This Week in TV History December 8th 2020 "A Charlie Brown Christmas"Edition

Here is a 

"HOLIDAY SOR-BAY"

a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

 

Donna joined me in the latest episode of "This Week in TV History" where we discussed "A Charlie Brown Christmas"

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: John Lennon - Happy Christmas War Is Over

 

Here is a

"HOLIDAY SOR-BAY"

a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

December 8, 1980

John Lennon, is murdered by a deranged fan in front of his New York apartment building. Lennon was born in 1940 in Liverpool, England. As a boy, Lennon lived with his aunt after his father left the family. Lennon attended Quarry Bank High School, from which he derived the name for his first band, the Quarrymen, formed in 1955. In 1956, he met Paul McCartney, who joined the band, and the two began writing songs together. George Harrison joined the band in 1957, and the three played together under several different names and with varying members until 1960, when they adopted the name the Beatles.

The band toured German beerhouses in 1961 and debuted later that year at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, where they gave more than 300 performances during the next two years. Drummer Ringo Starr joined the group in 1962. The group scored several U.K. hits in 1963, launching the "Beatlemania" tidal wave that hit the United States in 1964. In a little more than 10 years, the group transformed rock and roll, scoring 20 No. 1 hits on the Billboard pop charts, more than any group in history. The group's records spent a total of 59 weeks topping the charts between 1964 and 1970.

Lennon divorced his first wife, Cynthia Lennon, the mother of his son Julian, and married artist Yoko Ono in 1969. With Ono, he released the album Two Virgins in 1968. He became more involved in liberal political causes and pursued projects with Ono. In 1970, McCartney announced that the Beatles had broken up. Lennon released his first solo album, Imagine, in 1971, and it rose to No. 1 on the charts. During the next few years, he released projects with Ono as well as his own solo albums, including chart-topper Walls and Bridges (1974). He gave his last public performance in 1974 and released his last solo album, Rock 'n' Roll, the following year. In 1975, Lennon and Ono had a son, Sean, and in 1980 the couple released their album Double Fantasy, which topped the charts and included the No. 1 single "(Just Like) Starting Over."

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: Simpsons 2010 Christmas Special

Here is a

"HOLIDAY SOR-BAY"

a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

 

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

 

Here is a 

"HOLIDAY SOR-BAY"

a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

TV History

December 6, 1964

Rudolph the Red–Nosed Reindeer the long-running Christmas television special produced in stop motion animation by Rankin/Bass first aired on the NBC television network. The show was sponsored by General Electric under the umbrella title of The General Electric Fantasy Hour.

The special is based on the song by Johnny Marks, which was in turn taken from the 1939 poem of the same title written by Marks' brother-in-law, Robert L. May. Since 1972, the special has aired over CBS, which unveiled a high-definition, digitally remastered version in 2005. As with A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph no longer airs just once annually, but several times during the Christmas season. It has been telecast every year since 1964, making it the longest running Christmas TV special, and one of only four 1960s Christmas specials still being telecast (the others being A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Frosty the Snowman). And again, as with the Charlie Brown special, Rudolph has now been shown more than thirty-one times on CBS, although in this case, CBS was not Rudolph 's original network.

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: Christmas Flintstone Song

Here is a "HOLIDAY SOR-BAY"

a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: Home for the Holidays - SNL

 

Here is a

"HOLIDAY SOR-BAY"

a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

Eddie Mekka

 

Rudolph Edward Mekjian

June 14, 1952 – November 27, 2021

In the early 1970s, Mekka headed the Worcester County Light Opera in Massachusetts, teaching young people how to sing. After performing on Broadway in The Lieutenant, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award, he moved to Los Angeles. 

He landed the role of Carmine 'The Big Ragoo' Ragusa for Laverne & Shirley in 1976, acting on the series until it was canceled in 1983. His recent television credits include 24, The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Bold and the Beautiful, and as Detective Murdoch in the Fox television movie Catch Me If You Can. He had a small role in the Penny Marshall-directed 1992 film, A League of Their Own as the dance partner of Mae (Madonna) in the bar. 

