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"
Known around the world as Miss Beadle on Little House on the Prairie, and Betty Briggs on Twin Peaks, Charlotte Stewart began her career as Disneyland’s first walk-around character of Alice in Wonderland ― and though she didn’t know it at the time, she would go through the looking glass on more than one occasion as she embraced the hippie movement of the ’60s and ’70s (and all that it embodied) before bottoming out in the 1980s after falling prey to alcoholism and drug addiction.
Charlotte speaks candidly about her life choices (good, bad and disastrous) in Little House in the Hollywood Hills, a book that not only gives you a good idea of what it was like to live in and survive the era of Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll, but includes great stories about some of the many real-life characters from music, film and TV that were part of the fabric of Charlotte’s life. Charlotte Stewart will join us in our second hour. |
As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history,
the more that fact and legend become intertwined. It's hard to say where the truth really lies.
May 9,
1992
The final episode of
"The Golden Girls" aired on NBC.
May 9, 2002
CSI Miami first aired.
Starring David Caruso as Lieutenant Horatio Caine, Emily Procter as Detective Calleigh Duquesne, and Kim Delaney as Lieutenant Megan Donner, the series is the first direct spin-off of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, "transplanting the same template and trickery — gory crimes, procedural plot and dazzling graphics — into [a new city] while retaining the essence of the original idea".
May 12, 1992
Robert Reed died on May 12, 1992, at his home in South
Pasadena, California, after a six
month battle with colon
cancer and lymphoma; he tested HIV positive the
previous year but did not have AIDS at the
time of his death, as has been reported in the media.
He was cremated and his ashes are interred in Memorial Park Cemetery, Skokie, Illinois next to his grandparents, Harvey and Elizabeth Rietz, and an uncle who died in childhood. Joined by many mourners at a private memorial were the cast of The Brady Bunch, and his best friends Anne Haney and E. G. Marshall. Both his mother, Helen, and daughter, Karen, declined to attend his memorial.
May 13th, in 1922
Bea Arthur is born Bernice Frankel
She was an American actress,
comedian, singer, and animal rights activist. Her career spanned seven decades.
Arthur achieved fame as the
character Maude Findlay on the 1970s sitcoms All in the Family (1971–72) and Maude (1972–78), and as Dorothy
Zbornak on the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls (1985–92),
winning Emmy Awards for both roles. A stage
actress both before and after her television success, she won the Tony Award for Best
Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance as Vera Charles in
the original cast of Mame (1966).
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This week’s show will include a return appearance by Ralph Senensky, longtime member of the Directors Guild of America and a man whose eclectic career as a television director includes multiple episodes of some of the most popular drama and comedy series of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, including The Waltons, The FBI, the original Star Trek and the original Twilight Zone. Among other things, we will talk about a new film featuring Ralph about the discovery of the original pony cart that was used in the famous episode of The Waltons that Ralph directed in 1976 and for which Beulah Bondi won an Emmy Award. Ralph Senensky will join us in our second hour.
Our first hour will feature Part 2 of our conversation with Mark Dawidziak, television critic for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and author of Everything I Need to Know I Learned in The Twilight Zone, a new book that takes all of the various life lessons, ground rules, inspirational thoughts and musings of the series and basically says “We would all be better people if we lived our life by what The Twilight Zone teaches us.” We’ll talk about some more of the fifty-one lessons found in Mark’s book, plus we’ll continue our conversation about the various portrayals of humor in The Twilight Zone and look at some of Rod Serling’s other notable works in film and television. |
As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history,
the more that fact and legend become intertwined. It's hard to say where the truth really lies.
May 5, 1997
The first series aired on ABC during the 1995-1996 season,
but was cancelled after one season. NBC picked up the
show for the following season, but it was again cancelled after one season. In
the first series, thinking his routine was "too Southern" for a national network, they
based his sitcom in Bloomington, Indiana.
Jay Mohr and Bob Saget made
regular or cameo appearances, as did country singers Tim McGraw and Travis
Tritt.
When the show moved to NBC, in addition to the
casting changes, the show's production changed. In the first series, the show
was recorded on tape; the second season was shot on film. In the second series,
the show was set in a fictitious town in Georgia, based on his hometown in the
South, and the series was given a redesigned opening and theme.
Haley Joel Osment was the only other
actor besides Foxworthy to make the move to NBC with the series, and Jeff's
wife Karen was the only character that carried over with Jeff and Matt. Jonathan Lipnicki was added to the
cast as the Foxworthys' other son Justin.
May 7, 1947
Kraft Television Theater premiered on NBC.
Initially produced by the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, the
live hour-long series offered television plays with new stories and new
characters each week, in addition to adaptations of such classics as A Christmas Carol and Alice in Wonderland.
The program was broadcast live from Studio 8-H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza,
currently the home of Saturday Night Live.
Beginning October 1953, ABC added a separate series
(also titled Kraft Television Theatre), created to promote Kraft's
new Cheez
Whiz product. This series ran for sixteen months, telecast on Thursday
evenings at 9:30pm, until January 1955. After Kraft cancelled the second show,
the second show changed its sponsor to become Pond's Theatre on ABC-TV from
March 1955, while the original Kraft Theatre continued on
NBC-TV.
May 7, 1987
Shelly Long, as Diane
Chambers, made her last appearance as a regular on the TV show Cheers.
