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.
January 12, 1955
Rod Serling’s career began
with the TV production of Patterns.
Patterns was the first major
breakthrough of Rod Serling when the live television drama received critical acclaim
as the January 12, 1955 installment of the anthology
series Kraft Television Theatre.
Directed
by Fielder
Cook, the intense big-business drama starred Richard
Kiley as up-and-coming vice-president Fred Staples. Ruthless corporate
boss Walter Ramsey (Everett Sloane) attempts to edge out aging employee
Andy Sloane (Ed
Begley) to make room for newcomer Staples. Ramsey uses every opportunity to
humiliate the fragile Sloane, while Staples sees Sloane as a professional who
makes valuable contributions to the firm.[1]
Serling's
celebrated script tore apart the dynamics of the business world and earned
Serling his first of his six Emmys for
dramatic writing. There was a rave review from Jack Gould of The New York Times who suggested it be
repeated:
Nothing
in months has excited the television industry as much as the Kraft
Television Theatre's production of Patterns, an original play
by Rod Serling. The enthusiasm is justified. In writing, acting and direction, Patterns will
stand as one of the high points in the TV medium's evolution.Patterns is
a play with one point of view toward the fiercely competitive world of big
business and is bound to be compared with the current motion picture Executive
Suite. By comparison, Executive Suite might be Babes
in Toyland without a score. For sheer power of narrative, forcefulness
of characterization and brilliant climax, Mr. Serling's work is a creative
triumph that can stand on its own. In one of those inspired moments that make
the theater the wonder that it is, Patterns was an evening
that belonged to the many, not only to Mr. Serling. The performances of Everett
Sloane, Ed Begley and Richard Kiley were truly superb. The production and
direction of Fielder Cook constituted a fluid use of video's artistic tools
that underscore how little the TV artistic horizons really have been explored. Patterns was
seen from 9 to 10pm Wednesday over the National Broadcasting Company's network;
a repeat performance at
an early date should be mandatory.
Gould's request for a repeat
was an unusual suggestion, since in that pre-videotape era, live shows were not
repeated. Surprisingly, NBC took Gould's suggestion seriously and made plans
for another production.
January 12, 1965
The dance show
"Hullabaloo" premiered on NBC TV.
Directed
by Steve
Binder, who went on to direct Elvis Presley's '68 Comeback
Special, Hullabaloo served as a big-budget, quality
showcase for the leading pop acts of the day, and was also competition for
another like-minded television showcase, ABC's Shindig!.
A different host presided each week[1]—among
these were Sammy Davis, Jr., Petula
Clark, Paul Anka, Liza
Minnelli, Jack Jones, and Frankie
Avalon—singing a couple of his or her own hits and introducing the
different acts. Chart-topping acts who performed on the show included Dionne
Warwick, The Lovin' Spoonful, The Rolling Stones, The
Yardbirds, Sonny & Cher, the
Supremes, Herman's Hermits, The Animals, Roy Orbison and Marianne Faithfull. Many early episodes included
black and white segments taped in the UK and hosted by Brian
Epstein. Sid
Bernstein was the booking agent for Hullabaloo.Peter Matz,
formerly of The Carol Burnett Show, was the orchestra
leader.[2] Peppiatt and Aylesworth were the
writers.
Some of the programs in the
series were videotaped at NBC Studios in Burbank, California. Most were taped inNew
York City either at NBC's Studio 8H (built for Arturo
Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra and which would
later house Saturday Night Live), or in NBC's color
studio in the Midwood section of Brooklyn. Much
of the series' color videotaped footage was later transferred over to kinescope on
film - as such copied in black and white. Only three half-hour episodes are
known to exist in their original color videotaped form.
January 14, 1990
The Simpsons began
airing regularly.
The
Simpsons is an American adult
animated sitcom created by Matt
Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company.[1][2][3] The
series is a satirical depiction of a middle class American lifestyle
epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa,
and Maggie. The show is set in the fictional town of Springfield and parodies American culture, society, television, and many aspects
of the human condition.
The family was conceived by
Groening shortly before a solicitation for a series of animated shorts with the producer James
L. Brooks. Groening created a dysfunctional family and named the characters
after members of his own family, substituting Bart for his own name. The shorts
became a part of The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19,
1987. After a three-season run, the sketch was developed into a half-hour prime time show
and was an early hit for Fox, becoming the network's first series to land in
the Top 30 ratings in a season (1989–1990).
Since its debut on December
17, 1989, the show has broadcast 561 episodes, and the 26th season began on September 28,
2014. The Simpsons is thelongest-running American
sitcom, the longest-running American animated program, and in 2009 it surpassed Gunsmoke as
the longest-running American scripted primetime television series. The Simpsons Movie, a feature-length film,
was released in theaters worldwide on July 26 and 27, 2007, and grossed over
$527 million. On October 28, 2014, executive producer Al Jean announced that
Season 27 had started production, renewing the series through the 2015–16
season.
Time magazine's December 31, 1999, issue named it the
20th century's best television series, and on January 14, 2000, the Simpson
family was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It has won dozens of
awards since it debuted as a series, including 31 Primetime Emmy Awards, 30 Annie
Awards, and a Peabody Award. Homer's exclamatory catchphrase "D'oh!" has
been adopted into the English language, while The Simpsons has
influenced many adult-oriented animated sitcoms.
January 15, 1995
The first episode of Star Trek: Voyager aired.
Star
Trek: Voyager is a science fiction television series
set in the Star Trek universe.
The show takes place during
the 2370s, and begins on the far side of the Milky Way
galaxy, 75,000 light-years from Earth. It follows the adventures of
theStarfleet vessel USS Voyager, which became
stranded in the Delta Quadrant while pursuing a
renegade Maquis ship. The two ships' crews
merge aboardVoyager to make the estimated 75-year journey home.
The show was created by Rick Berman, Michael
Piller and Jeri Taylor, and is the fifth incarnation of Star
Trek, which began with the 1960s series Star Trek, created by Gene
Roddenberry. It was produced for seven seasons, from 1995 to 2001, and is
the only Star Trek TV series with a female captain, Kathryn
Janeway, as a main character.
Star Trek: Voyager aired on UPN and was the
network's second longest running series, as well as the final show from its
debut lineup to end.
January 17, 1975
The television show Baretta debuted on ABC.
Baretta is an American detective television
series which ran on ABC from 1975 to 1978. The
show was a milder version of a successful 1973–74 ABC series, Toma, starring Tony
Musante as chameleon-like, real-life New Jersey police
officer David Toma. While popular, Toma received
intense criticism at the time for its realistic and frequent depiction of
police and criminal violence. When Musante left the series after a single
season, the concept was retooled asBaretta, with Robert Blake in the title role.
Detective Anthony Vincenzo
"Tony" Baretta is an unorthodox plainclothes cop (badge #609) with
the 53rd precinct, who lives with Fred, his Triton sulphur-crested cockatoo, in apartment 2C
at the run-down King Edward Hotel in an unnamed Eastern city (presumably Newark, New Jersey). Like his model David Toma,
Tony Baretta wore many disguises on the job. When not in disguise, Baretta
usually wore a short-sleeve sweatshirt, casual slacks, a brown suede jacket and
a newsboy
cap. He often carried an unlit cigarette in his lips or behind his ear. His
catchphrases included "You can take dat to da bank" and "And
dat‘s the name of dat tune." When exasperated he would occasionally speak
in asides to his late father, Louie Baretta.
Baretta drove a rusted-out
Mist Blue 1966 Chevy Impala four-door sport sedan nicknamed
"The Blue Ghost" (license plate 532 BEN). In the series Baretta
hung out at Ross’s Billiard Academy and referred to his numerous girlfriends as
his "cousins".
Supporting characters
include:
- Billy Truman (Tom Ewell),
the elderly hotel manager/house detective, who used to work with Tony’s
father Louie at the 53rd Precinct.
- Rooster (Michael D. Roberts), a streetwise pimp and
Tony's favorite informant.
- Tony's supervisors Inspector Shiller (Dana
Elcar) and Lieutenant Hal Brubaker (Edward Grover).
- Detective Foley (John Ward), an irritating
stick-in-the-mud.
- "Fats" (Chino 'Fats' Williams), a
gravelly-voiced black detective who goes on stakeouts with Tony.
- Detective Nopke (Ron Thompson), a rookie who admires
Baretta‘s street smarts.
- Little Moe (Angelo
Rossitto), a shoeshine man and informant.
- Mr. Nicholas (Titos
Vandis), a mob boss.
- Mr. Muncie (Paul Lichtman), the owner
of a liquor store at 52nd and Main.
January 18, 1975
A spin-off, the series had its "pilot"
episode air on All in the Family (on Jan. 11). The Jeffersons
began in a period in TV history when African-American characters were becoming
the leads of their own shows. Isabel Sanford, in fact, was the first
African-American Emmy winner as Best Actress in a Comedy Series (in 1981). The
series broke ground in its inclusion of an interracial marriage (in Tom and
Helen Willis) and explored the same types of topical issues as All in the
Family. Although, as the Museum of Broadcast Communications' Encyclopedia
of Television notes, "America's black community remained divided in
its assessment of the program," the show was unique in the television
landscape for its portrayal of an affluent African-American family.
To quote the Bicentennial Minute, "And that's the way it was".
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