On stage, he has performed in Hairspray at the Luxor in Las Vegas, Nevada and in a national tour of Grease with Cindy Williams. Mekka returned to off-Broadway on July 15, 2008, starring in Steve Solomon's long-running comedy My Mother's Italian, My Father's Jewish & I'm In Therapy! at the Westside Theatre.

Mekka reunited with his Laverne & Shirley co-star Cindy Williams in a November 2008 regional production of the Renée Taylor-Joseph Bologna comedy play It Had to Be You.

In 2008, Mekka wrapped production in the independent film Code Enforcer. He starred opposite Erin Moran of Happy Days.

In 2010, Mekka starred as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof at the John W. Engeman Theater in Northport, New York, from April 29 until June 20.

Good Night Mr. Mekka

Stay Tuned
Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: Bing Crosby & David Bowie

 

Here is a "HOLIDAY SOR-BAY"

a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

The Little Drummer Boy / Peace On Earth.
Music video by Bing Crosby & David Bowie performing

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: MST3K #521 - Santa Claus

 

Here is a "HOLIDAY SOR-BAY"

a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Santa Claus It's Christmas time on the SOL! After Mike and the 'bots exchange gifts, they get to watch a movie where Santa Claus has to outwit Satan in order to deliver gifts.

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: The Richard Pryor Show - Santa Claus

 

TV History

December 1, 1940

Richard Pryor is born in Peoria, Illinois. According to the Museum of Broadcast Communications, Pryor was “the first African-American stand-up comedian to speak candidly and successfully to integrated audiences using the language and jokes blacks previously only shared among themselves when they were most critical of America. His comic style emancipated African-American humor.”

December 1, 1945

Bette Midler is born in Honolulu, Hawaii.

By the time she appeared as the final guest of Johnny Carson's 30-year career on The Tonight Show and brought tears to the unflappable host's eyes with an emotional performance of "One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)," she was an established star of stage and screen—a Tony winner, an Oscar nominee, a Grammy winner and a multimillion-selling recording artist. It would be difficult, however, to imagine a more unorthodox path to mainstream stardom than the one followed by Bette Midler—"The Divine Miss M"—who was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on this day in 1945.

Equal parts Judy Garland and Ethel Merman, Bette Midler early on set her sights on making it in New York City. Arriving in New York in 1965, Midler soon tried out for the national touring company of Fiddler On The Roof only to land the role of Tzeitel (and the job of singing "Matchmaker" eight times a week) in the Broadway production instead. After several years of singing in various Manhattan nightclubs on the side, she got what would prove to be the most important gig of her career, singing poolside nightly at the fabled Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse/cabaret in the basement of the Ansonia building on West 72nd Street in Manhattan. It was there, in collaboration with a young pianist named Barry Manilow, that she fully developed her "Divine Miss M" stage persona—a brash, campy interpreter of numbers ranging from "Chattanooga Choo Choo" and "Leader Of The Pack" to "Superstar" and "Delta Dawn." It was at the Continental Baths that Atlantic Records chief Ahmet Ertegun discovered Midler and signed her to record the album that made her a star: The Divine Miss M (1972). That album, which made an unlikely pop hit out of "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" (Billboard #8, June 1973), earned Midler the Best New Artist award at the 1973 Grammy Awards.

Though she would remain a beloved favorite of a significant fan base over the next decade or so, her only pop hit during that period was the theme song from the 1979 movie The Rose. In 1986, however, her flagging Hollywood career was revived by a comic turn in Paul Mazursky's Down And Out In Beverly Hills. Two years later, she would earn a Record of the Year Grammy and her first and only #1 pop hit with "Wing Beneath My Wings," from the 1988 movie Beaches, in which Midler co-starred alongside Barbara Hershey.

December 1, 1950

Keith Thibodeaux is born. The former child actor and musician is best known for playing “Little Ricky” in the I Love Lucy and The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour television shows.

Here is a "HOLIDAY SOR-BAY"

a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

Disgruntled Santa Claus concerning the celebration of Christmas.

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa