third seasons. Both colors were chosen to photograph well in black
and white, but the show's cinematographer complained that the powder blue car
reflected too much light. The Corvette was replaced with a newer model annually
by series' sponsor General Motors but the show
itself never mentioned or explained the technicality.
October 10, 1950
The Federal Communications Commission issues the first
license to broadcast color television, to CBS. However, RCA charged that CBS's color technology was
inadequate and contested the license, which was to go into effect November 3.
RCA's challenge worked: A restraining order was issued on November 15. Despite
this setback, CBS did broadcast the first commercial color TV program in June
1951. Color TV technology continued to evolve during the 1950s. In 1956, a
Chicago TV station became the first to broadcast entirely in color. Color
television sets, however, remained less popular than black and white sets until
the late 1960s. In 1968, color televisions outsold black and white televisions
for the first time.
October 10, 2010
Discovery Kids was
relaunched and rebranded as The Hub. It was a joint operation by Discovery
Communications and Hasbro, Inc.
October 11, 1975
Saturday Night Live debuts.
The topical comedy sketch show featuring Chevy Chase,
John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin and
Laraine Newman, makes its debut on NBC; it will go on to become the
longest-running, highest-rated show on late-night television. The 90-minute
program, which from its inception has been broadcast live from Studio 8H in the
GE Building at Rockefeller Center, includes a different guest host and musical
act each week. The opening sketch of each show ends with one actor saying,
“Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”
Created by the Canadian-born comedy writer Lorne Michaels, SNL has
introduced a long list of memorable characters and catchphrases--from Gilda
Radner’s Roseanne Roseannada, to the Coneheads, to Billy Crystal’s Fernando
(“You look mahvelous”), to Dana Carvey’s Church Lady (“Isn’t that special?”),
to bodybuilders Hans and Franz (“We’re going to pump you up”), to Coffee
Talk host Linda Richman (“like buttah” and “I’m all verklempt”)--that have
become part of pop-culture history. The show, whose cast has changed
continually over the years, has also launched the careers of such performers as
Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley,
David Spade, Jon Lovitz, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tina Fey. Some SNL
sketches have even been turned into feature films, the two most successful
examples being 1980’s The Blues Brothers and 1992’s Wayne’s World.
The show was originally known as NBC’s Saturday Night because
there was another show on ABC called Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell.
However, NBC eventually purchased the naming rights, and since 1977 the edgy
comedy program has been called Saturday Night Live. Lorne Michaels
served as the show’s producer from 1975 to 1980, followed by Jean Doumanian
from 1980 to 1981. Dick Ebersol helmed the show from 1981 to 1985. Michaels
returned to the program that year, and has remained executive producer ever since.
The influential comedian George Carlin hosted the debut episode of SNL.
Later that year, Candace Bergen became the first woman to assume SNL hosting
duties. She went on to host the program four more times. In 1982,
seven-year-old Drew Barrymore hosted the show, becoming the youngest person
ever to do so. Starting in 1976, Steve Martin has hosted SNL 14 times.
Since 1990, Alec Baldwin has hosted the show 13 times. John Goodman has hosted
the show a dozen times, beginning in 1989. Other frequent guest hosts include
Buck Henry, Chevy Chase, Tom Hanks and Christopher Walken. Musical guests
who’ve performed on SNL five or more times include Paul Simon, Tom Petty
& The Heartbreakers, James Taylor, Sting, Beck and the Foo Fighters.
SNL is known for its topical parodies and impersonations, and for
pushing boundaries with its sketches. The show is also recognized for its
political humor. Chevy Chase famously portrayed President Gerald Ford as a
klutz, while Dana Carvey spoofed President George H.W. Bush and his “read my
lips” line. More recently, Amy Poehler has played Senator Hillary Clinton in
numerous skits (including one with the senator herself) and Tina Fey has
portrayed the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin.
October 12, 1950
The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, aka The Burns and Allen Show, began on CBS Television.
The show was originally staged live before a studio audience
(during its first three months, it originated from the Mansfield Theatre in New York, then
relocated to CBS' Columbia Square facilities in Los Angeles). Ever
the businessman, Burns realized it would be more efficient to do the series on
film (beginning in the fall of 1952); the half-hour episodes could then be
syndicated. From that point on, the show was shot without a live audience
present, however, each installment would be screened before an audience to
provide live responses prior to the episodes being broadcast. With 291
episodes, the show had a long network run through 1958 and continued in
syndicated reruns for years.
