This week in Television History: April 2010 Part I

Listen to me on TV CONFIDENTIAL with Ed Robertson and Frankie Montiforte Broadcast LIVE every other Monday at 9pm ET, 6pm PT (immediately following STU'S SHOW) on Shokus Internet Radio. The program will then be repeated Tuesday thru Sunday at the same time (9pm ET, 6pm PT)on Shokus Radio for the next two weeks, and then will be posted on line at our archives page at TVConfidential.net. We are also on Share-a-Vision Radio (KSAV.org) Friday at 7pm PT and ET, either before or after the DUSTY RECORDS show, depending on where you live.

As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history, the more that fact and legend become intertwined. It's hard to say where the truth really lies.

April 5, 1949
Fireside Theatre starts.

Fireside Theatre, one of TV's first dramatic series to be filmed rather than broadcast live, debuts. The show ran until 1958 and was revived for one year in 1963. For the first year, each film was only 15 minutes long, but later the time slot expanded to 30 minutes. Jane Wyman, who was married to Ronald Reagan between 1940 and 1948, served as host from 1955 to 1958 and during the 1963 revival.

April 7, 1927
The first simultaneous telecast of image and sound takes place.

Then Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover read a speech in Washington, D.C., that was transmitted to the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York City. The New York audience saw and heard a tiny televised image of Hoover that was less than 3 square inches.

April 8, 1990
Twin Peaks debuts.

Director David Lynch's surreal series, Twin Peaks, premieres on ABC. The show, with its bizarre characters and baffling story line, became an instant cult hit. Kyle MacLachlan starred as Dale Cooper, an FBI agent assigned to visit a small town in the Pacific Northwest to try to unravel the mystery of the murder of resident Laura Palmer. The series ran until June 1991.

To quote the Bicentennial Minute, "And that's the way it was".

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa