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"
Drew Carey debuts as new host of The Price is Right.
Comedian and actor Drew Carey takes over hosting
duties on The Price is Right, the longest-running daytime game show in
television history. Carey replaced Bob Barker, who retired at the age of 83
after hosting the show for 35 years.
Barker, who was born on December 12, 1923, began his career in radio. In
1956, he made his national TV debut as the host of the game show Truth or
Consequences. He began hosting ThePrice is Right on
September 4, 1972. The show’s format centered around contestants bidding on the
retail value of one product; the contestant who came closest to the price
without going over was able to advance and compete for bigger prizes. A
previous version of the show, hosted by Bill Cullen, had aired from 1956 to
1965. In the late 1970s, Barker became a vegetarian and an animal-rights
activist. He started ending each show by telling audiences: “Help control the
pet population; have your pet spayed or neutered.” He also convinced the show’s
producers not to offer fur coats as prizes or any other products harmful to
animals. Barker’s final original episode as host of The Price is Right
aired on June 15, 2007.
After a highly publicized search for Barker’s replacement, Drew Carey was
selected for the job. Carey, who was born on May 23, 1958, grew up in
Cleveland, Ohio, and served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve (his trademark
crew cut hairstyle dates back to this period) before beginning a career as a
stand-up comic. From 1995 to 2004, he starred in his own television sitcom, The
Drew Carey Show, on ABC. From 1998 to 2006, Carey hosted the American
version of the improvisational comedy program Whose Line Is It Anyway?
His first stint as a game show host came in 2007 with The Power of 10.
On July 23, 2007, Carey announced on The Late Show with David Letterman
that he’d agreed to host The Price is Right. He taped his first episode
the following month, and it aired on October 15, 2007.
Actors Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd grace the stage for a historic reunion at New York Comic Con 2022 to discuss the past, present and future of their friendship, filming career and the Back to the Future franchise. #beyondthemarquee#nycc#backtothefuture
The District of Columbia's third television station began broadcasting on
October 3, 1947 as WTVW, owned by the Washington
Star, along with WMAL radio (630 AM and
107.3 FM, now WRQX).
It was the first Band III VHF television station (channels 7-13) in
the United States. A few months later, the station changed its call letters
to WMAL-TV after its radio sisters. WMAL radio had been an
affiliate of the NBC Blue Network since 1933, and remained
with the network after it was spun off by NBC and evolved into ABC. However,
channel 7 started as a CBS station since ABC had not yet established its television
network. When ABC launched on television in 1948, WMAL-TV became ABC's third
primary affiliate; the station continued to carry some CBS programming until
WOIC (channel 9, now WUSA) signed on in 1949. During the late 1950s, the
station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA
Film Network.[2] (Note:
The WTVW call
letters were later picked up by what is now WISN-TV, the ABC
affiliate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
when it signed on in 1954. Now the callsign is residing in Evansville, Indiana on
a CW-affiliated
station that is also on channel 7.)
October 3, 1957
The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom premiered on ABC-TV.
The
Pat Boone Chevy Showroom is a
half-hour variety show that aired on ABC-TV from October 3, 1957 to June 23, 1960, starring
the young singerPat Boone and
a host of top-name guest stars sponsored by Chevrolet.
Boone, a descendant of Kentucky frontiersman Daniel Boone, was,
at 23, still attending Columbia University in New York City when
the program began production. Upon his graduation from Columbia in 1958, TV Guidemagazine
pictured him in his cap and gown on its cover. Boone, the No. 10 all-time
vocalist in sales, was at the time the youngest person to host his own network
variety programuntil ABC's The
Donny & Marie Show, with two hosts, broke the record in 1976.
October 3, 1977
CBS-TV broadcasted Elvis
In Concert.
It was a special that
was filmed during his last tour.
Elvis In Concert is a posthumous 1977 TV special starring Elvis Presley.
It was Elvis' third and final TV special, following Elvis (a.k.a. The '68 Comeback
Special) and Aloha From Hawaii. It was filmed during Presley's final tour in the cities of Omaha, Nebraska,
on June 19, 1977, and Rapid City,
South Dakota, on June 21, 1977. It
was broadcast on CBS on October 3, 1977, two months after Presley's death. It is one
of only few of Elvis' programs which remains unlikely to ever be commercially
released on home video and is only available in bootleg form.However, parts of the special were used in the video documentary Elvis:
The Great Performances and the theatrical documentary This is Elvis,
both of which were released on home video.
