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"
Show No. 105
Sept. 23, 2011 |
First hour: Film and TV animator Gene
Hamm (The Smurfs, SuperFriends,
The Dream Hat, Created
Equal) joins Ed to
discuss his work with the artists of Alchemia, a
Northern California program that provides classes and venues for mentally or
physically challenged adults. Also in this hour: Tony Figueroa, Donna Allen and
Wesley
Hyatt (Emmy Award Winning Nighttime Television
Shows, Television’s
Top 100) join Ed for a look at the highs and lows of this year's Emmy Awards
telecast.
Second hour: Ed welcomes Tony Award-winning actress Julie Newmar (Batman, Li’l Abner, Silk Stockings, The Marriage-Go-Round, My Living Doll). Julie's new book, The Conscious Catwoman Explains Life on Earth, is a delightful collection of her wit and wisdom that shows how real beauty, for all of us, lies in cultivating a happy, healthy inner life. Julie's upcoming appearances include Sunday, Oct. 2 at the West Hollywood Book Fair; Wednesday, Oct. 5 at Book Soup in Los Angeles; Saturday, Oct. 15 at the Santa Monica Library in Santa Monica; and Saturday, Nov. 12 at Vromans Bookstore in Pasadena. |
Known
to audiences worldwide as the original Catwoman on the Batman television series, as well as her
stage roles as Stupefyin' Jones in Li’l Abner, Vera
in Silk Stockings, Tony Award-winning performance as Katrin Sveg in
The Marriage-Go-Round, and her appearances on such classic shows as
The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Get Smart and Columbo,
Julie
Newmar is also an
accomplished dancer, entrepreneur, inventor and now, author. 
Julie
Newmar has several appearances lined up in October and November,
including:Listen to me on me on TV CONFIDENTIAL:
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Fridays 7pm ET and PT |
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Saturdays 11pm ET, 8pm PT Sundays 5pm ET, 2pm PT |
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Tuesdays 11:05pm ET, 8:05pm PT |
September 23, 1961
Weekly TV movie program Saturday Night at the Movies debuts on NBC, starting with the 1953 film How to Marry a Millionaire.
The program was the first major network initiative to broadcast recent movies on the air. Although movies from the 1930s and '40s had appeared on TV, the networks had resisted showing more recent films. Until the 1960s, a fierce rivalry existed between the television and movie industries, and neither wanted to promote the other. However, with the success of Saturday Night at the Movies, relatively recent films became a staple of TV programming.
September 24, 1936
Muppet creator Jim Henson is born in Greenville, Mississippi.
Henson joined a puppet club in high school and used his skills to land a job at a local TV station between high school and college. His homemade puppets delighted audiences, and during his freshman year at the University of Maryland the TV station gave him his own five minute show, called Sam and Friends. The show ran twice a day, just before popular news show the Huntley-Brinkley Report and again before the Tonight Show with Steve Allen. Henson's program ran for eight years and won a local Emmy in 1958.
In 1955, Henson took an old green coat of his mother's, attached two halves of a ping-pong ball for eyes, and created a lizard-like character named Kermit, who later evolved into Kermit the Frog. Other familiar characters took shape on Sam and Friends, as Henson's Muppets multiplied. In 1957, Henson made the first of more than 300 TV commercials for Wilkins Coffee. In 1963 Rowlf the Dog became a regular on variety program The Jimmy Dean Show, which ran until 1966.
Henson showed an interest in filmmaking in the mid 1960s, making a short film called Timepiece in 1965, which was nominated for an Oscar. A few years later, he met Joan Ganz Cooney, a TV producer heading up a study of children and television at a seminar for educators in Boston. Ganz was formulating an idea for a kids' TV program she called The Preschool Educational Television Show, and she quickly persuaded Henson and his Muppets to join her. The show, with its new, snappier title, Sesame Street, was launched in 1969, and generations of children fell in love with Big Bird, Kermit the Frog, Ernie and Bert, Oscar the Grouch, Grover, Cookie Monster, and many other Henson creations.
After seven years of children's television, Henson wanted to explore more sophisticated possibilities for his Muppets. He shopped around an idea for a variety show starring Kermit, but none of the networks were interested. Undeterred, Henson created The Muppet Show as a syndicated series, which became the world's most watched TV show, with 235 million viewers in more than 100 countries. The program ran from 1976 to 1981 and won three Emmys. Meanwhile, the Muppets launched a movie career in 1979 with The Muppet Movie, followed by The Great Muppet Caper (1981) and The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984).
Other, less familiar Henson creatures appeared in The Dark Crystal (1982) and Labyrinth (1986) with David Bowie, as well as in two cable TV series, Fraggle Rock and The Ghost of Faffner Hall. His Saturday morning cartoon, Jim Henson's Muppet Babies, was launched in 1984 and won four Emmys. Henson died of pneumonia in 1990.
To quote the Bicentennial Minute, "And that's the way it was".
Stay Tuned
Tony Figueroa
Normally the "Mental
Sorbet" is something that we could
use to momentarily forget about those things that leave a bad taste in our
mouths. This one is different because it is about a day we should never forget.
