This Week in Television History: November 2022 PART IV

  

November 21

World Television Day

World Television Day celebrates the daily value of television as a symbol of communication and globalization. Television is one of the single greatest technological advances of the 20th century, serving to educate, inform, entertain and influence our decisions and opinions.  It is estimated that approximately 90% of homes around the world have televisions, however, with the introduction of internet broadcasting, the number is declining in favor of computers. 

World Television Day was proclaimed by the United Nations in 1996. It is celebrated annually on November 21.

November 21, 1937

Margaret Julia ”World Television Day is born. 

Actress, producer, and social activist known for her starring role on the TV series That Girl (1966–1971) and her award-winning feminist children’s franchise, Free to Be… You and Me. For her work in television, she has received four Emmys, a Golden Globe, the George Foster Peabody Award and has been inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame. She also received a Grammy award for her children’s album Thanks & Giving All Year Long.

November 21, 1972

Maude's Dilemma Part two. 

Maude Findlay (Beatrice Arthur) discovers she is pregnant and opts for an abortion. To comfort Maude, her grown daughter said "When you were young, abortion was a dirty word. It's not anymore."

Two CBS affiliates canceled the episodes and 32 CBS affiliates were pressured not to rerun the segments in the summer of 1973 by anti-abortion factions.

The second airing of the program gave the show a 41 percent share with 65 million people tuning in. The first time the show aired CBS received 7,000 letters; the second time around 17,000 letters of protest poured in.

This program appeared at a time when the Supreme Court had not yet protected legalized abortion (The Roe vs. Wade decision was still one year away). Reportedly, Pro-Life groups mailed Norman Lear photographs of aborted fetuses in protest.

November 22, 1932

Robert Francis Vaughn is born. 

Actor noted for his stage, film and television work. His best-known TV roles include the suave spy Napoleon Solo in the 1960s series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the wealthy detective Harry Rule in the 1970s series The Protectors. In film, he portrayed one of the title characters in The Magnificent Seven and Major Paul Krueger in The Bridge at Remagen, and provided the voice of Proteus IV, the computer villain of Demon Seed.

November 23, 2012

Larry Hagman, star of "Dallas" and "I Dream of Jeannie," dies.

Larry Hagman dies at age 81 of complications from cancer at a hospital in Dallas. Hagman was best known for his role as the villainous Texas oil baron J.R. Ewing on “Dallas,” which aired from 1978 to 1991 and was revived in 2012.

Hagman was born on September 21, 1931, in Fort Worth, Texas, to actress Mary Martin, who would become known for her roles in Broadway musicals including “Peter Pan,” “South Pacific” and “The Sound of Music,” and Benjamin Hagman, a lawyer. After graduating from high school in Weatherford, Texas, the younger Hagman briefly attended Bard College before dropping out to pursue acting. During the Korean War, he served in the U.S. Air Force, producing and directing shows for American troops. Following his military service, Hagman worked as a New York stage actor in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He also appeared on various TV series, including a two-year stint on the daytime soap opera “The Edge of Night.” Hagman made his movie debut in 1964’s “Ensign Pulver,” whose cast also included Jack Nicholson.

Hagman’s breakout role was on the hit sitcom “I Dream of Jeannie,” which aired from 1965 to 1970. He played astronaut Tony Nelson, who becomes “master” to a genie (played by Barbara Eden) whom he releases from a bottle he finds on a desert island. Following “I Dream of Jeannie,” Hagman appeared in several short-lived TV shows before the 1978 debut of “Dallas,” the prime-time soap opera about a wealthy, feuding Texas family, the Ewings. J.R. Ewing was originally intended to be a supporting character, but as portrayed by Hagman, the gleefully conniving, cowboy-hatted oil tycoon became the star of the show and someone audiences loved to hate.

In the cliffhanger finale of the show’s second full season, broadcast on March 21, 1980, J.R. was gunned down by an unknown assailant, and the question of who shot him soon became a pop culture phenomenon.  Hagman landed on multiple magazine covers, there were “I Shot J.R.” T-shirts and bookmakers even took bets on the identity of the person who pulled the trigger. The answer, finally revealed eight months later in an episode that aired November 21, 1980, turned out to be J.R.’s scorned ex-mistress, Kristin Shepard (played by Mary Crosby). The episode was seen by an estimated 350 million viewers around the globe, and remains the second-highest-rated television program in U.S. history, after the final episode of “M*A*S*H” in 1983. J.R. survived the shooting, and Hagman went on to appear in all 357 episodes of the original “Dallas.”