Sinead
O'Connor tore a picture of the pope during her appearance on Saturday Night Live.
On 3 October 1992, O'Connor appeared on Saturday Night Live as
a musical guest. She sang an a cappella version
of Bob Marley’s "War", intended as a protest against sexual abuse in the Catholic
Church—O'Connor referred to child abuse rather than
racism. She then presented a photo of Pope John
Paul II to the camera while singing the word "evil", after
which she tore the photo into pieces, said "Fight the real enemy",
and threw the pieces towards the camera.
Saturday Night Live had no
foreknowledge of O'Connor's plan; during the dress rehearsal, she held up a
photo of a refugee child. NBC Vice-President
of Late Night Rick Ludwin recalled
that when he saw O'Connor's action, he "literally jumped out of [his]
chair." SNL writer Paula Pell recalled personnel in
the control booth discussing the cameras
cutting away from the singer.The audience was completely silent, with no booing
or applause; executive producer Lorne
Michaels recalled that "the air went out the
studio". Michaels ordered that the applause sign not be
used.
A nationwide audience saw O'Connor’s live performance,
which the New York Daily News's cover
called a "Holy Terror". NBC received more than 500 calls on
Sunday and 400 more on Monday, with all but seven criticising
O'Connor; the network received 4,400 calls in total. Contrary to
rumour, NBC was not fined by the Federal Communications Commission for
O'Connor’s act; the FCC has no regulatory power over such behaviour. NBC
did not edit the performance out of the West coast tape-delayed broadcast that
night, but reruns of the episode use footage from the dress rehearsal.
As part of SNL's apology to the audience,
during his opening monologue the following week, host Joe Pesci held up
the photo, explaining that he had taped it back together—to huge applause.
Pesci also said that if it had been his show, "I would have gave her such
a smack."
In a 2002 interview with Salon, when asked
if she would change anything about the SNL appearance,
O'Connor replied, "Hell, no!"On 24 April 2010, MSNBC
aired the live version during an interview with O'Connor on The Rachel Maddow Show.
October 4, 1957
Leave It to Beaver debuts. The typical 1950s "wholesome family" comedy
presented the life of the Cleaver family from the perspective of seven-year-old
Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver. The Cleaver clan included parents June and
Ward, and older brother Wally. The show, which ran until 1963, enjoyed much
popularity in reruns as well as a revival in the 1980s as The New Leave It
to Beaver.
October 5, 1947
U.S. President Harry S.
Truman held the first televised presidential address from the White House. The
subject was the current international food crisis.
On
this day in 1947, President Harry Truman (1884-1972) makes the first-ever
televised presidential address from the White House, asking Americans to cut
back on their use of grain in order to help starving Europeans. At the time of
Truman’s food-conservation speech, Europe was still recovering from World War
II and suffering from famine. Truman, the 33rd commander in chief, worried that
if the U.S. didn’t provide food aid, his administration’s Marshall Plan for
European economic recovery would fall apart. He asked farmers and distillers to
reduce grain use and requested that the public voluntarily forgo meat on
Tuesdays, eggs and poultry on Thursdays and save a slice of bread each day. The
food program was short-lived, as ultimately the Marshall Plan succeeded in
helping to spur economic revitalization and growth in Europe. In
1947,television was still in its infancy and the number of TV sets in U.S.
homes only numbered in the thousands (by the early 1950s, millions of Americans
owned TVs); most people listened to the radio for news and entertainment.
However, although the majority of Americans missed Truman’s TV debut, his
speech signaled the start of a powerful and complex relationship between the
White House and a medium that would have an enormous impact on the American
presidency, from how candidates campaigned for the office to how presidents
communicated with their constituents. Each of Truman’s subsequent White House
speeches, including his 1949 inauguration address, was televised. In 1948,
Truman was the first presidential candidate to broadcast a paid political ad.
Truman pioneered the White House telecast, but it was President Franklin Roosevelt
who was the first president to appear on TV–from the World’s Fair in New York
City on April 30, 1939. FDR’s speech had an extremely limited TV audience,
though, airing only on receivers at the fairgrounds and at Radio City in
Manhattan.
