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"
In Los Angeles, California, police surround a home in Compton where the leaders
of the terrorist group known as the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) are hiding
out. The SLA had kidnapped Patricia Hearst, of the fabulously wealthy Hearst
family publishing empire, months earlier, earning headlines across the country.
Police found the house in Compton when a local mother reported that her kids
had seen a bunch of people playing with an arsenal of automatic weapons in the
living room of the home.
The
LAPD's 500-man siege on the Compton home was only the latest event in a short,
but exceedingly bizarre, episode. The SLA was a small group of violent radicals
who quickly made their way to national prominence, far out of proportion to
their actual influence. They began by killing Oakland's superintendent of
schools in late 1973 but really burst into society's consciousness when they
kidnapped Hearst the following February.
Months
later, the SLA released a tape on which Hearst said that she was changing her
name to Tania and joining the SLA. Shortly thereafter, a surveillance camera in
a bank caught Hearst carrying a machine gun during an SLA robbery. In another
incident, SLA member General Teko was caught trying to shoplift from a sporting
goods store, but escaped when Hearst sprayed the front of the building with
machine gun fire.
Although
law enforcement officials began talking about the SLA as if they were a
well-established paramilitary terrorist organization, the SLA had only a
handful of members, most of who were disaffected middle class youths.
On
May 17, Los Angeles police shot an estimated 1,200 rounds of ammunition into
the tiny Compton home as six SLA members shot back. Teargas containers thrown
into the hideout started a fire, but the SLA refused to surrender. Autopsy
results showed that they continued to fire back even as smoke and flames were
searing their lungs; they clearly chose suicide and martyrdom over jail.
Randolph Hearst, Patty's father, remarked that the massive attack had turned
"dingbats into martyrs." The raid left six SLA members dead,
including leader Donald DeFreeze, also known as Cinque. Patty Hearst was not
inside the home at the time. She was not found until September 1975.
Patty
Hearst was put on trial for armed robbery and convicted, despite her claim that
she had been coerced, through repeated rape, isolation, and brainwashing, into
joining the SLA. Prosecutors believed that she actually orchestrated her own
kidnapping because of her prior involvement with one of the SLA members.
Despite any real proof of this theory, she was convicted and sent to prison.
President Carter commuted Hearst's sentence after she had served almost two
years. Hearst was pardoned by President Clinton in January 2001.
May 17, 2004
Tony Randall died.
Best known for his role as Felix Unger in the television adaptation of Neil Simon‘s play, The Odd Couple.
May 19, 2009
The pilot episode of Glee aired.
"Pilot" is the pilot episode of
the American television series Glee, which premiered on the Fox network
on May 19, 2009. An extended director's cut version aired on
September 2, 2009. The show focuses on a high school show choir, also known as a glee club, set within the fictional
William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio. The pilot episode
covers the formation of the club and introduces the main characters. The
episode was directed by series creator Ryan Murphy, and written by Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan. Murphy selected the music featured in the episode, with the intention
of maintaining a balance between showtunes and chart hits.
The
episode achieved 9.619 million viewers on first broadcast, and 4.2 million
when the director's cut version aired.Critical response was mixed,
with The New York Times's Alessandra Stanley
highlighting the episode's unoriginality and stereotyped characters, but
praising the showmanship and talent of the cast. The Daily News's David Hinckley opined
that the show was imperfect and implausible but "potentially
heartwarming," while USA Today's Robert Bianco noted casting and tone problems,
but commented positively on the show's humor and musical performances. Mary
McNamara for the LA Times wrote that the show
had a wide audience appeal, calling it: "the first show in a long time
that's just plain full-throttle, no-guilty-pleasure-rationalizations-necessary
fun."
