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"
I don't want to be a part of the perpetuation of this stereotype.
John Amos
John Allen Amos Jr. December 27, 1939 – August 21, 2024
Amos became well known in his first major TV role, playing Gordy Howard, the weatherman on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, from 1970 until 1973. Upon the death of Betty White, Amos and Joyce Bulifant (who played Marie Slaughter) became the last surviving semi-regular cast members of that show (not counting child actors). In 1971, he appeared with Anson Williams in a commercial for McDonald's, and performed in a small role as a radio engineer in the cult film, Vanishing Point, with Cleavon Little.
Amos is best known for his portrayal of James Evans Sr., the husband of Florida Evans, first appearing three times on the sitcom Maude before continuing the role in 61 episodes of Good Times from 1974 to 1976.
Although cast as a hard-working middle-aged father of three, Amos was 34 when the show began production in 1973, only eight years older than the actor who played his oldest son (Jimmie Walker) and 19 years younger than his screen wife (Esther Rolle). Much like Rolle, Amos wanted to portray a positive image of an African-American family, struggling against the odds in a poor neighborhood, but saw the premise slighted by lower comedy, and he expressed dissatisfaction.
During his tenure on Good Times, Amos openly clashed with the writers of the show, due to the scripts' lack of authenticity in portraying the African-American experience. He notably criticized what he felt was too much of an emphasis on Jimmie Walker's character J.J. and greater disregard for the other two Evans children, as well as the way J.J was portrayed as comical relief. This led to his dismissal by executive producer Norman Lear at the end of season 3 in 1976. In a 2017 interview, Amos said he had told the writers, who, according to Amos, did not understand African-Americans, "That just doesn't happen in the community. We don't think that way. We don't act that way. We don't let our children do that."
His character was killed off by the writers, leading to a famous scene which his screen wife screams, “Damn! Damn! Damn!”
In 1977, Amos starred in the ABC-TV Miniseries Roots, as the adult Kunta Kinte, based on the book by author Alex Haley.
Amos wrote and produced Halley's Comet, a critically acclaimed one-man play that he has performed around the world. Amos performed in August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean on Broadway and later at the McCarther Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey.
Following the
cancellation of The Brady Bunch in 1974, Williams continued to appear in guest roles
on television, and became involved in musical theater, touring with productions such as Grease, The Sound
of Music, and West
Side Story.
In 1988, Williams
appeared on Broadway in the musical Romance/Romance with Tony Award-nominee Alison Fraser. Williams took over the lead male role of
“Alfred/Sam” when Scott Bakula left the production. Years later,
Williams was able to capitalize on being typecast as Greg Brady. Amid a
procession of appearances in TV and movies that played up his famous teen role,
he ended up landing a role that was a departure from the Brady image. He was
tapped to play English con man Hannibal in 1984, who conspired with Holly
Sutton Scorpio (Emma Samms) on the top-rated General Hospital. Williams has appeared in variousBrady
Bunch TV movie reunions, including the 1988 Christmas movie, A
Very Brady Christmas, in
which his sole family problem is missing his wife, Nora. The issue with his
wife is solved when Nora shows up at the Brady house on Christmas, poinsettia in hand.
The pilot episode
of Murder, She Wrote aired on
CBS.
The
mystery series starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur
detective Jessica Fletcher. The series aired for twelve
seasons from 1984 to 1996 on the CBS network. It was followed by four TV films
and a spin-off series, The Law & Harry McGraw. It is
one of the most successful and longest-running television shows ever for CBS,
pulling in close to 23 million viewers in its prime, during its Sunday night
slot. It is also hugely successful across the world.
Angela Lansbury has been nominated for a total
of ten Golden Globes and
twelve Emmies. She holds the record for the
most Golden Globe nominations
for Best Actress in a television drama series and the most Emmy nominations ever for
outstanding lead actress in a drama series for Murder She wrote. It is now
considered to be a TV cult classic around the world.
“The place is
here, the time is now, and the journey into the shadows that we're about to
watch, could be our journey”.
This was the only Twilight Zone episode filmed at Universal
Studios, the rest of the entire series was filmed at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The
centerpiece of the episode is the Courthouse Square set, most well known for
being used as the town square of "Hill Valley" in the Back to
the Future series of films over 25 years later.
The haunting score composed by Bernard Herrmann (Psycho) for this
episode would be reused for several episodes of the series, most notably
"The After Hours" and "The Last Flight".
This 26-minute episode stars Robert Young as Tim
Warren, head of the Warren Family. With him was wife Grace (Ellen Drew),
older daughter Peggy (Sally Fraser), younger daughter Patty (Tina Thompson)
and son Jeff (Gordon Gerbert). Developed by
Young and his partner Eugene Rodney, it was intended as a pilot for a Father
Knows Best television series. In the episode, Peggy dreams of
making it as an actress but a talent scout who has raised her hopes just wants
people for his acting school.
Only Robert Young remained of the radio cast when the series moved to CBS
Television:
The series began on CBS on October 3, 1954. Originally sponsored by Lorillard's Kent cigarettes
in its first season, Scott Paper Company became the primary
sponsor when the series moved to NBC in the fall of 1955, remaining as sponsor even after it
moved back to CBS in September 1958, with Lever
Brothers as an alternate sponsor from 1957 through 1960. A total of
203 episodes were produced, running until September 17, 1960, and appearing on
all three of the television networks of the time, including
prime-time repeats from September 1960 through April 1963.
Underdog, Shoeshine Boy's heroic
alter-ego, appeared whenever love interest Sweet Polly Purebred was
being victimized by such villains as Simon Bar Sinister or Riff Raff. Underdog nearly always speaks in rhyme, as in,
"There's no need to fear, Underdog is here!" His voice was supplied
by Wally Cox.
The main setting of the show
was Wisteria Lane, a street in the fictional American town of
'Fairview' in the fictional 'Eagle State'. The show followed the lives of a
group of women as seen through the eyes of a dead neighbor who committed
suicide in the very first episode. The storyline covers thirteen years of the
women's lives over eight seasons, set between the years 2004–2008, and later
2013–2017 (the story arc included a 5 year passage of time). They worked
through domestic struggles and family life, while facing the secrets, crimes
and mysteries hidden behind the doors of their — at the surface — beautiful and
seemingly perfect suburban neighborhood.
The television series Life of Riley debuts,
starring Jackie Gleason as bullheaded family man Chester Riley.
The show originated on the radio in the early 1940s
and starred William Bendix. In 1953, Bendix took over the TV role from Gleason
and stayed with the show until its cancellation in 1958.
October 4, 1954
December Bride debuted on CBS-TV.
The
series centered
around the adventures of Lily Ruskin, a spry widow played by Spring Byington, who was not, in fact, a
"December" (rather old) bride but very much desired to become one if
the right man would come along. Aiding Lily in her search for this prospective
suitor were her daughter Ruth Henshaw (Frances Rafferty) and son-in-law Matt
Henshaw (Dean Miller), and her close friend Hilda Crocker (character-actress Verna Felton). A next-door neighbor,
insurance agent Pete Porter (Harry Morgan), was frequently seen.
Married miserably himself, according to his constant complaints about his
unseen wife Gladys, he also envied Matt's positive relationship with Lily, as
he despised his own mother-in-law. The pilot episode premiered
on October 4, 1954 and involved Lily Ruskin moving in with her daughter and
son-in-law. December Bride was unusual in that all five stars appeared in all
111 episodes of the sitcom. Most of the scenes filmed for the series took place
in the Henshaws' living room.
First-run
episodes of December Bride aired for 5 seasons (1954-1959),
sponsored by General
Foods' Instant Maxwell House Coffee. During the first four
seasons, the program was not shown in the summer, supplanted by "summer
replacement" series (such as Ethel and Albert) but in its final
year, repeat episodes were run in
its timeslot during the summer months. On March 26, 1959, as the program wound
down, Rory
Calhoun,
star of CBS's western series, The Texan, appeared as himself in the episode "Rory Calhoun, The Texan".
December Bride was sufficiently
popular that even after its production had ceased, CBS used repeat episodes to
fill slots in its primetime programming. In July 1960, December Bride repeats
were used to fill in for the second half of the Friday 9 pm Eastern timeslot
vacated by Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, running until the
beginning of the fall 1960 schedule, and again as a temporary
replacement on Thursday nights in April 1961. Additionally, repeats were shown
on CBS as a daytime program from October 1959 until March 1961. The Pete Porter
character became so popular that he and Gladys were spun off into their own
series, Pete and Gladys, shortly after the last
broadcast of first-run episodes of December Bride.
The
show often targets the idiosyncrasies of British life, especially that of professionals, and is at times politically charged.
The members of Monty Python were highly educated. Terry Jones and Michael Palin are Oxford University graduates; Eric Idle, John Cleese, and Graham Chapman attended Cambridge University; and American-born member Terry Gilliam is an Occidental Collegegraduate. Their comedy is often pointedly intellectual, with numerous erudite
references to philosophers and literary figures. The series followed and
elaborated upon the style used by Spike Milligan in his ground breaking
series Q5, rather
than the traditional sketch show format. The team intended their humour to be
impossible to categorise, and succeeded so completely that the adjective "Pythonesque" was invented to
define it and, later, similar material.
The
Pythons play the majority of the series characters themselves, including the
majority of the female characters, but occasionally they cast an extra actor.
Regular supporting cast members include Carol Cleveland (referred to by the
team as the unofficial "Seventh Python"), Connie Booth (Cleese's first wife),
series Producer Ian MacNaughton, Ian Davidson, Neil
Innes (in
the fourth series), and the Fred Tomlinson Singers (for musical numbers).
Jim Bakker was convicted of
using his television show to defraud his viewers.
After deliberating for a day
and a half, a jury in Charlotte, North Carolina, convicts Jim Bakker of using
his television show to defraud his viewers. Bakker's trial started on August 28
and was interrupted briefly while he was sent to a psychiatric hospital for
evaluation after suffering a breakdown.
The government has argued that Bakker solicited donations in exchange for
free vacation lodging at his Heritage USA theme park, lodging which he knew he
would never be able to provide.
Jim Bakker sold 153,000 of these partnerships between 1984 and 1987. In
exchange for $1,000, people were promised three free nights lodging every year
for life. Bakker claimed to have accommodations for 214,000 partners, but the
government provided evidence that only 258 rooms were actually available.
October 6, 1949
The Ed Wynn Show
became the first regularly scheduled network show to be broadcasted from the
West Coast of the United States.
In
the 1949-50 season, Ed Wynn hosted one of the first comedy-variety television shows,
on CBS, and won both a Peabody Award and an Emmy Award in
1949. Buster Keaton,Lucille
Ball, and The Three Stooges all made guest appearances
with Wynn. This was the first CBS variety television show to originate in Los
Angeles, with programs filmed via kinescope for
distribution in the Midwest and East. Wynn was also a rotating host of NBC's Four Star Revue from
1950 through 1952.
October 7, 1949
Anthology series Ford Theatre debuts.
The program featured a different one-hour dramatic
play each week in its early seasons, later shortened to a half-hour. Plays
ranged from comedy to serious drama and featured many stars of the era,
including Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy Davis. The show ran until 1957.
Donald Drake Hogestyn September 29, 1953 – September 28, 2024
Drake Hogestyn was drafted by two professional baseball organizations: the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Yankees. Hogestyn signed with the Yankees and played third base for one of their farm teams until he was injured in 1977. He began his acting career by entering aColumbia Picturestalent search that included 75,000 people.