October 5, 1957
Bernard Jeffrey McCullough better
known by his stage name Bernie Mac, was born on the South Side of Chicago.
Mac suffered from sarcoidosis, an
inflammatory lung disease that produces tiny lumps of cells in the solid
organs, but had said the condition was in remission in 2005. Despite having the
disease, his death on August 9, 2008 was caused by complications from pneumonia.
October 6, 1992
Ross
Perot appeared in his first paid broadcast on CBS-TV after entering the U.S.
presidential race.
October 9, 1967
Doc Severinsen replaced Skitch Henderson as
musical director of "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson."
Self-made billionaire Wilton Knight rescues police Detective
Lieutenant Michael Arthur Long after a near fatal shot to the face, giving him
a new identity (by plastic surgery) and a new name: Michael
Knight. Wilton selects Michael to be the primary field
agent in the pilot program of his public justice organization, the Foundation
for Law and Government (FLAG). The other half of this pilot program is the
Knight Industries Two Thousand (KITT), a heavily modified, technologically
advanced Pontiac
Firebird Trans Am with numerous features including an
extremely durable shell and frame, controlled by a computer with artificial
intelligence. Michael and KITT are brought in during situations where
"direct action might provide the only feasible solution".
Heading FLAG is Devon Miles, who provides Michael
with directives and guidance. Dr. Bonnie Barstow is the chief engineer in
charge of KITT's care, as well as technical assistant to Devon (April Curtis
fills this role in Season 2).
September 26th, 1987
Jake and the Fatman first aired.
The television crime drama starring William
Conrad as prosecutor J. L. (Jason Lochinvar) “Fatman” McCabe and Joe Penny as
investigator Jake Styles. The series ran on CBS for five seasons from 1987 to
1992. Diagnosis: Murder was a spin-off of
this series. Conrad guest starred as an aging prosecutor in a two-part episode
of Matlock during its first season
on NBC. Executive
producers Fred Silverman and Dean
Hargrove decided to use this character as a model for one of the main
characters in a new show they were creating for CBS. Penny also guest starred
in these episodes, but his character was not on the same side as Conrad’s
character in the storyline’s legal case.
Following the departure of Hargrove, executive
producers David Moessinger and Jeri Taylor were
brought on to run the series with Silverman. They also hired J. Michael Straczynski as story editor
and, later, co-producer. Taylor and Moessinger ran the show for two years
before finally leaving in a dispute over control over the show.
September 28, 1987
The first episode
of Star Trek: The Next Generation
aired.
The series involves a starship named Enterprise and is set
in the nearby regions of the Milky Way
galaxy, the Alpha Quadrant. The first episode takes place in the
year 2364, 100 years after the start of the five-year mission described in the
original series, which began in 2264. It features a new cast and a
new starship Enterprise, the fifth to bear the namewithin the franchise's
storyline. An introductory statement, performed by Patrick
Stewartand featured at the beginning of each episode's title sequence,
stated the starship's purpose in language similar to the opening statement
of the original series, but was updated
to reflect an ongoing mission, and to be gender-neutral:
Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise.
Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and
new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.
TNG premiered the week of September 28, 1987, drawing
27 million viewers, with the two-hour pilot "Encounter at Farpoint". In total, 176
episodes were made, ending with the two-hour finale "All Good Things..."
the week of May 23, 1994.
The series (1987–94) was broadcast in first-run syndication with dates and
times varying among individual television stations. Three additional Star
Trek spin-offs followed The Next Generation: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–99), Star Trek: Voyager (1995–2001), and Star Trek: Enterprise (2001–2005). The
series formed the basis for the seventh through to the tenth of the Star Trek films, and is also the
setting of numerous novels, comic books, and video games.
The title of the show was designed
as thirtysomething (with a lowercase "t") by Kathie Broyles, who
combined the words of the original title, Thirty Something. It premiered in the
United States on September 29, 1987, and lasted four seasons until it was
cancelled in May 1991 because the ratings had dropped and the executive
producers Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz moved on to other projects.The
series earned 13 out of its' total 41 nominated Primetime Emmy Awards, and
received 2 Golden Globe Awards.
Although seen as an ensemble drama,
the series revolves around husband and wife Michael Steadman (Ken Olin) and Hope Murdoch (Mel Harris) and their baby Janie. Michael's cousin is
photographer Melissa Steadman (Melanie
Mayron) who used to date his
college friend Gary Shepherd (Peter
Horton). Gary eventually marries
Susannah (Patricia Kalember). Michael's business partner is Elliot Weston (Timothy
Busfield), who has a troubled
marriage with his wife Nancy (Patricia
Wettig), a painter. Hope's
childhood friend is local politician Ellyn Warren (Polly
Draper).
Thirtysomething was influenced by the 1980 film Return of the Secaucus 7 and the 1983 film The Big Chill. The show reflected the angst felt by baby
boomers and yuppies in the United States during the
1980s, such as the changing expectations related to masculinity and femininity introduced during the era of second-wave feminism.[19] It also introduced "a new kind of
hour-long drama, a series that focused on the domestic and professional lives
of a group of young urban professionals, a socio-economic category of
increasing interest to the television industry [...] its stylistic and
story-line innovations led critics to respect it for being 'as close to the
level of an art form as weekly television ever gets,' as the New York
Times put it." During its four-year run, Thirtysomething "attracted
a cult audience of viewers who strongly identified with one or more of its
eight central characters, a circle of friends living in
Philadelphia." Even after its cancellation in 1991, it continued to
influence television programming, "in everything from the look and sound
of certain TV advertisements, to other series with feminine sensibilities and
preoccupations with the transition from childhood to maturity (Sisters),
to situation comedies about groups of friends who talk all the time (Seinfeld)." The show also influenced the
British television series Cold Feet, which featured similar storylines and
character types. The creator of Cold Feet wanted his show to
be in the mould of successful American TV series like Thirtysomething and Frasier.
Susan
Faludi, in her 1991
bestseller Backlash, argues that Thirtysomething often
reinforced, rather than dismantled, gender stereotypes. She suggests that it
exhibited a disdainful attitude toward single, working, and feminist women
(Melissa, Ellyn, and Susannah) while at the same time "exalting
homemakers" (Hope and Nancy). In this manner, the series was seen as
"seemingly progressive but substantially conservative in its construction
of reality."
Oxford English Dictionary
Almost immediately after the
introduction of the show, the term "Thirtysomething" became a catchphrase used to designate baby
boomers in their thirties.
This cultural shift was reinforced by the Oxford English Dictionary, which added Thirtysomething in
1993 (under the word thirty) and defined the term as follows:
Draft additions 1993 - n.
[popularized as a catch-phrase by the U.S. television programme
thirtysomething, first broadcast in 1987] colloq. (orig. U.S.) an undetermined
age between thirty and forty; spec. applied to members of the ‘baby boom’
generation entering their thirties in the mid-1980s; also attrib. or as adj.
phr. (hence, characteristic of the tastes and lifestyle of this group).
2.Supporting
Actress in a Drama Series — Polly
Draper
3.Editing
for a Series — Single Camera Production (Victor Du Bois and Richard Freeman for
episode "Therapy")
4.Main
Title Theme Music
5.Costuming
for a Series (Marilyn Matthews and Patrick R. Norris for episode
"Pilot") and Marjorie K. Chan, Patrick R. Norris, Anne Hartley and
Julie Glick for episode "Whose Forest is This?")
3.Supporting
Actor in a Drama Series — David
Clennon
4.Writing
in a Drama Series (episode: "Second Look")
5.Guest
Actress in a Drama Series (Eileen
Brennan for "Sifting the
Ashes")
September 29, 1992
The 100th episode of
"Roseanne" aired on ABC.
September 29, 2002
The first pilot episode of
"American Chopper" aired. A second pilot was aired on
January
19, 2003.
September 30, 1982
The first episode of “Cheers” aired on NBC.
Cheers is an American sitcom television
series that ran for 11 seasons from 1982 to 1993. It was produced by
Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions in association with Paramount
Network Television for NBC and created
by the team of James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles. The show is set in a bar named Cheers (named after the popular toast) in Boston, Massachusetts, where a group of locals meet to drink, relax,
and socialize. The show’s theme song, written and performed by Gary Portnoy, and co-written with Judy Hart Angelo, lent
its famous refrain, “Where
Everybody Knows Your Name“,
as the show’stagline.
This Is Your
Life was an
American realitydocumentary series broadcast on NBC radio from 1948 to 1952, and on NBC
television from 1952 to 1961. It was originally hosted by its creator and
producer Ralph Edwards.
In the program, the host would surprise guests and then take them through a
retrospective of their lives in front of an audience, including appearances by
colleagues, friends, and family. Edwards revived the show in 1971–1972,
and Joseph Campanella hosted a version in 1983. Edwards returned for some specials in the
late 1980s, before his death in 2005.
October 1, 1962
Johnny Carson becomes the new host of The Tonight Show.
Ed McMahon
was Carson's announcer. The Tonight Show
orchestra was for several years still led by Skitch Henderson. After a brief
stint by Milton DeLugg, beginning in 1967 the "NBC Orchestra" was then
headed by trumpeter Doc Severinsen who played in the Tonight Show Band in the years that
'Skitch' Henderson conducted. For all but a few months of its first decade on
the air, Carson's Tonight Show was based in New York City. In May 1972
the show moved to Burbank, California into Studio One of NBC Studios
West Coast (although it was announced as coming from nearby Hollywood), for the remainder of his tenure. Carson is often
referred to as "The King of Late-Night" because of the great
influence he has had on so many well-known talk show hosts and comedians.
Carson started each show with a monologue and continued with sketches in which
he played recurring characters "Carnac the Magnificent". In 1965,
Carson insisted on delivering his monologue at 11:30 instead of 11:15, the
show's official starting time, because many stations ran news until 11:30 and
didn't join The Tonight Show until the half hour. In 1967, Carson walked
out over contract differences, returning several weeks later when the network
allegedly offered him a contract worth more than $1 million a year-an
exorbitant salary at that time. The show moved to Burbank in 1972. In March
1978, Carson received a contract reportedly worth $3 million. Frequent guest
hosts included Joan Rivers, who became "permanent guest host" from
1983 to 1986, and Jay Leno, who became permanent guest host in 1987. David
Letterman also served as guest host, appearing more than 50 times.
When
Carson announced he would retire in 1992, a highly publicized battle for the
job ensued between top contenders Jay Leno and David Letterman. When Letterman
lost, he accepted CBS's offer for his own show and launched Late Show with
David Letterman in 1993. Carson died at the age of 79, in 2005.
October 1, 1962
The Lucy Show aired for the first time.
The
Lucy Show is
an American sitcom that aired on CBS from 1962–68. It
was Lucille Ball's follow-up to I Love Lucy. A significant change in cast and premise for the
1965–66 season divides the program into two distinct eras; aside from Ball,
only Gale Gordon, who joined the program for
its second season, remained. For the first three seasons, Vivian Vance was the co-star.
The
earliest scripts were entitled The Lucille Ball Show, but when this
title was rejected by CBS, producers thought of calling the show This
Is Lucy or The New Adventures of Lucy, before deciding on
the title The Lucy Show. Ball won consecutive Emmy Awards as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series
for the series' final two seasons, 1966–67 and 1967–68.
October 1, 1982
NBC aired the first
episode of Remington Steele.
Remington
Steele is
an Americantelevision series co-created by Robert Butler and Michael Gleason.
The series, starring Stephanie Zimbalist and Pierce Brosnan, was produced by MTM Enterprises and first broadcast on the NBC network from 1982 to 1987. The series blended the
genres of romantic comedy, drama, and detective procedural. Remington
Steele is best known for launching the career of Pierce Brosnan.
Remington
Steele's premise
is that Laura Holt, a licensed private detective played by Stephanie Zimbalist, opened a
detective agency under her own name but found potential clients refused to hire
a woman, no matter how qualified. To solve the problem, Laura invents a
fictitious male superior she names Remington Steele. Through a series of events
in the first episode, "License to Steele," Pierce Brosnan's
character, a former thief and con man (whose real name even he proves
not to know, and is never revealed), assumes the identity of Remington Steele.
Behind the scenes, a power struggle ensues between Laura and Steele as to who
is really in charge, while the two carry on a casual romantic relationship.