Spanish
teacher Will
Schuester (Matthew Morrison) learns that Sandy Ryerson (Stephen Tobolowsky), the head of William McKinley High School's glee club has been fired for
inappropriate sexual behavior toward male student Hank Saunders (Ben Bledsoe). The school principal,Figgins (Iqbal Theba), gives Will permission to
take over the club, and he plans to revitalize it, naming the group New
Directions. The club consists of fame-hungry Rachel Berry (Lea Michele), diva Mercedes Jones (Amber Riley), flamboyant countertenor Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer), paraplegicelectric guitar
player Artie
Abrams (Kevin McHale) and stutteringgothTina Cohen-Chang (Jenna Ushkowitz). Will's efforts are
derided by Sue
Sylvester (Jane Lynch), head of the school's
successful cheerleading team, the Cheerios
who soon plans to abolish the Glee club to restore her money funded towards the
spoilt Cheerios. His wife Terri (Jessalyn Gilsig) is also unsupportive,
suggesting that Will become an accountant to increase their income and give up
teaching. Rachel threatens to leave the club if Will cannot find a male
vocalist with talent comparable to hers. When the school's football coach Ken Tanaka (Patrick Gallagher) allows Will to try to recruit football team members, in return that
he put a good word for Emma for him (because Ken likes her), he discovers
that quarterbackFinn Hudson (Cory Monteith) is secretly a talented
singer. He plants marijuana in Finn's locker, and
blackmails him into joining New Directions. Finn, determined not to disappoint
his widowed mother, complies.
Raymond Burr wins
the Best Actor in a Dramatic Series Emmy for Perry Mason, in which he
plays a crime-solving attorney.
The popular show, which debuted in 1957,
ran for nine years. Derived from mystery novels by Earl Stanley Gardner, the
character of Perry Mason had made his radio debut in 1943 and the show
continued until 1955. The sleuthing Perry Mason character was revived in a
series of TV movies from 1985 to 1993.
May 6, 1984
Spinal Tap stages a "comeback" at CBGB's in
New York City
Almost
20 years and who knows how many drummers into their unique career in rock, the
surviving members of one of England's loudest bands had reached yet another low
point in the spring of 1984. Only two years removed from a disastrous 1982
world tour that not only failed to turn the album Smell The Glove into a
comeback hit, but also led to the group's breakup, Spinal Tap now had to suffer
the indignity of seeing the Marty DiBergi-helmed behind-the-scenes film of that
tour gain widespread theatrical release. Would the numerous embarrassments
catalogued in the hard-hitting rockumentary This Is Spinal Tap provoke
public sympathy for and renewed interest in the band that Nigel Tufnel, David
St. Hubbins and Derek Smalls began back in 1964 as The Originals? Or would the
group behind such familiar classic-rock hits as "Give Me Some Money"
and "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight" be consigned once and for
all to obscurity? In this atmosphere of uncertainty, Spinal Tap elected to go
back to their roots, kicking off a tour of small American rock clubs with an
appearance at New York City's legendary CBGB's on May 6, 1984.
Of
course, almost none of the above is true, strictly speaking. A group calling
itself Spinal Tap did play CBGB's on this day in 1984, but that group was the
fictitious invention of director Rob Reiner and the comic actors Michael
McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer—St. Hubbins, Tufnel and Smalls,
respectively. Reiner's directorial debut was the aforementioned This Is
Spinal Tap, a film that launched the mockumentary mini-genre as well as a
thousand catchphrases, from "These go to 11" to "None
more black." It was during the film's first week of release that
McKean, Guest, Shearer and one of their many doomed drummers played their gig
at CBGB's, which one attendee recalls as drawing "every professional
musician in the city of New York."
This
live appearance by Spinal Tap was the first, but certainly not the last step in
an ongoing effort by the McKean et al. to blur the line between fiction and
reality. In the years since their live debut, numerous bootleg recordings and
early television appearances have "surfaced," and one full-length
album—1992's Break Like The Wind—has been released. At last report,
Nigel Tufnel was working on a pony farm, David St. Hubbins was producing
hip-hop records out of a former colonic clinic and Derek Smalls was in rehab
for an Internet addiction. But do not be surprised if one day you encounter a
salesman resembling Christopher Guest on a visit to a hat shop, or if next
year's lineup of Broadway openings includes the long-awaited St. Hubbins rock
opera, Saucy Jack
May 6, 2004
Final episode of Friends
airs on NBC
At 9:00 p.m. Eastern and
Pacific times on this day in 2004, that familiar theme song (“I’ll Be There For
You” by the Rembrandts) announces the beginning of the end, as an estimated
51.1 million people tune in for the final original episode of NBC’s long-running
comedy series Friends.