After “Dallas” ended in 1991, Hagman had roles in movies including “Nixon” (1995) and “Primary Colors” (1998) and made appearances on “Nip/Tuck,” “Desperate Housewives” and other television shows. In October 2011 the actor, who developed cirrhosis after years of heavy drinking and had a liver transplant in 1995, announced he had cancer but still would reprise his role as J.R. Ewing on the revival of “Dallas.” The rebooted “Dallas” premiered in June 2012, and Hagman died on November 23 of that same year. His death later was worked into the show, and in an episode that aired on March 4, 2013, the iconic J.R. was shot and killed by a then-unknown assailant.

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is an annual parade presented by the U.S.-based department store chain Macy's. 

The tradition started in 1924, tying it for the second-oldest Thanksgiving parade in the United States with America's Thanksgiving Parade in Detroit (with both parades being four years younger than the 6abc Dunkin' Donuts Thanksgiving Day Parade in Philadelphia). The three-hour Macy's event is held in New York City starting at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on Thanksgiving Day, and has been televised nationally on NBC since 1952.

The parade was suspended from 1942 to 1944 as a result of World War II, owing to the need for rubber and helium in the war effort. The parade resumed in 1945 using the route that it followed until 2008. The parade became known nationwide after being prominently featured in the 1947 film, Miracle on 34th Street, which included footage of the 1946 festivities. The event was first broadcast on network television in 1948 (see below). By this point the event, and Macy's sponsorship of it, were sufficiently well-known to give rise to the colloquialism "Macy's Day Parade". Since 1984, the balloons have been made by Raven Aerostar (a division of Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based Raven Industries).

November 25, 1947

John Bernard Larroquette III is born. 

His roles include Dan Fielding on the 1984–1992 sitcom Night Court (winning a then-unprecedented four consecutive Emmy Awards for his role), Mike McBride in the Hallmark Channel series McBride, John Hemingway on The John Larroquette Show, Lionel Tribbey on The West Wing and Carl Sack in Boston Legal.

November 26, 1922

Cartoonist Charles M. Schulz is born in St. Paul, Minnesota. 

The son of a barber, Schulz showed an early interest in art and took a correspondence course in cartooning. After serving in the army in World War II, Schulz returned to St. Paul and took a job lettering comics for a small magazine. In 1947, Schulz began drawing a comic strip for the St. Paul Pioneer Press called "L'il Folks," featuring Charlie Brown and his gang of friends. In 1950, after several rejections, Schulz sold syndication rights to United Features, which renamed the strip "Peanuts." Schulz drew the comic himself, without assistants, until his retirement in 1999. Peanuts ran in some 2,600 papers, in 75 countries and 21 languages, earning Schulz some $30 million a year. Schulz died in 2000.

The Hollywood Christmas Parade (formerly the Hollywood Santa Parade or Santa Claus Lane Parade) is an annual parade that takes place on the Sunday after Thanksgiving in the Hollywood community in Los Angeles, California, United States. 

The parade follows a 3.5-mile route along Hollywood Boulevard, then back along Sunset Boulevard and features various celebrities among its participants.

The Parade was suspended from 1942 to 1944 due to World War II, but reopened in 1945 with record attendance. 

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Robert Clary

We were not even human beings. When we got to Buchenwald, the SS shoved us into a shower room to spend the night. I had heard the rumors about the dummy shower heads that were gas jets. I thought, 'This is it.' But no, it was just a place to sleep. The first eight days there, the Germans kept us without a crumb to eat. We were hanging on to life by pure guts, sleeping on top of each other, every morning waking up to find a new corpse next to you. The whole experience was a complete nightmare — the way they treated us, what we had to do to survive. We were less than animals. Sometimes I dream about those days. I wake up in a sweat terrified for fear I'm about to be sent away to a concentration camp, but I don't hold a grudge because that's a great waste of time. Yes, there's something dark in the human soul. For the most part, human beings are not very nice. That's why when you find those who are, you cherish them.

-Robert Clary

Robert Clary (born Robert Max Widerman)

March 1, 1926 – November 16, 2022

Robert Clary died at his Los Angeles home on November 16, 2022, at the age of 96.

Born in 1926 in Paris, France, Clary was the youngest of 14 children, 10 of whom would die in the Holocaust. At the age of twelve, he began a career singing professionally on a French radio station and also studied art in Paris. In 1942, because he was Jewish, he was deported to the Nazi concentration camp at Ottmuth, in Upper Silesia (now Otmęt, Poland). He was tattooed with the identification "A5714" on his left forearm. He was later sent to Buchenwald concentration camp.

At Buchenwald, Clary sang to an audience of SS soldiers every other Sunday, accompanied by an accordionist. He said, "Singing, entertaining, and being in kind of good health at my age, that's why I survived. I was very immature and young and not really fully realizing what situation I was involved with ... I don't know if I would have survived if I really knew that."