Hogestyn was among the 30 selected, and his first starring role was on the prime time seriesSeven Brides for Seven Brothers.
After a few minor roles (one as Kort, leader of the Micro Workers in the episode 'Princess Metra' on the 80s television seriesOtherworld), Hogestyn joined the cast ofDays of our Livesin 1986. He initially played a mystery man referred to simply as "The Pawn." However, it was soon revealed The Pawn was the presumed deadRoman Brady. Hogestyn quickly became a fan favorite and enjoyed many pairings, the most popular of which was with longtime co-star Deidre Hall. In 1998, while starring onDays,Shelley Longenlisted Hogestyn to join her for the upcoming seriesKelly, Kelly. He was set to star in both until the filming of the pilot episode ofKelly, Kellyconflicted with his schedule onDays, and the role went toRobert Hays.
In 1991,Wayne Northropagreed to return toDaysto reprise his role of Roman. In order to keep both actors on the show, Drake's story wasretconned, and his past was rewritten. Despite this change, Hogestyn remained one of the show's most popular actors. The pairing ofJohn Black and Marlena Evans(Deidre Hall) is one of the show's enduringsupercouples.
It was canceled after
ratings dropped to a low due to the premiere of ABC's Batman, which was in color. Though ratings were low
during its initial two-year run, The Munsters found a large audience in
syndication. This popularity warranted a spin-off series, as well as several
films, including one with a theatrical release.
September 25, 1929
Barbara Jill Walters is born.
Walters was first known as a popular TV morning news
anchor for over 10 years on NBC's Today,
where she worked with Hugh Downs and
later Frank McGee
and Jim Hartz. Walters later spent 25 years as
co-host of ABC's newsmagazine 20/20. She was the first female co-anchor
of network evening news, working with Harry Reasoner on the ABC Evening News and was later a
correspondent for ABC World News Tonight
with Charles Gibson.
September 25, 1944
Michael Douglas
born.
On this day in 1944, Michael Douglas, who will become one of
Hollywood’s A-list stars in the 1980s with such blockbuster films as Wall
Street and Fatal Attraction, is born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Douglas is
the son of the Academy Award-winning actor Kirk Douglas, whose best-known films
include Spartacus and The Bad and the Beautiful. Michael Douglas shares a
birthday with his wife, the Welsh-born actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, who was
born 25 years earlier, in 1969.
Douglas made his feature film debut in 1969’s Hail Hero! and rose to fame
playing a police inspector on the television series The Streets of San
Francisco from 1972 to 1976. He scored his first major movie success behind the
cameras, as the producer of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), which
starred Jack Nicholson as an inmate at a mental institution. The film was the
first to triumph in all five major Academy Award categories, including Best
Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress (Louise Fletcher), Best Screenplay (Adapted)
and Best Director (Milos Forman). Among Douglas’ other movie credits in the
1970s was The China Syndrome, which he produced and co-starred in with Jane
Fonda and Jack Lemmon. In the 1980s, Douglas had a string of blockbusters,
including Romancing the Stone (1984), which co-starred Kathleen Turner and
Danny DeVito (Douglas’ college roommate at the University of California at
Santa Barbara) and its 1985 sequel Jewel of the Nile. In 1987, Douglas appeared
opposite Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, a thriller about a married man who
becomes involved with a woman who becomes obsessed with him and stalks his
family after he ends their affair. Also that year, Douglas starred in director
Oliver Stone’s Wall Street as the ruthless corporate raider Gordon Gekko, whose
motto is “Greed is good.” Douglas won a Best Actor Oscar for his performance.
In the 1990s, Douglas starred in such films as Basic Instinct (1992), with
Sharon Stone; Disclosure (1994), with Demi Moore; and The American President (1995), with Annette Bening. In 2000, he
earned acclaim for his performances in Steven Soderbergh’s drug-war drama
Traffic and Curtis Hanson’s Wonder Boys. That same year, on November 18,
Douglas married Zeta-Jones, his second wife and co-star (though they had no
scenes together) in Traffic, in a star-studded ceremony at New York City’s
Plaza Hotel. Zeta-Jones later won a Best Actress in a Supporting Role Oscar for
her performance in Chicago (2002). Her movie credits also include The Mask of
Zorro (1998), The Terminal (2004) and No Reservations (2007).
In August 2010, it was announced that Douglas was beginning treatment for an
advanced case of throat cancer. The actor confirmed the news on an episode of
“Late Show with David Letterman” on August 31.
The show was panned by critics and, according to the Museum of
Broadcast Communications, during “its entire network run, the series never
reached the top ten ranks of the Nielsen ratings. Yet, the program stands as
one of the most important sitcoms of American 1970s television programming,
spawning numerous other series on all three major networks, as well as records,
lunch boxes, a cookbook, and even a stage show and feature film.”
Created by Sherwood Schwartz (whose previous hit sitcom was Gilligan’s
Island), The Brady Bunch followed the story of Carol (Florence Henderson), a
widowed mother of three blonde daughters, who marries architect Mike Brady
(Robert Reed), a widower and the father of three brown-haired boys. The blended
family lives together in a suburban Los Angeles home with their cheerful
housekeeper, Alice (Ann B. Davis). The show focused primarily on issues related
to the Brady kids--Greg (Barry Williams), Marcia (Maureen McCormick), Peter
(Christopher Knight), Jan (Eve Plumb), Bobby (Mike Lookinland) and Cindy (Susan
Olsen)--who ranged from grade-school age to teenage. Although set in the late
1960s and early 1970s, a time of political and social upheaval in the United
States, The Brady Bunch generally avoided controversial topics and instead
presented a wholesome view of family life, tackled subjects such as sibling
rivalry (including Jan’s now-famous complaint about the focus on her sister:
“Marcia, Marcia, Marcia”), braces and dating.
After 177 episodes, ABC cancelled The Brady Bunch and the last original
episode aired on August 30, 1974. However, the show soon became a massive hit
in rerun syndication. The show’s various spin-offs have included a 1977 variety
program, The Brady Bunch Hour; a 1988 TV movie A Very Brady Christmas; the 1995
big-screen parody The Brady Bunch Movie (with Shelley Long and Gary Cole as
Carol and Mike) and its follow-up A Very Brady Sequel (1996); and the 2002 TV
movie The Brady Bunch in the White House. In 1992, Barry Williams published a
best-selling memoir titled Growing Up Brady: I Was a Teenage Greg, which
provided a behind-the-scenes look at the show and revealed that life behind the
Brady Bunch cameras was less wholesome than it seemed on TV.
September 27, 1954
Steve Allen becomes the first host of The Tonight Show.
The first Tonight! announcer was Gene Rayburn.
Allen's version of the show originated such talk show staples as an opening
monologue, celebrity interviews, audience participation, and comedy bits in
which cameras were taken outside the studio, as well as music, including guest
performers and a house band under Lyle "Skitch" Henderson.
When the show became a success, Allen got a prime-time Sunday comedy-variety
show in June 1956, leading him to share Tonight hosting duties with Ernie Kovacs
during the 1956–1957 season. To give Allen time to work on his Sunday
evening show, Kovacs hosted Tonight on Monday and Tuesday nights, with
his own announcer and bandleader.
During the later Steve Allen years, regular audience member Lillian Miller
became such an integral part that she was forced to join AFTRA, the television/radio performers union.
Allen and Kovacs departed Tonight in January 1957 after NBC ordered
Allen to concentrate all his efforts on his Sunday night variety program,
hoping to combat CBS's Ed
Sullivan Show's dominance of the Sunday night ratings.
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