Created and executive-produced (with Kevin S. Bright) by Marta Kauffman and
David Crane, Friends debuted 10 years and 236 episodes earlier, on
September 22, 1994. Shot at the Warner Brothers studios in Burbank, California,
the show was set in New York City’s Greenwich Village, where six friends
struggled with the ups-and-downs of young adult life in the big city--albeit
while living in an impossibly large, cushy apartment, apparently without the
burden of having to spend much time working actual jobs. Almost from the
beginning of its decade-long run, Friends was a cultural phenomenon,
winning six Emmy Awards (including one for Outstanding Comedy Series), sparking
hairstyle trends (“the Rachel”), spawning catch phrases (“How you doin?”)
and turning its six principal cast members into household names.
Preceded by a maelstrom of hype and publicity, the hour-long Friends finale
drew approximately two-thirds of the audience garnered by the finales of two
other long-running sitcoms, Cheers (80.4 million) in 1993 and Seinfeld
(76.2 million) in 1998, according to a Fox News report. The most-watched TV
series finale ever, M*A*S*H, was viewed by some 105 million people when
it aired in 1983. According to the New York Times, NBC charged
advertisers an average of $2 million for every 30 seconds of ad time during the
finale--a record amount for a sitcom and only $300,000 less than what CBS
charged during that year’s Super Bowl.
In the finale, the long-running on-and-off relationship between Ross (David
Schwimmer) and Rachel (Jennifer Aniston), which over the years included a
drunken Las Vegas wedding and a baby, Emma, born in 2002, ended as most of the
show’s fans hoped: They got back together, presumably for good. Meanwhile,
Chandler (Matthew Perry) and Monica (Courtney Cox-Arquette) had become
suburbanites and parents of twins, Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) was married, and Joey
(Matt LeBlanc) was headed off to L.A. to pursue his acting career. (A spin-off
sitcom, Joey, followed LeBlanc’s character to Hollywood; the show failed
to attract a significant audience, and was canceled in 2006.)
Throughout the show’s run, its six stars maintained a famously unified
front, ensuring that no one of them emerged as a dominating force onscreen and
even negotiating their salaries together. In the spring of 2000, each member of
the cast signed a two-year, $40 million contract that netted them each a
staggering $1 million per episode. Broadcast in some 100 countries, Friends continues
to earn good ratings for its syndicated rerun episodes.
May
8, 1984
Soviets announce boycott of
1984 Olympics
Claiming
that its athletes will not be safe from protests and possible physical attacks,
the Soviet Union announces that it will not compete in the 1984 Olympics in Los
Angeles. Despite the Soviet statement, it was obvious that the boycott was a
response to the decision of the United States to boycott the 1980 games
that were held in Moscow.
Just
months before the 1984 Olympic games were to begin in Los
Angeles, the Soviet government issued a statement claiming, "It is known
from the very first days of preparations for the present Olympics the American
administration has sought to set course at using the Games for its political
aims. Chauvinistic sentiments and anti-Soviet hysteria are being whipped up in
this country." Russian officials went on to claim that protests against
the Soviet athletes were likely to break out in Los Angeles and that they
doubted whether American officials would try to contain such outbursts. The
administration of President Ronald Reagan responded to these charges
by declaring that the Soviet boycott was "a blatant political decision for
which there was no real justification."
In
the days following the Soviet announcement, 13 other communist nations issued
similar statements and refused to attend the games. The Soviets, who had been
stung by the U.S. refusal to attend the 1980 games in Moscow because of the
Russian intervention in Afghanistan in 1979, were turning the tables by
boycotting the 1984 games in America. The diplomatic impact of the action was
quite small. The impact on the games themselves, however, was immense. Without
competition from the Soviet Union, East Germany, and other communist nations,
the United States swept to an Olympic record of 83 gold medals.
May 8, 1984
"Well,
what can I say? Both of our children are married now and they’re starting out
to build lives of their own. And I guess when you reach a milestone like this
you have to have to reflect back on, on what you’ve done and, and what you’ve
accomplished. Marion and I have not climbed Mount Everest or written a great
American novel. But we’ve had the joy of raising two wonderful kids, and
watching them and their friends grow up into loving adults. And now, we’re
gonna have the pleasure of watching them pass that love on to their children.
And I guess no man or woman could ask for anything more. So thank you all for
being, part of our family… ToHappy Days."
