This Week in TV History: It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown turns 55

Donna Allen​ and I discuss the 55th anniversary of "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown". 

Your Mental Sorbet: Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies

 

Here is another

"Mental Sorbet"

A little spark of madness

that we could use to momentarily forget about those

things that leave a bad taste in our mouths

Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies is a 1972 animated one-hour TV-movie (with a live-action segment near the end) that was aired on December 16 as an episode of the anthology series The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie.^[1] In this Filmation-produced movie, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and other Looney Tunes characters interact with the characters from the Filmation series Groovie Goolies.

This movie is notable for being the one and only time that Warner Bros. "loaned out" their famous Looney Tunes characters to appear in a Filmation production (otherwise they were a silent partner). Warner Bros. had shut down their animation studio in 1969. While Warner Bros. had outsourced production to other companies since the 1960s, it was usually to studios run by former Warner Bros. alumni (such as Friz Freleng and later Chuck Jones), something that was not the case with Filmation.

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

This Week in TV History: The Legacy of I love Lucy

Diane Vincent and I discuss the Legacy of I Love Lucy #ILoveLucy #TVHistory

This Week in Television History: October 2021 PART IV

 

October 25, 1971

The Electric Company first aired

The Electric Company is an American educational children's television series created by Paul Dooley and produced by the Children's Television Workshop (CTW) for PBS in the United States. PBS broadcast 780 episodes over the course of its six seasons from October 25, 1971, to April 15, 1977. After it ceased production in 1977, the program continued in reruns until October 4, 1985, as the result of a decision made in 1975 to produce two final seasons for perpetual use. The Workshop produced the show at Second Stage, located within the Reeves Teletape Studios (Teletape), in Manhattan, which had been the first home of Sesame Street. The series reran on Noggin, a channel co-founded by the CTW, from 1999 to 2002.

The Electric Company employed sketch comedy and various other devices to provide an entertaining program to help elementary school children develop their grammar and reading skills.^[1] Since it was intended for children who had graduated from CTW's flagship program, Sesame Street, the humor was more mature than what was seen there.

October 26, 1946

Pat Sajak born Patrick Leonard Sajdak. 

Known to millions of game-show fans as the Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak, is born in Chicago. Wheel of Fortune, which debuted in 1975, became the longest-running syndicated game show on American television, turning Sajak and his co-host, Vanna White, into pop-culture icons.

After attending Chicago’s Columbia College, Sajak joined the Army in 1968 and went to Vietnam, where he was a disc jockey for Armed Forces Radio in Saigon. After his discharge from the military, he worked in radio and TV and in 1977 became a weatherman for a Los Angeles TV station. In 1981, Wheel of Fortune’s creator, Merv Griffin (who also developed the long-running game show Jeopardy!, which debuted in 1964) tapped Sajak to take over hosting duties from Chuck Woolery for a network daytime version of Wheel. In 1983, Wheel of Fortune became a syndicated evening program. It has remained on the air continuously since that time, with Sajak and White as co-hosts.

During each episode of Wheel of Fortune, contestants compete to solve word puzzles. Players spin the big wheel to determine prize money and each player can buy vowels to help solve the puzzle. White stands next to the puzzleboard and reveals the individual letters when players have guessed them correctly. Born Vanna Marie Rosich on February 18, 1957, White was raised in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. She attended the Atlanta School of Fashion Design and worked as a model before heading to Los Angeles to pursue acting. In 1982, the blonde beauty was selected to join Sajak on Wheel of Fortune. The first letter she ever turned on the puzzleboard was a “T.” In 1992, the Guinness Book of World Records named White “Television’s Most Frequent Clapper,” crediting her with an average of 720 claps per show.

Each year, more than 3,000 people audition to become contestants on Wheel of Fortune, while fewer than 500 make the final cut. During its 25 years of syndication, Wheel of Fortune has given over $180 million in cash and prizes to its contestants.

As for longevity, while Jeopardy! debuted in 1964, it has not aired continuously since then. Jeopardy! first aired from 1964 to 1975, then went off the air. It returned briefly, from 1978 to 1979, and was revived again in 1984, when Alex Trebek became host of a syndicated edition of the show. The longest-running game show in network or syndication is The Price is Right. The show originally aired on network TV from 1956 to 1965. A syndicated version of The Price is Right premiered in 1972, with Bob Barker as host. Barker remained with the show until his retirement at the age of 83 in 2007. Comedian Drew Carrey took over hosting duties beginning in October 2007.

October 27, 1966

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown first aired. 

A Halloween special, it was the third Peanuts special (and second holiday-themed special, following A Charlie Brown Christmas) to be produced and animated by Bill Melendez. Its initial broadcast took place on October 27, 1966, on CBS, preempting My Three Sons. CBS re-aired the special annually through 2000, with ABC picking up the rights beginning in 2001, where it now airs annually at Halloween. ABC once broadcast You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown immediately following It's the Great Pumpkin, as if to emphasize the proximity of Halloween to Election Day. Also, the Great Pumpkin is mentioned in You're Not Elected.

The program was nominated for an Emmy Award. It has been issued on home video several times, including a Remastered Deluxe Edition of the special released by Warner Home Video on September 2, 2008, with the bonus feature It's Magic, Charlie Brown which was released in 1981. To celebrate its 40th anniversary, a retrospective book was published in 2006. It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: The Making of a Television Classic includes the entire script, never-before-seen photographs, storyboard excerpts, and interviews with the original child actors who provided the voices of the Peanuts gang.

Charlie Brown's repeated line of "I got a rock" caused some stir among many viewers of the show, according to Charles M. Schulz in the book and retrospective TV special "Happy Birthday, Charlie Brown." Schulz said that after the program first aired, bags and boxes of candy came in from all over the world "just for Charlie Brown."

October 29, 1956

The Huntley-Brinkley Report first aired.

The Huntley-Brinkley Report (sometimes known as The Texaco Huntley-Brinkley Report, for one of its early sponsors) was the NBC television network’s flagship evening news program from October 29, 1956, until July 31, 1970. It was anchored by Chet Huntley in New York City, and David Brinkley in Washington, D.C. It succeeded theCamel News Caravan, anchored by John Cameron Swayze. The program ran for 15 minutes at its inception but expanded to 30 minutes on September 9, 1963, exactly a week after CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite did so. It was developed and produced initially by Reuven Frank. Frank left the program in 1962 to produce documentaries (Eliot Frankel replaced him) but returned to the program the following year when it expanded to 30 minutes.[1] He was succeeded as executive producer in 1965 by Robert “Shad” Northshield and in 1969 by Wallace Westfeldt.

 

October 30, 1931

Dick Gautier is born. 

Actor, comedian, composer, singer and author. Among his most well-known television roles are for Hymie the Robot in the television series Get Smart, and Robin Hood in the short-lived TV comedy series When Things Were Rotten, a Mel Brooks send-up of the classic legend. Gautier died January 13, 2017, at an assisted living facility in Arcadia, California, following a long illness.

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Peter Scolari

I was offered some film roles, and I did not do them.

It would have been interesting, but I have no regrets.

I am where I am; I accept and embrace the mistakes because they're character-building and they build perspective and talent.

-Peter Scolari

Peter Thomas Scolari

September 12, 1955 – October 22, 2021

Peter Scolari's first ongoing role was in his first short-lived 1980 sitcom Goodtime Girls, as the juggling neighbor of the title characters. He was then cast co-starring with then-unknown Tom Hanks in another sitcom, Bosom Buddies, as one of two creative professionals who disguise themselves as women to get an affordable apartment in a women's-only residence. After Bosom Buddies was cancelled in 1982 and still struggling as an actor, Scolari joined the cast of Newhart opposite Bob Newhart in 1984, where he played Michael Harris, the yuppie local TV producer, until the series' conclusion in 1990.

Following central roles in the unsuccessful series Family Album and Dweebs, Scolari spent three seasons playing inventor Wayne Szalinski, a role originated on film by Rick Moranis, in the TV adaptation of the Disney film Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. He later had a recurring role as the father of Lena Dunham's character on HBO's Girls, for which he won an Emmy in 2016. He also portrayed Gotham City’s corrupt police commissioner, Gillian B. Loeb, in Fox’s superhero crime drama Gotham.

Scolari appeared on Broadway in Wicked, Sly Fox, Hairspray, and Lucky Guy, which reunited him with his Bosom Buddies co-star Tom Hanks. Scolari also appeared Off Broadway in Old Man Joseph and His Family, The Exonerated, In the Wings, The Music Man, and White's Lies.

In 1996, Scolari starred in a version of the stage musical Stop the World – I Want to Get Off produced for the A&E television network.

In 2014, Scolari portrayed Yogi Berra in Bronx Bombers. His wife Tracy Shayne played Berra's wife Carmen. Subsequently, he played the part of the Wizard of Oz in the Broadway musical Wicked.

Good Night Mr. Scolari

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: October 2021 PART III

 

October 20, 1985

The movie "I Dream of Jeannie: 15 Years Later" aired.

Dream of Jeannie... Fifteen Years Later is a 1985 made-for-television film produced by Columbia Pictures Television which premiered on NBC on October 20, 1985. It is the first of two reunion films based on the 1965–70 sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.

Barbara Eden reprises her world-famous role as the magical Jeannie; also reprising their roles from the original series were Bill Daily as Tony's fellow astronaut and best friend Roger Healy, and Hayden Rorke (in his final film role) as NASA psychiatrist Dr. Alfred Bellows. The role of Tony Nelson was played by Wayne Rogers, best known for his role as Trapper John McIntyre on the 1970s series M*A*S*H. Larry Hagman was unavailable to reprise his role as Tony Nelson reportedly because he was too busy filming his CBS series Dallas at the time.

The film was directed by William Asher (who was also director of the 1960s show Bewitched) and the teleplay was written by Irma Kalish.

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

This Week in TV History: The Dick Van Dyke Show Turns 60

This Week in Television History: October 2021 PART II

 

October 11, 1971

Hugh Downs left the Today show and Concentration. 

He later became the host of ABC's 20/20. 

October 15, 1951

TV's first long-running sitcom hit, I Love Lucy.

Ball starred as a ditzy wife on the radio show My Favorite Husband from 1948 to 1951. CBS decided to launch the popular series on the relatively new medium of TV. Lucy insisted Desi be cast as her husband in the TV version, though the network executives said no one would believe the couple were married. Desi and Lucy performed before live audiences and filmed a pilot, convincing network executives that audiences responded well to their act, and CBS cast Desi for the show.

At the time, most television shows were broadcast live from New York City, and a low-quality 35mm or 16mm kinescope print was made of the show to broadcast it in other time zones. Because Ball was pregnant, she and Arnaz insisted on filming the show in Hollywood. The duo, along with co-creator Jess Oppenheimer, then decided to shoot the show on 35 mm film in front of a studio audience, with three cameras, a technique now standard for most present-day sitcoms. The result was a much sharper image than other shows of the time, and the audience reactions were far more authentic than the "canned laughter" used on most filmed sitcoms of the time. The technique was not completely new — another CBS comedy series, Amos 'n' Andy, which debuted four months earlier, was already being filmed at Hal Roach Studios with three 35mm cameras to save time and money. Hal Roach Studios was also used for filming at least two other TV comedies as early as 1950, both airing on ABC, namely Stu Erwin's The Trouble with Father, and the TV version of Beulah; the original 1949/50 Jackie Gleason TV version of The Life of Riley on NBC was also done on film, not live. There were also some dramatic TV shows pre-dating I Love Lucy which were also filmed, not live. But I Love Lucy was the first show to use this film technique in front of a studio audience.

Arnaz persuaded Karl Freund, an Academy Award -winning cinematographer of such films as Metropolis (1927), Dracula (1931), and The Good Earth (1937), as well as director of The Mummy (1932), to be the series' cinematographer.

Scenes were often performed in sequence, as a play would be, which was unusual for comedies at that time. Retakes were rare and dialogue mistakes were often played off for the sake of continuity.

I Love Lucy became one of the most popular TV situation comedies in history, ranking in the top three shows for six years and turning the couple's production company, Desilu, into a multimillion-dollar business. Ball became president of the company in 1960, after she and Desi divorced. She also starred in several other "Lucy" shows, including The Lucy Show, which debuted in 1962 and ran for six seasons, and Here's Lucy, in which she starred with her two children until the show was cancelled in 1974. A later show, Life with Lucy, featuring Lucy as a grandmother, was cancelled after only eight episodes. Ball worked little in the last years of her life. She died of congestive heart failure following open-heart surgery in 1989.

October 16, 1946

Suzanne Somers is born Suzanne Marie Mahoney. 

She is an American actress, author and businesswoman, best known for her roles on Three's Company and Step by Step. Somers later became the author of a series of best-selling self-help books, including Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones (2006), a book about bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. She has also released two autobiographies, four diet books, and a book of poetry entitled "Touch Me" (1980). She currently features items of her design on the Home Shopping Network. During the 1980s, Somers became a Las Vegas entertainer. She was the spokeswoman for the Thighmaster, a piece of exercise equipment that is squeezed between one's thighs. Thighmaster was one of the first products responsible for launching the infomercial concept. During this period of her career, she also performed for U.S. servicemen overseas.

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa