This Week in Television History: September 2021 PART IV

September 28, 1901

Ed Sullivan is born in New York City. 

During the peak of its popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, Sullivan’s program showcased a wide range of entertainers, including Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Rudolf Nureyev, Jerry Lewis and Bob Hope.

Sullivan worked as a newspaper reporter and columnist in New York during the 1920s and 1930s and also hosted and produced vaudeville shows and benefits. In 1948, he became the master of ceremonies of a weekly TV variety show dubbed Toast of the Town. In 1955, the program, which aired Sunday nights on CBS, was renamed The Ed Sullivan Show. Although Sullivan was often awkward and self-conscious on camera, he was a hit with audiences and his program had broad appeal. In addition to big-name entertainers, the show featured animal acts, athletes, comedians, dancers and opera singers, along with such regulars as Topo Gigio, a mouse puppet with an Italian accent, and a ventriloquist named Senor Wences.

Notable moments in the history of The Ed Sullivan Show include its broadcast on January 6, 1957, when Elvis Presley appeared on the program and the cameras shot him from the waist up because his gyrating hips were considered too scandalous for family television.  On February 9, 1964, more than 70 million viewers tuned in to the show for the American TV debut of the Liverpool-based rock quartet The Beatles.

Sullivan was also notable for featuring African-American performers on his program. According to the Museum of Broadcast Communications: “At a time when virtually all sponsors balked at permitting black performers to take the stage, Sullivan embraced Pearl Bailey over the objections of his sponsors. He also showcased black entertainers as diverse as Nat “King” Cole, Leontine Price, Louis Armstrong, George Kirby, Richard Pryor, Duke Ellington, Richie Havens and the Supremes.”

The Ed Sullivan Show was cancelled in 1971. Sullivan died of cancer at the age of 73 on October 13, 1974. In 1967, CBS renamed the Billy Rose Theater, from which Sullivan broadcast his show, the Ed Sullivan Theater. Since 1993, David Letterman has hosted his late-night talk show from the Ed Sullivan Theater, which is located at Broadway and 53rd Street in Manhattan.

September 28, 1961

Dr. Kildare premiered on NBC-TV. 

Dr. Kildare is an NBC medical drama television series which originally ran from September 28, 1961 until August 30, 1966, for a total of 191 episodes over five seasons. Produced by MGM Television, it was based on fictional doctor characters originally created by author Max Brand in the 1930s and previously used by MGM in a popular film series and radio drama. The TV series quickly achieved success and made a star of Richard Chamberlain, who played the title role. Dr. Kildare (along with an ABC medical drama, Ben Casey, which premiered at the same time) inspired or influenced many later TV shows dealing with the medical field.

September 28, 1961

Hazel premiered on NBC-TV. 

Hazel is an American sitcom about a fictional live-in maid named Hazel Burke (Shirley Booth) and her employers, the Baxters. The five-season, 154-episode series aired in prime time from September 28, 1961, to April 11, 1966, and was produced by Screen Gems. The show aired on NBC for its first four seasons. Season 1 was broadcast in black-and-white for all but one episode and seasons 2–4 were aired in color. The fifth and final season was broadcast in color on CBS. The show was based on the popular single-panel comic strip by cartoonist Ted Key, which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post.

September 29, 1986

The first episode of Designing Women aired on CBS. 

Designing Women is an American sitcom created by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason that aired on CBS from September 29, 1986, until May 24, 1993, producing seven seasons and 163 episodes. The comedy seriesDesigning Women was a joint production of Bloodworth/Thomason Mozark Productions in association withColumbia Pictures Television for CBS.

The series centers on the lives of four women and one man working together at an interior designing firm inAtlanta, Georgia called Sugarbakers & Associates. It originally starred Dixie Carter as president of the design firm Julia Sugarbaker, Delta Burke as her ex-beauty queen sister Suzanne Sugarbaker, Annie Potts as head designer Mary Jo Shively, and Jean Smart as office manager Charlene Frazier. Later in its run, the series received recognition for its well-publicized behind-the-scene conflicts and cast changes. Julia Duffy and Jan Hooksreplaced Burke and Smart for season six, but Duffy was not brought for the seventh and final season, and she was replaced by Judith Ivey.

October 1, 2006

The pilot episode of Dexter aired.

Dexter is an American television crime drama mystery series that aired on Showtime from October 1, 2006, to September 22, 2013. Set in Miami, the series centers on Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), a forensic technician specializing in blood spatter pattern analysis for the fictional Miami Metro Police Department, who leads a secret parallel life as a vigilante serial killer, hunting down murderers who have slipped through the cracks of the justice system. The show's first season was derived from the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter (2004), the first of the Dexter series novels by Jeff Lindsay. It was adapted for television by screenwriter James Manos, Jr., who wrote the first episode. Subsequent seasons evolved independently of Lindsay's works.

In February 2008, reruns (edited down to a TV-14 rating) began to air on CBS, although the reruns on CBS ended after one run of the first season. The series has enjoyed mostly positive reviews throughout its run and popularity, including four consecutive Primetime Emmy nominations for Best Drama Series starting in season 2. Season 4 aired its season finale on December 13, 2009, to a record-breaking audience of 2.6 million viewers, making it the most-watched original series episode ever on Showtime at that time.

In April 2013, Showtime announced that Season 8 would be the final season of Dexter. The Season 8 premiere was the most watched Dexter episode with more than 3 million viewers total for all airings that night. The original broadcast of the series finale—shown at 9 p.m. on September 22, 2013—drew 2.8 million viewers, the largest overall audience in Showtime's history.

October 3, 1961

The Dick Van Dyke Show premiered on CBS. 

The Dick Van Dyke Show is an American television sitcom that initially aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System from October 3, 1961, until June 1, 1966. The show was created by Carl Reiner and starred Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. It was produced by Reiner with Bill Persky and Sam Denoff. The music for the show's theme song was written by Earle Hagen. A three-camera/studio audience format was used during production.

The series won 15 Emmy Awards. In 2002, it was ranked #13 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.

The two main settings show the work and home life of Rob Petrie (Dick Van Dyke), the head writer of a comedy variety show filmed in Manhattan. Viewers are given an "inside look" at how a television show (the fictitious The Alan Brady Show) was written and produced. Many of the show's plots were inspired by Reiner's experiences as a writer for Your Show of Shows, but though he based the character of Rob Petrie on himself, Rob's egocentric boss Alan Brady is less Sid Caesar (host of Your Show of Shows) than a combination of the more abrasive Milton Berle and Jackie Gleason, according to Reiner himself.^[3] Many scenes deal with Rob and his coworkers, writers Buddy Sorrell (Morey Amsterdam) and Sally Rogers (Rose Marie). Mel Cooley (Richard Deacon), a balding straight man and recipient of numerous insulting one-liners from Buddy, was the show's producer and the brother-in-law of the show's star, Alan Brady (Carl Reiner). As Rob, Buddy, and Sally write for a comedy show, the premise provides a built-in forum for them to be making jokes constantly. Other scenes focus on the home life of Rob, his wife Laura (Mary Tyler Moore), and son Richie (Larry Mathews), who live at 148 Bonnie Meadow Road in suburban New Rochelle, New York. Also often seen are their next-door neighbors and best friends, Jerry Helper (Jerry Paris), a dentist, and his wife Millie (Ann Morgan Guilbert).

Carl Reiner originally planned to produce and star in the series, which was going to be titled Head of the Family. The pilot episode was written by Reiner in 1960, but it was unsuccessful. 

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

This Week in TV History: The Muppet Show at 45

This Week in Television History: September 2021 PART III

 

September 21, 2001

America: A Tribute to Heroes was shown on 35 separate broadcast and cable networks simultaneously. 

The telethon raised $150 million in pledges to benefit families of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. The pledges were made from September 21 through September 24, 2001. 

September 22, 1986

The TV show ALF debuted on NBC.

ALF is an American science fiction sitcom that aired on NBC from September 22, 1986 to March 24, 1990. It was the first television series to be presented in Dolby Surround.

The title character is Gordon Shumway, a friendly extraterrestrial nicknamed ALF (an acronym for Alien Life Form), who crash lands in the garage of the suburban middle-class Tanner family. The series stars Max Wrightas father Willie Tanner, Anne Schedeen as mother Kate Tanner, and Andrea Elson and Benji Gregory as their children, Lynn and Brian Tanner. ALF was performed by puppeteer/creator Paul Fusco.

Produced by Alien Productions, ALF originally ran for four seasons and produced 99 episodes, including three one-hour episodes that were divided into two parts for syndication totaling 102 episodes.

September 23, 1956

Mickey Dolenz began his television career in NBC's Circus Boy series. 

He later became a member of the Monkees. 

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 23, 1976

The first season of Black Sheep Squadron began on NBC under the name Baa Baa Black Sheep. 

Baa Baa Black Sheep (later syndicated as Black Sheep Squadron) is a period military television series that aired on NBC from 1976 until 1978. Its premise was based on the experiences of United States Marine Corpsaviator Greg Boyington and his World War II "Black Sheep Squadron". The series was created and produced byStephen J. Cannell. The opening credits read: "In World War II, Marine Corps Major Greg 'Pappy' Boyington commanded a squadron of fighter pilots. They were a collection of misfits and screwballs who became the terrors of the South Pacific. They were known as the Black Sheep."

September 23, 1986

The first season of Matlock began on NBC. 

Matlock is an American television legal drama, starring Andy Griffith in the title role of criminal-defense attorneyBen Matlock. The show, produced by Intermedia Entertainment Company (first season only), The Fred Silverman Company, Dean Hargrove Productions, Viacom Productions, and Paramount Television (season 9 only), originally aired from March 3, 1986, to May 8, 1992, on NBC; and from November 5, 1992, until May 7, 1995, on ABC.

The show's format is similar to that of CBS's Perry Mason (with both Matlock and the later Perry Mason TV movies in the 1980s created by Dean Hargrove), with Matlock identifying the perpetrators and then confronting them in dramatic courtroom scenes. One difference, however, was that whereas Mason usually exculpated his clients at a pretrial hearing, Matlock usually secured an acquittal at trial, from the jury.

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.

September 24, 1961

The Bullwinkle Show premiered in prime time on NBC-TV. 

The show was originally on ABC in the afternoon as Rocky and His Friends.

September 24, 1966

"Last Train to Clarksville" gives the made-for-TV Monkees a real-life pop hit.

When producers Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson conceived a situation comedy called The Monkees in 1965, they hoped to create a ratings success by blurring the line between pop music and television. Instead, they succeeded in obliterating that line entirely when the pop group that began as a wholly fictional creation went on to rival, however briefly, the success of its real-life inspiration, the Beatles. On this day in 1966, the made-for-television Monkees knocked down the fourth wall decisively when their first single, "Last Train To Clarksville" entered the Billboard Top 40.

"Last Train To Clarksville" was written by the team that was also responsible for the theme song of The Monkees, songwriters Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. Though Boyce and Hart had been working together in Los Angeles for several years before being asked to write and record the soundtrack for Schneider and Rafelson's A Hard Day's Night-inspired pilot, their biggest success to date had been in writing minor hits for Chubby Checker and Paul Revere and the Raiders and in being commissioned to write the theme song for Days Of Our Lives. Their association with The Monkees would end up launching Boyce and Hart on a moderately successful career as performers in the late 1960s and early 1970s. By far their best-known hits, however, were the ones they wrote for the Monkees, including "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone" and "Last Train To Clarksville."

Just as producers Schneider and Rafelson had reached out to a pair of industry professionals to create the music for the pilot episode of The Monkees, they engaged numerous others to create the other memorable songs in the Monkees' catalog. Under the musical direction of Don Kirshner, The Monkees featured hits by some of the era's greatest songwriters, including Neil Diamond, who wrote "I'm A Believer" and "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You" (both 1967) and the great husband-and-wife team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King, who wrote "Daydream Believer" (1967). Numerous other Monkees songs were written by such songwriting luminaries as Cynthia Mann and Barry Weill, Harry Nilsson and Carole Bayer Sager and Neil Sedaka.

By the time their third album was released, the real-life Monkees—Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith, Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork—had taken over creative control of their musical output, including taking on much of the songwriting. Although they would release seven more studio albums, none would contain hits as successful or memorable as the one that gave the group its breakthrough on September 24, 1966.

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

This Week in TV History Columbo at 50

Norm Macdonald

It's a very odd thing with Hollywood, where you do stand-up, you're good at it, then they go, 'How would you like to be a horrible actor?' Then you say, 'All right, that sounds good. I'll do that.'

-Norm MacDonald

Norman Gene Macdonald

October 17, 1959 – September 14, 2021

Norm Macdonald died from cancer in Los Angeles on September 14, 2021, at age 61. He had been diagnosed with the disease nine years prior. He had shared his diagnosis with a few trusted friends, but had not publicly disclosed it.

Macdonald's first performances in comedy were at stand-up clubs in Ottawa, regularly appearing on amateur nights at Yuk Yuk's in 1985. Following an appearance at the 1986 Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal, he was heralded by the Montreal Gazette as, "One of this country's hottest comics."^[15] By 1990, he would perform as a contestant on Star Search. He was hired as a writer for the Roseanne television sitcom for the 1992–93 season before quitting to join Saturday Night Live.

Macdonald joined the cast of NBC's Saturday Night Live (SNL) television program in 1993, where he performed impressions of Larry King, Burt Reynolds, David Letterman, Quentin Tarantino, Charles Kuralt, and Bob Dole, among others. The following year during the show's twentieth season, Macdonald anchored the segment "Weekend Update". Current "Weekend Update" anchor and writer Colin Jost named Macdonald as a primary influence on Jost's own work behind the "Update" desk, explaining that Macdonald's tone was one that he grew up with in high school.

Macdonald's version of "Weekend Update" often included references to prison rape, crack whores, and the Germans' love of Baywatch star David Hasselhoff. He would occasionally deliver a piece of news, then take out his personal compact tape recorder and leave a "note to self" relevant to what he just discussed. He commonly used Frank Stallone as a non-sequitur punchline.^[19]

Macdonald repeatedly ridiculed public figures such as Bob Dole, Marion Barry, Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson, and O. J. Simpson. Throughout Simpson's murder trial, Macdonald constantly pilloried the retired American football star, with the premise Simpson was guilty of the brutal slaying of his ex-wife and her friend. On October 7, 1995, the first SNL episode after Simpson's acquittal on the 3rd, Macdonald opened Saturday Night's 'Weekend Update' by saying, "Well, it's finally official; murder is legal in the state of California."

After the announcement that Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley planned to divorce, Macdonald joked about their irreconcilable differences on 'Weekend Update.' "According to friends, the two were never a good match. She's more of a stay-at-home type, and he's more of a homosexual pedophile." He followed this up a few episodes later with a report about the singer's collapse and hospitalization. Referring to a report of how Jackson had decorated his hospital room with giant photographs of Shirley Temple, Norm stated, "In case viewers are confused, we'd like to remind you that Michael Jackson is in fact a homosexual pedophile."

In early 1998, Don Ohlmeyer, president of NBC's West Coast division, had Macdonald removed as "Weekend Update" anchor, citing a decline in ratings and a drop-off in quality. Macdonald was replaced by Colin Quinn at the "Weekend Update" desk beginning on the January 10, 1998, episode.

Macdonald and others believed that the true reason for his dismissal was his series of O. J. Simpson jokes during and after the trial, frequently calling him a murderer; Ohlmeyer was a good friend of Simpson and supported him during the proceedings.

Good Night Norm

Stay Tuned
Tony Figueroa