Cameron is also an active Christianevangelist,
currently partnering with Ray Comfort in the evangelical ministry The Way of the Master, and has
co-founded The Firefly Foundation with his wife, actress Chelsea
Noble. He stated that his main priorities in life are: "God, family,
career — in that order," and he says that this decision has had
negative consequences on his career.
The series ran from 1960 to
1965 on ABC, and moved to CBS until its end on August 24, 1972. My
Three Sons chronicles the life of a widower and aeronautical
engineer named Steven Douglas (Fred MacMurray),
raising his three sons. The series also starred William Frawley as
the boy’s live-in maternal grandfather, Bub. Frawley, was replaced in 1965
by William Demarest due to Frawley’s health issues.
September 29, 1985
The pilot episode of
"MacGyver" aired on ABC.
MacGyver is an American
action-adventure television series created by Lee David Zlotoff. Henry Winkler and John Rich were the executive producers. The show ran for seven seasons
on ABC in
the United States and various other networks abroad from 1985 to 1992. The series was filmed in Los Angeles during seasons one,
two, and seven, and in Vancouver during seasons three
through six. The show's final episode aired on April 25, 1992 on ABC (the
network aired a previously unseen episode for the first time on May 21, 1992,
but it was originally intended to air before the series finale).
The
show follows secret
agent MacGyver,
played by Richard Dean Anderson, who works as a troubleshooter for the fictional
Phoenix Foundation in Los Angeles and as an agent for a fictional United States
government agency, the Department of External Services (DXS).
Educated as a scientist, MacGyver served as a Bomb Team Technician/EOD during the Vietnam War("Countdown").
Resourceful and possessed of an encyclopedic knowledge of the physical sciences, he solves complex problem
by making things out of stuff, along with his ever-present Swiss Army knife. He prefers non-violent
resolutions and prefers not to handle a gun.
The series was a moderate
ratings success, but had a loyal following and was popular in the United States
and around the world. Two television movies, MacGyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis and MacGyver: Trail to Doomsday, aired on ABC in 1994. A
spin-off series, Young MacGyver, was planned in 2003, but only
the pilot was made. Merchandise for MacGyver includes games
and toys, print media and an original audio series. A feature film based on the
series is being developed.
September 30, 1960
The Flintstones Premiered.
The Flintstones ran from September 30, 1960
to April 1, 1966 on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The
Flintstones is about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family Fred
& WilmaFlintstone
and his next door neighbors and best friends Barney
& Betty Rubble.
Critics and fans alike agree that the show was an animated imitation of The Honeymooners with rock puns thrown
in. It aired during an era when color
television was becoming popular in America. Its popularity rested heavily
on its juxtaposition of modern-day concerns in the Stone Age
setting. The Flintstones also became the first primetime animated
series to last more than two seasons this record wasn't surpassed by another
primetime animated TV series until the third season of The Simpsons in 1992.
The show is set in the town of Bedrock where dinosaurs, saber-toothed tigers, woolly mammoths,
and other long extinct animals co-exist with barefoot cavemen. Like their 20th
century peers, these cavemen listen to records, live in split-level homes, and
eat out at restaurants, yet their technology is made entirely from
pre-industrial materials and largely powered through the use of various
animals. For example, the cars are made out of stone, wood, and animal skins,
and powered by the passengers' feet.
It has been noted that Fred Flintstone physically resembled voice actor Alan Reed,
and also Jackie Gleason. The voice of Barney was provided by
legendary voice actor Mel Blanc, though five episodes (the 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th,
and 9th) during the second season employed Hanna-Barbera regular Daws Butler
while Blanc was incapacitated by a near-fatal car accident. Blanc was able to
return to the series much sooner than expected, by virtue of a temporary
recording studio for the entire cast set up at Blanc's bedside. It should be
noted, however, that Blanc's portrayal of Barney Rubble had changed
considerably after the accident. In the earliest episodes, Blanc had used a
much higher pitch. After his recovery from the accident, Blanc used a deeper
voice. Additional similarities with The Honeymooners included the fact that
Reed based Fred's voice upon Jackie
Gleason's interpretation of Ralph
Kramden, while Blanc, after a season of using a nasal, high-pitched voice
for Barney, eventually adopted a style of voice similar to that used by Art Carney
in his portrayal of Ed Norton. The first time that the Art Carney-like voice
was used was for a few seconds in "The Prowler" (the third episode
produced).
In a 1986 Playboy
interview, Jackie Gleason said that Alan Reed had done voice-overs for Gleason
in his early movies, and that he (Gleason) considered suing Hanna-Barbera for
copying The Honeymooners but decided to let it pass. According to Henry
Corden, who took over as the voice of Fred Flintstone after Alan Reed died,
and was a friend of Gleason’s, “Jackie’s lawyers told him that he could
probably have The Flintstones pulled right off the air. But they also
told him, “Do you want to be known as the guy who yanked Fred Flintstone off
the air? The guy who took away a show that so many kids love, and so many
parents love, too?”
Although most Flintstones episodes are stand-alone storylines, the series did
have a few story
arcs. The most notable example was a series of episodes surrounding the
birth of Pebbles. Beginning with the episode "The
Surprise", aired midway through the third season (1/25/63), in which Wilma
reveals her pregnancy to Fred, the arc continued through the trials and
tribulations leading up to Pebbles' birth in the episode "Dress
Rehearsal" (2/22/63), and then continued with several episodes showing
Fred and Wilma adjusting to the world of parenthood. A postscript to the arc
occurred in the third episode of the fourth season, in which the Rubbles,
depressed over being unable to have children of their own (making The
Flintstones the first animated series in history to address the issue of
infertility, though subtly), adopt Bamm-Bamm. The 100th episode made (but the
90th to air), Little Bamm-Bamm (10/3/63), established how Bamm-Bamm was
adopted. About nine episodes were made before it, but shown after, which
explains why Bamm-Bamm would not be seen again until episode 101, Daddies
Anonymous (Bamm-Bamm was in a teaser on episode 98, Kleptomaniac Pebbles).
Another story arc, occurring in the final season, centered on Fred and Barney's
dealings with The Great Gazoo (voiced by Harvey
Korman).
The Flintstones was the first American animated show to depict two
people of the opposite sex (Fred and Wilma; Barney and Betty) sleeping together
in one bed, although Fred and Wilma are sometimes depicted as sleeping in
separate beds. For comparison, the first live-action depiction of this in
American TV history was in television's first-ever sitcom: 1947's Mary Kay and
Johnny.
The show contained a laugh track, common to most other sitcoms of the
period. In the mid-1990s, when Turner Networks remastered the episodes, the
original laugh track was removed. Currently, the shows airing on Boomerang and the DVD releases have the
original laugh track restored to most episodes (a number of episodes from
Seasons 1 and 2 still lack them). Some episodes, however, have a newer laugh
track dubbed in, apparently replacing the old one. Because of this practice,
the only episode to originally air without a laugh track ("Sheriff For a
Day" in 1965) now has one.
Following the show's cancellation in 1966, a film based upon the series was
created. The Man
Called Flintstone was a musicalspy caper that
parodied James
Bond and other secret agents. The movie was released to theaters on August
3, 1966 by Columbia Pictures. It was released on DVD in
Canada in March 2005 and in United States in December 2008.
The Flintstones had several spin-offs and TV specials.
The original premise of the show was that, during a midlife
crisis, Sgt. Garner Ellerbee (Gregory Alan Williams), who was the
resident police officer of Baywatch since
the beginning of the series, decides to quit his job as a police officer and
form a detectiveagency. Mitch
Buchannon (David Hasselhoff), his friend from Baywatch,
joins to support him and they are, in turn, joined by a detective named Ryan
McBride (Angie Harmon). Singer Lou Rawls,
who starred in the first season, performed the series theme song, "After
the Sun Goes Down". Mid-way into the first season, the show added two new
cast members (Eddie Cibrian and Donna
D'Errico).
During the second season, facing slipping ratings which
were never as good as the original series, the producers decided to switch to
a science fiction format (inspired by the
success of The X-Files). Gregory Alan Williams left the
series and was replaced by Dorian
Gregory as Diamont Teague, a paranormal expert.
The new format did not help the series and it was canceled after the second
season. The character Donna Marco was later carried over to the
original Baywatch series afterwards.
October 1, 1955
The
Honeymooners debuts on CBS.
The TV comedy, which starred Jackie
Gleason, enjoyed enduring popularity despite the fact that it aired only 39
episodes.
The show originated in
1951 as a sketch on Gleason's variety show Cavalcade of Stars. He
continued the sketches when he launched a new program, The Jackie Gleason
Show, in 1952. In these skits, Gleason played bus driver Ralph Kramden, and
Audrey Meadows played his long-suffering wife, Alice, who deflated his
get-rich-quick schemes but often saved the day. Art Carney played friend and
sidekick Ed Norton, and Joyce Randolph played Ed's wife, Trixie.
In a departure from most
TV shows at the time, The Honeymooners was filmed in front of a live
audience and broadcast at a later date. To allow Gleason more time to pursue
other producing projects, he taped two episodes a week, leaving him free for
several months at the end of the season.
Unfortunately,
the two shows did not do as well with audiences as Gleason had hoped, and only
39 episodes of the The Honeymooners aired. In 1956, Gleason returned to
his hour-long variety format, occasionally including Honeymooners skits.
In 1966, he began creating hour-long Honeymooners episodes, which he
aired in lieu of his usual variety format. From 1966 to 1970, about half of
Gleason's shows were these hour-long episodes. In 1971, the episodes were
rebroadcast as their own series. On May 9, 1971, the final episode aired.
October 2, 1985
Rock Hudson dies of AIDS in Beverly Hills, California.
Earlier that same year, Hudson announced through a
press release that he was suffering from the disease, becoming the first major
celebrity to go public with such a diagnosis. The first cases of AIDS, a
condition caused by a virus that attacks and destroys the human immune system,
were reported in homosexual men in the United States in the early 1980s. At the
time of Hudson’s death, AIDS was not fully understood by the medical community
and was stigmatized by the general public as a condition affecting only gay
men, intravenous drug users and people who received contaminated blood
transfusions.
Hudson was born Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., on November 17, 1925, in Winnetka,
Illinois. He rose to fame in the 1950s, starring in such films as Giant (1956),
for which he received an Academy Award nomination,and A Farewell to
Arms (1957). Hudson’s good looks and charm were on full display in 1959’s Pillow
Talk and several other romantic comedies he made with Doris Day in the
early 1960s. In the 1970s, Hudson co-starred in the popular TV series McMillan
and Wife. Early in the next decade, he began experiencing health problems
and underwent heart bypass surgery. His final TV role was a recurring part on Dynasty
from 1984 to 1985.
In July 1985, Hudson was hospitalized while in Paris. Some media reports
indicated that he was suffering from liver cancer. However, on July 25, Hudson
issued a press release stating he had AIDS and was in France for treatment.
Hudson, who had a three-year marriage during the 1950s to a woman who had been
his agent’s secretary, never spoke publicly about his sexuality.
Hudson’s death was credited with bringing attention to an epidemic that
would go on to kill millions of men, women and children of all backgrounds from
around the world. Hudson’s friend and former Giant co-star Elizabeth
Taylor became an AIDS activist and rallied the Hollywood community to raise
millions for research. In 1993, Tom Hanks received a Best Actor Oscar for his
performance in the director Jonathan Demme’s Philadelphia, the first
major Hollywood movie to focus on AIDS.
October 3, 1955
Captain Kangaroo
premiered.
Captain Kangaroo is a children's television series which aired weekday
mornings on CBS for nearly 30 years,
from October 3, 1955 until December 8, 1984, making it the longest-running
nationally broadcast children's television program of its day. In 1986, the American Program Service
(now American Public Television, Boston) integrated some
newly produced segments into reruns of past episodes,
distributing the newer version of the series until 1993.
The show was conceived
and the title character played by Bob
Keeshan,
who based the show on "the warm relationship between grandparents and
children." Keeshan had portrayed the original Clarabell the Clown on The Howdy
Doody Show when it aired on NBC.
Captain Kangaroo had a loose structure,
built around life in the "Treasure House" where the Captain (whose
name came from the big pockets in his coat) would tell stories, meet guests,
and indulge in silly stunts with regular characters, both humans and puppets.
The show was telecast live to the East Coast and the Midwest for its first four
years (and broadcast on kinescope for the West Coast, as Keeshan would not
perform the show live three times a day) and was in black-and-white until 1968. The May 17,
1971 episode saw two major changes on the show: The Treasure House was
renovated and renamed "The Captain's Place" and the Captain replaced
his black coat with a red coat. In September 1981, CBS shortened the hour-long show
to a half-hour, briefly retitled it Wake Up with the Captain, and moved
it to an earlier time slot; it was later moved to weekends in September 1982,
and returned to an hour-long format. It was canceled by CBS at the end of 1984.
In the early years of the series, Keeshan wore make-up in order to look
suitably old for the character he was playing, but the show ran for so long
that by the end, he was wearing make-up to look younger.
In 1997–1998, a sequel
revival series tentatively titled The
All New Captain Kangaroo was attempted by Saban Entertainment. John
McDonough played the Captain on this version, which was shot in Tampa,
Florida.
Keeshan was invited to appear as a special guest called "The
Admiral," but after seeing sample episodes, he declined to appear or have
any association with the new incarnation. It ran for one season and inspired a
spin-off show, Mister Moose's Fun Time.
October 3, 1955
ABC aired The
Mickey MouseClub for the first
time.
The Mickey Mouse Club was Walt Disney's second venture into producing
a television series, the first being the Walt
Disney anthology television series,
initially titled Disneyland. Disney used both shows to help finance
and promote the building of the Disneyland theme park. Being busy with these projects and
others, Disney turned The Mickey Mouse Club over to Bill Walsh to create and develop the format, initially
aided by Hal
Adelquist.
The result was a variety show for
children, with such regular features as a newsreel, a cartoon, and a serial, as
well as music, talent and comedy segments. One unique feature of the show was
the Mouseketeer Roll Call, in which many (but not all) of that day's line-up of
regular performers would introduce themselves by name to the television
audience. In the serials, teens faced challenges in everyday situations, often
overcome by their common sense or through recourse to the advice of respected
elders. Mickey Mouse himself appeared in every show not only in vintage
cartoons originally made for theatrical release, but in opening, interstitial
and closing segments made especially for the show. In both the vintage cartoons
and in the new animated segments, Mickey was voiced by his creator Walt Disney. (Disney had previously voiced the character
theatrically from 1928 to 1947, and then was replaced by sound effects artist Jimmy
MacDonald.)
October 3, 1960
The
Andy Griffith Show Premiered.
There are many great
comedic characters on TV, but many of these comedic characters went to a
farcical extreme. Some even dropped I.Q. points for the sake of a joke. Andy
Griffith felt that the integrity of Mayberry’s citizens was more important than
a punch line.
Sheldon Leonard, producer of The Danny Thomas Show and Danny Thomas, hired veteran comedy writer Arthur Stander (who had written many of
the Danny Thomas episodes) to create a pilot show for Andy Griffith which
featured him as justice of the peace and newspaper editor in a small town.
On February 15, 1960, "Danny Meets Andy Griffith" was telecast on The
Danny Thomas Show. In the episode, Griffith played fictional Sheriff Andy
Taylor of Mayberry, North Carolina, who arrests Thomas for
running a stop sign. Future players in The Andy Griffith Show, Frances Bavier
and Ron Howard, appeared in the episode as townspeople, Henrietta Perkins, and
Sheriff Taylor's son, Opie. General Foods,
sponsor of The Danny Thomas Show, had first access to the spinoff and committed to it immediately. On October 3, 1960
at 9:30 p.m., The Andy Griffith Show made its debut. Andy is teamed with an
inept but well-meaning deputy, Barney Fife (Don Knotts),
has a spinster aunt and housekeeper, Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier),
and a young son, Opie (Ron Howard, billed as Ronny).
Initially, Griffith played
Taylor as a heavy-handed country bumpkin, grinning from ear to ear and speaking
in a hesitant, frantic manner. The style recalled that used in the delivery of
his popular monologues such as "What it Was,
Was Football". He gradually
abandoned the 'rustic Taylor' and developed a serious and thoughtful
characterization.
Producer Aaron Ruben recalled:
"He was being that marvelously funny character from No Time for
Sergeants, Will Stockdale [a role
Griffith played on stage and in film]...One day he said, 'My God, I just
realized that I'm the straight man. I'm playing straight to all these kooks
around me.' He didn't like himself [in first year reruns]...and in the next
season he changed, becoming this Lincolnesque
character."
As Griffith stopped portraying some of the sheriffs more unsophisticated
character traits and mannerisms, it was impossible for him to create his own
problems and troubles in the manner of other central sitcom characters such as
Lucy in I Love Lucy or Archie Bunker in All in the Family, whose problems were the
result of their temperaments, philosophies and attitudes. Consequently, the
characters around Taylor were employed to create the problems and troubles,
with rock-solid Taylor stepping in as problem solver, mediator, advisor, disciplinarian
and counselor. Aunt Bee, for example, was given several wayward romances
requiring Andy's intervention, Opie suffered childhood missteps that needed a
father's counsel and discipline, and Barney engaged in ill-considered acts on
the job that required Sheriff Taylor's professional oversight and reprimand.
Andy Griffith has also said that he realized during the earlier episodes of the
program that it was much funnier for him to play the straight man to Knotts'
"Barney," rather than his being the originator of the comedic scenes
between them.
Andy's friends and neighbors include barber Floyd
Lawson (Howard McNear), service station attendants and
cousins Gomer
Pyle (Jim
Nabors) and Goober Pyle (George
Lindsey), and local drunkard Otis
Campbell (Hal Smith). On the distaff side, townswoman Clara
Edwards (Hope Summers), Barney's sweetheart Thelma Lou
(Betty
Lynn) and Andy's schoolteacher sweetheart Helen Crump
(Aneta
Corsaut) become semi-regulars. Elinor
Donahue made twelve appearances as Andy's girlfriend in the first season.
In the color seasons, County Clerk Howard
Sprague (Jack Dodson) and handyman Emmett Clark (Paul
Hartman) appeared regularly, while Barney's replacement deputy Warren
Ferguson (Jack Burns) appeared in the sixth season. Unseen
characters such as telephone operator Sarah, and Barney's love interest, local
diner waitress Juanita Beasley, as mentioned in first season episode "Andy
Forecloses", are often referenced. In the series' last few episodes,
farmer Sam Jones (Ken Berry) debuts, and later becomes the star of the
show's sequel series, Mayberry R.F.D..
Knotts left the show at the end of the fifth season to pursue a career in
films but returned to make five guest appearances as Barney in seasons six
through eight. His last appearance in the final season in a story about a
summit meeting with Russian dignitaries "ranked eleventh among single
comedy programs most watched in television between 1960 to [1984], with an
audience of thirty-three and a half million."
The color episodes of the
show in its later years are markedly different from the black and white
episodes of the first five seasons, and are generally far less popular with
fans of the show. New writers took over the scriptwriting for the post-Knotts
color seasons, and they generally abandoned the character-based sitcom format
in favor of dry humor revolving around rather mundane aspects of life in a
small town. Finally, it has also been observed that Griffith's character
underwent another metamorphosis when the show went to color. While the original
"country bumpkin" Sheriff Taylor had already been replaced during the
black and white years by a somewhat less country-acting character, the Sheriff
Taylor of the color episodes is a sophisticated, almost urbane man, to the
point that he often seems, contrary to the Sheriff Taylor of the black and
white episodes, to be discontent, irritated and fed up with life in Mayberry
(as Andy Griffith was in fact trying to figure out a way to leave the series).
Many of the color episodes revolve around Andy's being agitated about something
by one of the other characters (quite often Goober or Warren, but sometimes
Howard, Aunt Bee or Opie).
The show was filmed at Desilu Studios,
with exteriors filmed at Forty Acres
in Culver City, CA. Woodsy locales were filmed north of Beverly Hills
at Franklin Canyon. The show's theme music, "The Fishin'
Hole", was composed by Earle Hagen
and Herbert Spencer, with lyrics written by Everett Sloane.
Whistling in the opening sequence, as well as the closing credits sequence, was
performed by Earle Hagen. One of the show's tunes, "The Mayberry
March", was reworked a number of times in different tempi, styles and
orchestrations as background music.
The show's sole sponsor was General Foods,
with promotional consideration paid for (in the form of cars) by Ford Motor Company (mentioned in the credits).
In the last episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, the character Sam
Jones, played by Ken Berry, was introduced and a sequel series, Mayberry R.F.D., was fashioned around him for the fall of 1968 (in
essence replacing Andy Griffith — the '68 season would be his last).