Clary was liberated from Buchenwald on April 11, 1945. Twelve other members of his immediate family were sent to Auschwitz concentration camp; Clary was the only survivor. When he returned to Paris after World War II, he learned that three of his 13 siblings had not been taken away and had survived the Nazi occupation of France.

Clary returned to the entertainment business and began singing songs that not only became popular in France, but in the United States as well. Clary made his first recordings in 1948; they were brought to the United States on wire and were issued on disk by Capitol Records. He went to the U.S. in October 1949. One of Clary's first American appearances was a French-language comedy skit on The Ed Wynn Show in 1950. Clary later met Merv Griffin and Eddie Cantor. This eventually led to Clary meeting Cantor's daughter, Natalie Cantor Metzger, whom he married in 1965, after being "the closest of friends" for 15 years. Cantor later got Clary a spot on The Colgate Comedy Hour. In the mid-1950s, Clary appeared on NBC's early sitcom The Martha Raye Show and on CBS's drama anthology series Appointment with Adventure.

Clary's comedic skills were quickly recognized by Broadway, where he appeared in several popular musicals, including New Faces of 1952, which was produced as a film in 1954.

In 1952, he appeared in the film Thief of Damascus which also starred Paul Henreid and Lon Chaney Jr. In 1958, he guest-starred on The Gisele MacKenzie Show (NBC). He guest-starred on The Munsters Today (1989) as Louis Schecter, Lily's acting coach, in the episode "Green Eyed Munsters".

In 1959, he was cast in the title role of Henri Toulouse-Lautrec in a British production of an Edward Chodorov play, Monsieur Lautrec. The play ran for two weeks at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry. Although The Stage panned the play, it praised Clary for portraying Lautrec "with a delicacy and yet moving intenseness."

In 1965, the diminutive 155 cm (5 ft 1 in) Clary was offered the role of Corporal Louis LeBeau on a new television sitcom called Hogan's Heroes, and he accepted the role when the pilot sold. The series was set in a German prisoner of war (POW) camp during World War II, and Clary played a French POW who was a member of an Allied sabotage unit operating from inside the camp.

Asked about parallels between LeBeau's incarceration and his own, Clary said, "Stalag 13 is not a concentration camp. It's a POW camp, and that's a world of difference. You never heard of a prisoner of war being gassed or hanged. When the show went on the air, people asked me if I had any qualms about doing a comedy series dealing with Nazis and concentration camps. I had to explain that it was about prisoners of war in a Stalag, not a concentration camp, and although I did not want to diminish what soldiers went through during their internments, it was like night and day from what people endured in concentration camps."

Clary became one of the last two surviving principal cast members of Hogan's Heroes, with Kenneth Washington (Sergeant Richard Baker, final season), when Cynthia Lynn (Helga, first season, 1965–1966) died on March 10, 2014. He was the last surviving original principal cast member.

After Hogan's Heroes was cancelled in 1971, Clary maintained close ties to fellow Hogan's Heroes cast members Werner Klemperer, John Banner, and Leon Askin, whose lives were also affected by the Holocaust. Following the show's cancellation, he appeared in a handful of feature films with World War II themes, including the made-for-television film Remembrance of Love, about the Holocaust. Clary also appeared on the soap operas Days of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless, and The Bold and the Beautiful.

Clary appeared in the 1975 film The Hindenburg, which portrayed a fictional plot to blow up the German airship after it arrived at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station. He played Joseph Späh, a real-life passenger on the airship's final voyage.

Clary spent years touring Canada and the United States, speaking about the Holocaust. He was a painter, painting from photographs he took on his travels.

Clary published a memoir, From the Holocaust to Hogan's Heroes: The Autobiography of Robert Clary, in 2001.

Au revoir Monsieur Clary

Restez à l'écoute
Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: The Mary Tyler Moore Show - Not a Christmas Story

 

Here is your

"HOLIDAY SOR-BAY"

a little spark of madness 

that we could use to momentarily forget about those

things that leave a bad taste in our mouths.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show S05E09 Not a Christmas Story Everyone is getting on each others nerves when they are trapped in the newsroom by a snowstorm.

                                                                                                    Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

John Aniston

This is a business. Be smart. Choose wisely.

-John Aniston

John Anthony Aniston (born Yannis Anastassakis) 

July 24, 1933 – November 11, 2022

John Aniston died on November 11, 2022, at the age of 89.

Aniston was born on the island of Crete, Greece, on July 24, 1933, to Stella Joanne (née Koume; 1899–1992) and Antonios Anastassakis (1889–1965). The family left Crete for the United States when Aniston was two years old; his father anglicized the family’s names on arriving in America. The family settled in Chester, Pennsylvania, where they operated a restaurant.

Aniston graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a bachelor's degree in Theater Arts. While at Pennsylvania State University, he became a member of Alpha Chi Rho fraternity. After college, he served in the United States Navy as an intelligence officer on active duty in Panama and later in the reserve, attaining the rank of lieutenant commander.

Aniston began his acting career in 1962 in 87th Precinct as "Officer #1" in the episode "New Man in the Precinct". He has appeared in soap operas regularly since 1970, when he first joined Days of Our Lives as a character named Eric Richards. In 1975, he joined the cast of Love of Life as Eddie Aleata, appearing in one episode. He played Mary Stuart's new love interest, Martin Tourneur, on Search for Tomorrow from 1980 until April 1984. He returned to the cast of Days of Our Lives a second time, this time as Victor Kiriakis, in July 1985, and continues to play the role as of 2021. He was nominated for the 2017 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his performance.

In April 2022, it was announced that Aniston would receive a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award at the 49th Annual Daytime Creative Arts & Lifestyle Emmy Awards on June 18.

Aniston also played small roles on the television series Airwolf in season two's episode "Short Walk to Freedom", Gilmore Girls as Douglas Swope in the 2002 episode "A Deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving", The West Wing as Alexander Thompson in the episodes Game On and Debate Camp (both in 2002), as the First IMF Captain in the 1969 Mission Impossible episode Time Bomb. Aniston has also made guest appearances on Combat! (1964), My Big Fat Greek Life (2002), Star Trek: Voyager (2001), American Dreams (with Days co-star Frances Reid), Journeyman, and Mad Men.

Aniston had a daughter, Jennifer Aniston (born 1969), with his first wife, Nancy Dow, and a son, Alexander, with his second wife, Sherry Rooney (whom he met while co-starring on Love of Life). His daughter Jennifer's godfather was Telly Savalas, one of his best friends.

John also had a stepson, John T. Melick, from Nancy's prior marriage, whom he raised since he was a toddler.

Aniston was an avid Shakespeare fan and was the owner of numerous first-edition copies of Romeo and Juliet.

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Good Night Mr. Aniston

This Week in Television History: November 2022 PART III

 

November 18, 1942

Linda Evans is born. 

Known primarily for her roles on television. In the 1960s, she first gained fame after playing Audra Barkley in the Western television series, The Big Valley (1965–1969). However she is most prominently known for the role of Krystle Carrington in the 1980s ABC prime time soap opera Dynasty, a role she played from 1981 to 1989.

November 20, 1942

Stewart Robert "Bob" Einstein is born. 

Actor and comedy writer who portrayed the fictional stuntman Super Dave Osborne.

Einstein got his start as a writer on several TV variety shows, including The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. Einstein is also known for his roles as Marty Funkhouser in Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Larry Middleman on Arrested Development.

He won two Emmy Awards as a writer and was nominated four other times. He also won a CableACE Award for acting as Super Dave, along with five other nominations. His parents were the comic Harry Einstein, best known for playing the character Parkyakarkus on radio and in the movies, and the actress-singer Thelma Leeds. His younger brother is comedian and writer Albert Brooks (born Albert Lawrence Einstein), and his older brother, Cliff Einstein, is a retired advertising executive in Los Angeles.

 

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Tony Figueroa

Your Mental Sorbet: Gallagher - Sledge-O-Matic (The Maddest)

I found out why God made babies cute.

It's so you don't kill them.

-Gallagher

Leo Anthony Gallagher Jr.

July 24, 1946 – November 11, 2022

Here is another

"Mental Sorbet"

A little spark of madness

that we could use to momentarily forget about those

things that leave a bad taste in our mouths

 

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: November 2022 PART II

November 7, 1957

Christopher Anton Knight is born. 

Best known for playing Peter Brady on the 1970s series, The Brady Bunch. He has since gone on to become a successful businessman and enjoyed a semi-resurgence in the public eye with television appearances in the 2000s. His father, Edward Knight, was also an actor.

November 8, 1972

Home Box Office, aka HBO, made its debut. 

The first film to run on pay cable service was Sometimes a Great Notion, an Oscar-nominated adaptation of the second novel by One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest author Ken Kesey starring Paul Newman and Henry Fonda.

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: Jimmy Fallon with Dolly Parton - Almost Too Early For Christmas (Official Lyric Video)

Here is a

"HOLIDAY SOR-BAY"

a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

The official "Almost Too Early For Christmas" audio by Jimmy Fallon and Dolly Parton. Listen & download here: https://jimmyfallon.lnk.to/tooearly

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa