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"
My hearing loss was essentially due to noise exposure during my military service. I was on an anti-submarine sub-chaser in WWII, and we had lots of depth charges going off all around us. There were plenty of explosions, and they were loud!
Norm Crosby
Norman Lawrence Crosby September 15, 1927 – November 7, 2020
Crosby went solo as a stand-up comedian, adopting a friendly, blue collar, guy-next-door persona in the 1950s. Crosby refined his standup monologues by interpolating malapropisms. He first appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in December 1964. In late-1968, he co-starred on The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show, an NBC twelve-week series.
In 1974, he co-hosted a Canadian variety television series, Everything Goes. From 1974 through 1984 he was on over half a dozen Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts including one of George Burns and two separate ones of Redd Foxx. From 1978 through 1981, he hosted a nationally syndicated series, The Comedy Shop, in which a mix of up-and-coming stand-up comics and vaudeville legends presented their material.
This
American sitcom which ran on the ABC network
from November 11, 1980, to May 5, 1983, and in first-run syndication from April 7, 1984, to February 7, 1987. It was modeled after
the British seriesKeep It in the Family, which premiered nine
months before Too Close for Comfort debuted in the United States. Its name was changed
to The Ted Knight Show when the show was retooled for
what would turn out to be its final season.
Henry
is a conservative cartoonist who authors a comic strip called Cosmic
Cow. During scenes in which Henry draws in his bedroom, Knight used
his earlier acquired ventriloquism talents for comical conversations with a
hand-puppet version of "Cosmic Cow." Muriel is a laid back freelance
photographer, having been a band singer in her earlier days. They have two
grown children, older daughter, brunette Jackie (Deborah Van Valkenburgh) who works for a bank and younger daughter Sara (Lydia Cornell), a blonde bombshell and a
college student atSan Francisco State University.
At
the start of the premiere episode, Jackie and Sara are living with their
parents in a cramped, awkward arrangement. Their longtime downstairs tenant,
Myron (later called Neville) Rafkin, recently died. The family discovers Rafkin
was a transvestite and the many strange
women Henry had been opening the door for all those years were actually Rafkin
himself. Jackie and Sara convince their parents to allow them to move into the
now-vacant downstairs apartment. In a running gag, Henry falls off the girls'
ultra-modern chairs or couch every time he attempts to sit down. Despite the
daughters' push for independence and moving into the downstairs apartment,
Henry proves to be a very protective father and constantly meddles in their
affairs.
November 12, 1990
Actress Eve Arden, best known for playing the title
role in the radio and TV series Our Miss Brooks, dies at age 78.
Arden was born in Mill Valley, California, and began
acting as a teenager. By age 22, she was appearing in the Ziegfeld Follies. She
made two films under her birth name-Eunice Quedens-before her first picture as
Eve Arden (Oh, Doctor! in 1937). She frequently played the
kind-but-sarcastic girlfriend of the lead female role. Her films included No,
No, Nanette (1940), Mildred Pierce (1945), and Anatomy of a
Murder (1959). Her last film was Grease II (1982). She published an
autobiography, The Three Phases of Eve, in 1985.
A native of Canada, Trebek became a naturalized United States citizen in 1998. He received the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show Host seven times for his work on Jeopardy!. On November 8, 2020, Trebek died at age 80 after a nearly two-year battle with pancreatic cancer; he had been contracted to host Jeopardy! until 2022.
Almost from its beginnings, television showed a
remarkable ability to influence the pop charts, and not only by giving exposure
to popular musical artists on programs like American Bandstand and The
Ed Sullivan Show. Many television programs also launched legitimate pop
hits in the form of their theme songs—songs like "The Peter Gunn Theme,"
"Welcome Back" and "Theme from S.W.A.T." But prior
to 1985, no television program had ever launched a smash-hit, movie-style
soundtrack album. The first one to do so was NBC's Miami Vice, a show
that not only altered the landscapes of television and fashion, but also sent
the soundtrack album of the same name to the top of the Billboard 200 on
this day in 1985—a spot it would hold for the next 11 weeks
The genesis of Miami Vice is the stuff of
television legend. It came about in the form of a memo from NBC head of
programming Brandon Tartikoff in which he documented one of his brainstorms
simply as "MTV Cops." Inspired by MTV's growing influence on the
music industry, Tartikoff reasoned that a slickly produced, visually arresting
cop show could become to television essentially what Duran Duran was to music.
Under the creative guidance of producer Michael Mann, Tartikoff's vision took
shape in 1984, when it debuted on NBC's fall schedule.
Scheduled opposite the ratings juggernaut Falcon
Crest on Friday nights at 10 pm, Miami Vice struggled in its first
season but catapulted into the Nielson Top 10 in the autumn of 1985.
Simultaneous with the television show's rise to popularity, its instrumental
theme song, by Czech composer Jan Hammer, was climbing the Billboard pop
singles chart. The popularity of that single, in turn, drove sales of the
soundtrack album Miami Vice, which featured not only Jan Hammer's theme
song and other examples of his incidental soundtrack music, but also several
original songs written expressly for the show's fall season, including
"Smuggler's Blues" and "You Belong To The City" by Glenn
Frey. The album also featured previously released songs that had been featured
prominently in the program's signature musical montages—songs such as Phil
Collins' "In The Air Tonight" and Tina Turner's "Better Be Good
To Me."
In demonstrating how five scenes' worth of difficult
expository dialogue could easily be replaced with a 90-second visual montage
set to mood-appropriate pop music, Miami Vice made a significant
creative impact on the future of American television. In demonstrating how much
additional revenue a television show could generate by releasing soundtrack
albums of pre-existing popular music, it had a significant business impact as
well.
November 3, 1975
Good Morning America premiered
on ABC-TV.
GMA expanded to weekends with the debut of a Sunday
edition on January 3, 1993. The Sunday edition was later canceled in 1999;
weekend editions returned on both Saturdays and Sundays on September 4, 2004.
The weekday program airs from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. in all U.S. time
zones (live in the Eastern Time Zone and on tape delay elsewhere
across the country); the Saturday and Sunday editions are one hour long and is
transmitted to ABC's stations live at 7:00 a.m. Eastern Time, although
stations in some markets air
the weekend broadcasts either one hour earlier or later than the 7:00 a.m.
slot. A third hour of the weekday broadcast aired from 2007 to 2008,
exclusively on ABC News Now.
The program features news,
interviews, weather forecasts, special-interest stories, and feature segments
such as "Pop News" (featuring pop culture and
entertainment news, and viral videos),
the "GMA Heat Index" (featuring a mix of entertainment, lifestyle and
human-interest stories) and "Play of the Day" (featuring a selected
viral video or television program clip). It is produced by ABC News and
broadcasts from the Times Square
Studios in New York City's Times Square district.
The primary anchors are Robin Roberts, George
Stephanopoulos and Lara Spencer,
along with newsreader Amy Robach,
social media anchor Tony Reali and
weather anchor Ginger Zee.
Good Morning America has been the most watched morning show in total
viewers and key demos each year since Summer 2012.[2]GMA generally
placed second in the ratings, behind NBC's Today from 1995 to 2012.[3] It
overtook its rival for a period from the early to mid-1980s with anchors David
Hartman and Joan Lunden,
from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s with Charles Gibson and
Lunden, and in April 2012 with Roberts and Stephanopoulos.
Good Morning America won the first three Daytime Emmy Awards for "Outstanding Morning Program",
sharing the inaugural 2007 award with Today and winning the
2008 and 2009 awards outright.
November 4, 1950
Marjorie Armstrong
“Markie” Post is born.
Best known for her roles as bail bondswoman Terri Michaels in The Fall Guy on ABC from 1982 to 1985, as public defender Christine
Sullivan on the NBCsitcomNight Court from 1985 to 1992, and as Georgie Anne Lahti
Hartman on the CBSsitcomHearts Afirefrom 1992 to 1995.
Poppin' Fresh, more widely known as the Pillsbury
Doughboy, is an advertising icon and mascot of the Pillsbury Company, appearing in many of their commercials. Many
commercials from 1965 until 2004 (returned in 2009 to 2011 and 2013 in a Geico Commercial)
conclude with a human finger poking the Doughboy's stomach. The Doughboy
responds when his stomach is poked by giggling (Hoo-Hoo!, or earlier on,
a slight giggle "hee hee").
The show had its origins in a
November 1975 American television movie entitled The New, Original
Wonder Woman starring Carter. It followed a 1974 TV movie
entitled Wonder Woman starring blond actress Cathy Lee Crosby, who neither resembled the super-hero character nor exhibited any
apparent super-human powers. (John D. F. Black wrote and produced the 1974 TV movie.) In this second movie, set
during World War II and produced by Douglas S. Cramer and Wilford Lloyd "W.L." Baumes, who were working from
a script by Stanley Ralph Ross, Carter as Wonder Woman matched the original comic
book character. Its success led the ABC
television network to order two
more one-hour episodes which aired in April 1976. That success led ABC to order
an additional 11 episodes which the network aired weekly (for the most part)
during the first half of the 1976–77 television season. The episodes ran on
Wednesday nights between October 1976 and February 1977.
Wonder Woman achieved solid ratings on ABC during its first
season, but the network was reluctant to renew the series for another
season. Wonder Woman was a period piece, and as such, it was
more expensive to produce than a series set in the present day. Also, ABC
thought that the 1940s setting limited possible storylines, with the major
villains being Nazis. ABC did not renew the series, so Jerry Lieder,
then-president of Warner Bros. Television, went to CBS with the notion of shifting the series to the
present-day 1970s, which would cost less to produce and allow for more creative
storylines. Unlike 20th Century
Fox Television's Batman, the series was produced without having a theatrical
feature film in the middle of its production. In addition, none of the villains
had recurring appearances. CBS agreed and picked up the show in 1977, and it
continued for another two seasons.
November 8, 1920
Esther Rolle was born in Pompano Beach, Florida.
She was the tenth of 18 children (children who included siblings and fellow actresses Estelle Evans and Rosanna Carter).
Rolle is best known for her television role as Florida Evans, the character she played on two 1970s sitcoms. The character was introduced as Maude Findlay's housekeeper on Maude, and was spun off in the show's second season into Good Times, a show about Florida's family. Rolle was nominated in 1975 for the Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy Golden Globe Award for her role in Good Times. Rolle was 19 years older than the actor (John Amos) who played her husband James Evans. The James Evans character was only added after Esther Rolle fought hard for a father figure and husband to be added to the show. Rolle had fought for the father character on the show, more relevant themes and scripts and was unhappy when the success of Jimmie Walker's character, J.J. Evans, took the show in what she thought was a frivolous direction. John Amos agreed with Rolle about Walker's character and was fired from the show after the third season ended. Later on, in a stand-off with Good Times producer Norman Lear, Rolle also quit when her contract ended. Although the show continued without her for the fifth season, she returned for the show's final season. In 1979 she won an Emmy for her role in Summer of My German Soldier, a made-for-television movie.
Among her guest star roles was one on The Incredible Hulk in an episode entitled "Behind the Wheel" where she played a taxicab business owner. In the 1990s, Rolle was a surprise guest on RuPaul's VH-1 talk show. Her Maude co-star Bea Arthur was the guest, and Rolle was brought out to surprise Arthur. The two had not seen each other in years, Arthur said, and embraced warmly. Rolle also appeared in a series of psychic hotline TV commercials in the 1990s. "Tell them Esther sent you," was her trademark line.
Rolle died on November 17, 1998 in Culver City, California, from complications of diabetes, nine days after her 78th birthday. Her body was flown back to her hometown ofPompano Beach, Florida. A devout Methodist, Rolle requested that her funeral be held at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The family requested that any flower donations be sent to such organizations as the African American Chapter of the American Diabetes Association, The Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Florida, The Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dallas, Texas, The Jenesse Center in Los Angeles, and Marcus Garvey Elementary and Junior High School in Los Angeles.
November 8, 1965
Days of our Lives first aired.
The series was created by husband-and-wife team Ted Corday and Betty Corday along with Irna Phillips in 1964, and many of the first stories were written by William J. Bell. The original title sequence voiced by MacDonald Carey is still used to this day. The series expanded from 30 minutes to a full hour on April 21, 1975. The co-creator and original executive producer, Ted Corday, was only at the helm for eight months before dying of cancer in 1966. His widow, Betty, was named executive producer upon his death. She continued in that role, with the help of H. Wesley Kenney and Al Rabin as supervising producers, before she semi-retired in 1985. When Mrs. Corday semi-retired in 1985, and later died in 1987, her son, Ken, became executive producer and took over the full-time, day-to-day running of the show, a title he still holds today.
When Days of our Lives debuted the cast consisted of seven main characters (Tom Horton, Alice Horton, Mickey Horton, Marie Horton, Julie Olson, Tony Merritt, and Craig Merritt). The series first focused on its core family, the Hortons. Several other families have been added to the cast, and many of them still appear on the show. Frances Reid the matriarch of the series' Horton family remained with the show from its inception to her death on February 3, 2010.
The Cordays and Bell combined the "hospital soap" idea with the tradition of centering a series on a family, by making the show about a family of doctors, including one who worked in a mental hospital. Storylines in the show follow the lives of middle and upper-class professionals in Salem, a middle-America town, with the usual threads of love, marriage, divorce, and family life, plus the medical storylines and character studies of individuals with psychological problems. Former executive producer Al Rabin took pride in the characters' passion, saying that the characters were not shy about "sharing what's in their gut." Critics originally praised the show for its non-reliance on nostalgia and its portrayal of "real American contemporary families." By the 1970s, critics deemed Days to be the most daring daytime drama, leading the way in using themes other shows of the period would not dare touch, such as artificial insemination and interracial romance. The January 12, 1976 cover of Time magazine featured Days of our Lives' Bill Hayes and Susan Seaforth Hayes, the first daytime actors to ever appear on its cover. The Hayeses themselves were a couple whose onscreen and real-life romance (they met on the series in 1970 and married in 1974) was widely covered by both the soap opera magazines and the mainstream press.
One of the longest-running storylines involved the rape of Mickey Horton's wife Laura by Mickey's brother Bill. Laura confides in her father-in-law Dr. Tom, and the two agree that her husband Mickey should never know. The secret, involving the true parentage of Michael Horton (a product of the rape) and Mickey's subsequent health issues as a result of the revelation, spanned episodes from 1968 to 1975. The storyline was the first to bring the show to prominence, and put it near the top of the Nielsen daytime ratings. Another love triangle, between lounge singer Doug Williams, Tom and Alice's daughter Addie, and Addie's own daughter, Julie, proved to be very popular around the same time. The storyline culminated in the death of Addie in 1974 and the marriage of Doug and Julie in 1976.
In the 1980s, the Brady and DiMera families were introduced, and their rivalry quickly cemented their places as core families in Salem beside the Hortons. Around the same time, with the help of head writers Sheri Anderson, Thom Racina, and Leah Laiman, action/adventure storylines and supercouples such as Bo and Hope, Shane and Kimberly, and Patch and Kayla reinvigorated the show, previously focused primarily on the domestic troubles of the Hortons.
November 8, 2010
Conan premiered
on TBS.
Describing
itself as a traditional late-night talk show, Conan draws its
comedy from recent news stories, political figures and prominent celebrities,
as well as aspects of the show itself. The show typically opens with a monologue from
Conan O'Brien relating to recent headlines and frequently features exchanges
with his sidekick, Andy Richter,
and members of the audience. The next segment is devoted to a celebrity
interview, with guests ranging from actors and musicians to media personalities
and political figures. The show then closes with either a musical or comedy
performance.
On
TBS, Conan airs Monday through Thursday beginning at
11:00 p.m. eastern time. Comedian and actor Andy Richter continues
his role as sidekick to O'Brien, and as the show's announcer. Conan's long-time
house band continues with the host under the new moniker Jimmy
Vivino and the Basic Cable Band,
with Max Weinberg being replaced as bandleader by guitarist Jimmy Vivino and
as drummer by regular substitute James Wormworth,
both of whom regularly substituted for Weinberg during his brief departures.