Several performers reprised their original roles in the sequel, with Bavier
becoming Sam's housekeeper. To create a smooth transition from the original
series to Mayberry, Andy and Helen were married in the first episode, remained
for a few additional episodes, and then left the show, with a move to Raleigh
being the explanation given the audience. After the sequel series' cancellation
in 1971, George Lindsey played a Goober-like character over several years on
the popular variety show Hee Haw.
In 1986, the reunion telemovieReturn to Mayberry was broadcast with several cast members reprising
their original roles. Absent, however, was Frances Bavier.
She was living in Siler City,
North Carolina in ill health, and
declined to participate. In the telemovie, Aunt Bee is portrayed as deceased,
with Andy visiting her grave.
I think there is a lot of
Barney in all of us. We may strive to be like Andy Taylor, act like Andy Taylor
and may even fool ourselves into thinking that we are Andy Taylor. But we are
really are Barney Fife full of good intentions but with a bullet in our pocket.
October 3, 1995
O.J. Simpson acquitted.
At the end of a sensational
trial, former football star O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the brutal 1994 double
murder of his estranged wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald
Goldman. In the epic 252-day trial, Simpson’s “dream team” of lawyers employed
creative and controversial methods to convince jurors that Simpson’s guilt had
not been proved “beyond a reasonable doubt,” thus surmounting what the
prosecution called a “mountain of evidence” implicating him as the murderer.
Orenthal James Simpson–a
Heisman Trophy winner, star running back with the Buffalo Bills, and popular
television personality–married Nicole Brown in 1985. He reportedly regularly
abused his wife and in 1989 pleaded no contest to a charge of spousal battery.
In 1992, she left him and filed for divorce. On the night of June 12, 1994,
Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were stabbed and slashed to death in
the front yard of Mrs. Simpson’s condominium in Brentwood, Los Angeles. By June
17, police had gathered enough evidence to charge O.J. Simpson with the
murders.
Simpson had no alibi for the
time frame of the murders. Some 40 minutes after the murders were committed, a
limousine driver sent to take Simpson to the airport saw a man in dark clothing
hurrying up the drive of his Rockingham estate. A few minutes later, Simpson
spoke to the driver though the gate phone and let him in. During the previous
25 minutes, the driver had repeatedly called the house and received no answer.
A single leather glove found
outside Simpson’s home matched a glove found at the crime scene. In preliminary
DNA tests, blood found on the glove was shown to have come from Simpson and the
two victims. After his arrest, further DNA tests would confirm this finding.
Simpson had a wound on his hand, and his blood was a DNA match to drops found
at the Brentwood crime scene. Nicole Brown Simpson’s blood was discovered on a
pair of socks found at the Rockingham estate. Simpson had recently purchased a
“Stiletto” knife of the type the coroner believed was used by the killer. Shoe
prints in the blood at Brentwood matched Simpson’s shoe size and later were
shown to match a type of shoe he had owned. Neither the knife nor shoes were
found by police.
On June 17, a warrant was put
out for Simpson’s arrest, but he refused to surrender. Just before 7 p.m.,
police located him in a white Ford Bronco being driven by his friend, former
teammate Al Cowlings. Cowlings refused to pull over and told police over his
cellular phone that Simpson was suicidal and had a gun to his head. Police
agreed not to stop the vehicle by force, and a low-speed chase ensued. Los
Angeles news helicopters learned of the event unfolding on their freeways, and
live television coverage began. As millions watched, the Bronco was escorted
across Los Angeles by a phalanx of police cars. Just before 8 p.m., the
dramatic journey ended when Cowlings pulled into the Rockingham estate. After
an hour of tense negotiation, Simpson emerged from the vehicle and surrendered.
In the vehicle was found a travel bag containing, among other things, Simpson’s
passport, a disguise kit consisting of a fake moustache and beard, and a
revolver. Three days later, Simpson appeared before a judge and pleaded not guilty.
Simpson’s subsequent criminal
trial was a sensational media event of unprecedented proportions. It was the
longest trial ever held in California, and courtroom television cameras
captured the carnival-like atmosphere of the proceedings. The prosecution’s
mountain of evidence was systemically called into doubt by Simpson’s team of
expensive attorneys, who made the dramatic case that their client was framed by
unscrupulous and racist police officers. Citing the questionable character of
detective Mark Fuhrman and alleged blunders in the police investigation,
defense lawyers painted Simpson as yet another African American victim of the
white judicial system. The jurors’ reasonable doubt grew when the defense spent
weeks attacking the damning DNA evidence, arguing in overly technical terms
that delays and other anomalies in the gathering of evidence called the
findings into question. Critics of the trial accused Judge Lance Ito of losing
control of his courtroom.
In polls, a majority of
African Americans believed Simpson to be innocent of the crime, while white
America was confident of his guilt. However, the jury–made up of nine African
Americans, two whites, and one Hispanic–was not so divided; they took just four
hours of deliberation to reach the verdict of not guilty on both murder
charges. On October 3, 1995, an estimated 140 million Americans listened in on
radio or watched on television as the verdict was delivered.
In February 1997, Simpson was
found liable for several charges related to the murders in a civil trial and
was forced to award $33.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages to the
victims’ families. However, with few assets remaining after his long and costly
legal battle, he has avoided paying the damages.
In 2007, Simpson ran into
legal problems once again when he was arrested for breaking into a Las Vegas
hotel room and taking sports memorabilia, which he claimed had been stolen from
him, at gunpoint. On October 3, 2008, he was found guilty of 12 charges related
to the incident, including armed robbery and kidnapping, and sentenced to 33
years in prison.
October 4, 1990
Beverly Hills, 90210 debuts on Fox.
Created by Darren Star and produced by Aaron
Spelling, the show turned its relatively unknown cast of actors, including Luke
Perry, Jason Priestley and Tori Spelling (Aaron’s daughter), into household
names. It also tackled a number of topical issues ranging from domestic abuse
to teen pregnancy to AIDS and paved the way for other popular teen dramas,
including Dawson’s Creek and The O.C.
Beverly Hills, 90210 originally centered around Brenda (Shannen
Dougherty) and Brandon Walsh (Priestley), middle-class high-school-age twins
from Minnesota who relocate to ritzy Beverly Hills with their parents. The
Walshes attend the fictional West Beverly Hills High School, along with bad boy
Dylan (Perry), popular blonde Kelly (Jennie Garth), rich kid Steve (Ian
Ziering), virginal Donna (Spelling) and nerdy David (Brian Austin Green). Over
the course of the show’s 10 seasons, the characters became entangled in
numerous love triangles, graduated from high school and moved on to college and
careers.
The show was the first big hit for the screenwriter and producer Darren
Star, who went on to create the 90210 spinoff Melrose Place,
which originally aired from 1992 to 1999, and the popular HBO TV series Sex
and the City, which originally aired from 1998 to 2004. Aaron Spelling, who
died in 2006 at the age of 83, was one of the most prolific producers in the
history of television. Spelling’s credits include The Mod Squad, Charlie’s
Angels, Dynasty, Starsky and Hutch, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island and
7th Heaven.
The final episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 aired on May
17, 2000. A new version of the show, titled 90210, premiered on
September 2, 2008. The show follows a Kansas family who moves to Beverly Hills.
Of the original Beverly Hills, 90210, cast, Jennie Garth reprises her
role as Kelly, now a guidance counselor at West Beverly Hills High, while
Shannon Doherty has guest starred as Brenda, who has become an actress.
October 5, 1950
The game show You Bet Your Life, starring host
Groucho Marx, airs its first TV episode.
The show had debuted on radio in 1947. Thanks to Marx's sarcastic humor and
improvised wisecracks, the show became a hit first on radio and then on
television. The show ran until 1961.
October 5, 1990
20/20 Buckwheat Hoax
The ABCnewsmagazine20/20 aired a segment purporting to be an
interview with Buckwheat, then a grocery bagger in Arizona. However, the interview was actually with a man named Bill English, who
claimed to be the adult Buckwheat. English's appearance prompted public
objections from George McFarland, who contacted media outlets following the
broadcast to declare that he knew the true Buckwheat to have been dead for 10
years. Confronted directly by McFarland on the television newsmagazine A Current Affair,
English refused to retreat from his claim, maintaining that he had originated
the role of Buckwheat, with other actors playing the character only after he
had left it. The next week, 20/20 acknowledged on-air
English's claim had been false and apologized for the interview. Fallout from
this incident included the resignation of a 20/20 producer, and
a negligence lawsuit filed by the son of William Thomas. English died in
1994.