In December 1986, Long decided to leave Cheers for
a movie career and family; she said that she and Danson had "done some
really terrific work at Cheers". Her decision was so
surprising that it became national news and greatly worried the show's cast and
crew, who believed that the Sam-Diane relationship was fundamental to Cheers'success.
In February 1987, the creators
decided to find a female lead replacement who did not resemble Shelley Long. During
production of "I Do, Adieu," the producers developed ideas to
separate Sam and Diane. Many ideas of writing out Diane were attempted, but
they decided she would leave Boston for a writing career. James Burrows
said they intended Cheers to be a comedy about comedy set in
the bar, but the "Sam and Diane" romance predominated the show for five
years and would have made the bar a minor role and less relevant if Long had
not left the show in 1987. When Long decided to leave Cheers,
producers made plans to revise the show without losing its initial premise;
they credited Long's departure for saving the series from cancellation
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A new book, Everything I Need to Know I Learned in The Twilight Zone, takes all of the various life lessons, ground rules, inspirational thoughts and musings of the series and basically says “We would all be better people if we lived our life by what The Twilight Zone teaches us.” Written by Mark Dawidziak, television critic for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and author of several other books on film and television (including The Columbo Phile and The Night Stalker Companion), Everything I Need to Know I Learned in The Twilight Zone not only lists more four dozen life lessons found in The Twilight Zone, but includes examples of where those lessons apply in various episodes. The book also includes ”Guest Lessons” submitted by such esteemed Twilight Zone alumni as Richard Matheson, Harlan Ellison, George Clayton Johnson, Donna Douglas, James Best, Robert Redford and Jack Klugman, as well as also such noted fans of the series as Dick Van Dyke, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner and Joseph Dougherty. Mark Dawidziak will join us in our second hour.
This week’s program will include a tribute to Mr. Warmth, Don Rickles, the iconic comedian who passed away on Thursday, April 6. Though widely known to three generations of fans for his singular brand of insult humor, not to mention his numerous appearances on The Dean Martin Hour Celebrity Roasts and late night talk shows (including The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson), Rickles was also an accomplished dramatic actor in film and television, particularly throughout the 1960s. We will pay tribute to the television career of Don Rickles during our first hour. |
As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history,
the more that fact and legend become intertwined. It's hard to say where the truth really lies.
April
24, 1962
First coast-to-coast satellite telecast. The first coast-to-coast telecast by satellite takes
place on this day in 1962. Signals from California were bounced off the first
experimental communications satellite, Echo I, and received in Massachusetts.
April 24, 1982
Jane Fonda’s first Workout video released.Hollywood royalty, fashion model, Oscar-winning actress, controversial anti-war activist. Jane Fonda fit all of these descriptions by the late 1970s and 1980s, when she emerged in her latest incarnation--exercise guru. On April 24, 1982, Fonda extended her reach into the home-video market with the release of Workout, the first of her many bestselling aerobics tapes.
April 25, 1992
The final episode of "Growing Pains" aired
on ABC.
The final episode of "Who's the Boss?" aired on ABC.
April 25, 1997
The "Dukes Of Hazzard" television movie
entitled "The Reunion" aired.
April 28, 1957
Mike Wallace was seen on
TV for the first time. He was the host of Mike
Wallace Interviews.
April 29, 1992
The Los Angeles Riots were sparked on when a jury acquitted four Los Angeles Police Department officers accused in the videotaped beating of African-American motorist Rodney King following a high-speed pursuit.
Thousands of people in the Los Angeles area rioted over the six
days following the verdict. First day (Wednesday, April 29) The acquittals of
the four accused Los Angeles Police Department officers came at 3:15 p.m. local
time. By 3:45, a crowd of more than 300 people had appeared at the Los Angeles
County Courthouse, most protesting the verdicts passed down a half an hour
earlier and many miles away. Between 5 and 6 p.m., a group of two dozen
officers, commanded by LAPD Lt. Michael Moulin, confronted a growing African-American
crowd at the intersection of Florence and Normandie in South Central Los Angeles. Outnumbered,
these officers retreated. A new group of protesters appeared at Parker
Center, the LAPD's headquarters, by about 6:30 p.m., and 15 minutes later,
the crowd at Florence and Normandie had started looting, attacking vehicles and
people, mainly whites.
April 30, 1992
The sitcom debuted in 1984 at a time when the sitcom
was declared to be dead. Comedian Bill Cosby starred
in the nation's top-rated program for four of its eight years and always ranked
in the top 20 shows.
April 30th 1992
The second day of the Los Angeles Riots, KNBC (NBC's
Los Angeles affiliate) 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.
April 30, 1997
In The Puppy Episode of the ABC
sitcom Ellen, the character of Ellen Morgan (played
by Ellen DeGeneres) announces that she is gay.
The widely publicized episode featured cameos by
Oprah Winfrey, k.d. lang, Demi Moore, Billy Bob Thornton, and Dwight Yoakam. An
estimated 42 million viewers watched the special hour-long program. Ellen
DeGeneres herself had come out earlier that year on The Oprah
Winfrey Show and in TIME. Ellen
is often credited to be the first primetime sitcom to feature a gay leading
character but there was a sitcom titled Love, Sidney (1981 until 1983) staring the late Tony Randall.
The first openly gay regular character on a sitcom was Soap's (1977) Jodie Dallas, played by Billy Crystal.
To quote the Bicentennial Minute, "And that's the way it was".
Stay Tuned Tony Figueroa |
