February 1, 1951
TV Shows Atomic Blast, Live.
For the first time, television viewers witness the live detonation of an atomic bomb blast, as KTLA in Los Angeles broadcasts the blinding light produced by a nuclear device dropped on Frenchman Flats, Nevada. One of a hundred above-ground nuclear tests conducted between 1951 and 1962 in the Nevada desert, the A-bomb telecast found its way into the history books (and blogs) when cameramen secretly positioned on top of a Las Vegas hotel focused on the blast. The images were relayed to the station’s transmitter on Mount Wilson Observatory about 200 miles away, and early-bird viewers saw their television screens fill with white light at 5:30 in the morning.
Witnessing the blast telecast first-hand was KTLA reporter Stan Chambers.
In a YouTube interview, Chambers described how station manager Klaus
Landsberg pulled off the unauthorized broadcast. “We couldn’t get near the
field, because it was all top secret. Klaus sent a crew to Las Vegas and put
them on top of one of the hotels…. They kept the camera open for the flash of
light that would come on when the blast went off.”
Los Angeles viewers tuned in for the one-off event. “We had a rating that
was very large for 5:30 in the morning,” Chambers recalled. In the
pre-videotape era, there were of course no replays as newsmen Gil Martin,
anchoring from Las Vegas, and station staffer Robin Lane at Mount Wilson
reported the incident. Chambers continued:
We stayed on the air, they waited for the right time, and all of a sudden
there was the flash. The people watched it, Gil described it, Lane talked about
it, and that was our telecast. That one flash. You just see this blinding white
light. It didn’t seem real. We didn’t have videotape. You couldn’t say, “Let’s
look at it again.”
1951’s Ranger Easy bomb was designed to test compression against critical
mass in the Demon core,
so-called because the plutonium mass became unstable and caused the
radiation-poisoning death of a Los Alamos scientist. A B-50 bomber plane
dropped the test weapon above the Nevada Test Site about 65 miles northwest of
Las Vegas. Part of the Department of Energy’s Operation Ranger
program, “Easy” delivered a 1-kiloton payload.
In the decade that followed Operation Ranger, A-bomb tests from
Buster-Jangle, Tumbler-Snapper, Upshot-Knothole, Plumbbob, Nougat, Sunbeam and
other programs became so commonplace that watching mushroom clouds turned into
a Las Vegas tourist attraction.
In 1952, KTLA set up the first live, national feed for a Nevada atomic bomb
explosion. That one was carried by the major networks.
February 1, 1976
Sonny and Cher resumed on TV despite a real life
divorce.
In February 1976, the
bitterness of their divorce behind them, the couple reunited for one last try
with The Sonny and Cher Show. This incarnation of the series was produced by
veteran musical variety-show writers, Frank Peppiatt and John Aylesworth.
It was basically the same as their first variety series but with different
writers to create new sketches and songs. The duo's opening conversations were
markedly more subdued and made humbled references to the couple's divorce and
Cher's subsequent marriage to Gregg Allman (during
production Cher was pregnant with and eventually bore Allman's son, Elijah). (Some jokes would get awkward. In one opening
segment Cher gave Sonny a compliment and Sonny jokingly replied "That's
not what you said in the courtroom.") Despite these complications, the
revived series garnered enough ratings to be renewed for a second season,
finally ending its run in 1977. (By this time, the variety show genre
was already in steep decline, and Sonny and Cher was one of the few successful
programs of the genre remaining on the air at the time.)
Some of the guests who
appeared on The Sonny and Cher Show included Frankie Avalon, Muhammad Ali, Raymond Burr, Ruth Buzzi, Charo, Barbara Eden, Neil Sedaka,Farrah Fawcett, Bob Hope, Don Knotts, Jerry Lewis, Tony Orlando, The Osmonds, Debbie Reynolds, The Smothers
Brothers, Tina Turner, Twiggy,
and Betty White.
Witnessing the blast telecast first-hand was KTLA reporter Stan Chambers.
In a YouTube interview, Chambers described how station manager Klaus
Landsberg pulled off the unauthorized broadcast. “We couldn’t get near the
field, because it was all top secret. Klaus sent a crew to Las Vegas and put
them on top of one of the hotels…. They kept the camera open for the flash of
light that would come on when the blast went off.”
Los Angeles viewers tuned in for the one-off event. “We had a rating that
was very large for 5:30 in the morning,” Chambers recalled. In the
pre-videotape era, there were of course no replays as newsmen Gil Martin,
anchoring from Las Vegas, and station staffer Robin Lane at Mount Wilson
reported the incident. Chambers continued:
We stayed on the air, they waited for the right time, and all of a sudden
there was the flash. The people watched it, Gil described it, Lane talked about
it, and that was our telecast. That one flash. You just see this blinding white
light. It didn’t seem real. We didn’t have videotape. You couldn’t say, “Let’s
look at it again.”
1951’s Ranger Easy bomb was designed to test compression against critical
mass in the Demon core,
so-called because the plutonium mass became unstable and caused the
radiation-poisoning death of a Los Alamos scientist. A B-50 bomber plane
dropped the test weapon above the Nevada Test Site about 65 miles northwest of
Las Vegas. Part of the Department of Energy’s Operation Ranger
program, “Easy” delivered a 1-kiloton payload.
In the decade that followed Operation Ranger, A-bomb tests from
Buster-Jangle, Tumbler-Snapper, Upshot-Knothole, Plumbbob, Nougat, Sunbeam and
other programs became so commonplace that watching mushroom clouds turned into
a Las Vegas tourist attraction.
In 1952, KTLA set up the first live, national feed for a Nevada atomic bomb
explosion. That one was carried by the major networks.
February 1, 1976
Sonny and Cher resumed on TV despite a real life
divorce.
Some of the guests who appeared on The Sonny and Cher Show included Frankie Avalon, Muhammad Ali, Raymond Burr, Ruth Buzzi, Charo, Barbara Eden, Neil Sedaka,Farrah Fawcett, Bob Hope, Don Knotts, Jerry Lewis, Tony Orlando, The Osmonds, Debbie Reynolds, The Smothers Brothers, Tina Turner, Twiggy, and Betty White.
Stay Tuned
Tony Figueroa
Tony Figueroa
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