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"
NBC Nightly News
aired footage of the severe drought in Ethiopia.
October 25, 1924
Billy Barty was born William John Bertanzetti.
Barty was one of the most famous 20th century people
with dwarfism. Barty, an Italian American, was born in Millsboro, Pennsylvania. He was a member of the gang in the Mickey McGuire
serial of silent shorts (a children's comedy series of the 1920s, similar in
tone to the "Our Gang"/"Little Rascals" comedies, starring
a very young Mickey
Rooney in the title role). In The
Gold Diggers of 1933, a
nine-year-old Barty appeared as a baby who escapes from his stroller. Because
of his stature, much of his work consisted of bit parts and gag roles, although
he was featured prominently in W.C.
Fields and Me (1976), Foul Play and The Lord of the Rings (both 1978), Under the Rainbow (1981), Night Patrol (1984), Legend (1985), Masters
of the Universe (1987), Willow (1988), UHF (1989), Life Stinks and Radioland Murders (1994). Barty was known for his boundless energy and
enthusiasm for any productions in which he appeared. He also performed a
remarkable impression of pianist Liberace. He performed with the Spike Jones musical comedy show on stage and television. He was
also the evil side kick on the 1970s Saturday morning TV series Dr. Shrinker.
Barty also starred in a local Southern California children's show,
"Billy Barty's Bigtop," in the mid-1960s, which regularly showed The Three Stooges shorts. In one program,
Stooge Moe Howard visited the set as a surprise
guest. The program gave many Los Angeles-area children their first opportunity
to become familiar with little people, who until then had been rarely glimpsed
on the screen except as two-dimensional curiousities.
Barty also starred as "Sigmund" in the popular children's t.v.
show "Sigmund and the Sea Monsters" produced by Sid and Marty Krofft
in 1974-1976. In 1983, Barty supplied the voice for Figment
in EPCOT Center's Journey Into
Imagination dark ride. He subsequently supplied a reprisal for the
second incarnation, though very brief.
Barty was married to Shirley Bolingbroke of Malad City, Idaho, from 1962 until his
death at age 76. They had two children, Lori Neilson and TV/film producer and
director Braden Barty.
Until the time of his death, Barty was a beloved annual guest-star on
Canada's Telemiracle telethon, one of the most successful (per capita)
telethons in the world.
Coogan began his movie career as a child actor in silent films. Many years later, he became
known as Uncle Fester on The Addams Family (TV show, 1964-1966). In the
interim, he shocked the United States by suing his mother and stepfather over
his squandered film earnings and provoked California to enact the first known
legal protection for the earnings of child performers.
He began his acting career as an infant in both vaudeville and film, with an uncredited
role in the 1917 film Skinner's
Baby. Charlie Chaplin
discovered him in a Los Angeles
vaudeville house, doing the shimmy, a popular dance
at the time, on the stage. His father, Jack Coogan, Sr. was also an actor. The
boy was a natural mimic, and delighted Chaplin with his abilities in this area.
As a child actor, he is best remembered for his role as Charlie Chaplin's irascible sidekick in the
film classic The Kid
(1921) and for the title role in Oliver Twist,
directed by Frank Lloyd, the
following year. He was also the first star to get heavily merchandised, with
peanut butter, stationery, whistles, dolls, records, and figurines just being a
sample of the Coogan merchandise. He also travelled internationally to huge
crowds. Many of his early films are lost or unavailable, but Turner Classic
Movies recently presented The Rag Man with a new score.
Coogan was famous for his pageboy haircut and his The Kid outfit of
oversized overalls and cap, which was widely imitated, including by the young Scotty Beckett in the Our Gang films.
Jackie Coogan has his hand and foot prints in concrete out front of
Grauman's Chinese Theater (now Mann's Chinese Theater), Ceremony #19, on
December 12, 1931 (his former wife Betty Grable, Ceremony #68, on February 15,
1943 also). He also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in front of 1654
Vine Street, just south of Hollywood Blvd.
As a child star, Coogan earned an estimated $3 to 4 million, but the money
was taken by his mother, Lilian, and stepfather, Arthur Bernstein, for
extravagances such as fur coats, diamonds, and cars. He sued them in 1938 (at
age 23), but after legal expenses, he only received $126,000 of the approx.
$250,000 left. When Coogan fell on hard times, Charlie Chaplin gave him some
financial support.
The legal battle did, however, bring attention to child actors and resulted
in the state of California enacting
the California Child Actor's Bill,
sometimes known as the Coogan Bill
or the Coogan Act. This requires
that the child's employer set aside 15% of the child's earnings in a trust, and
codifies such issues as schooling, work hours and time-off. Jackie's mother and
stepfather attempted to soften the situation by pointing out that the child was
having fun and thought he was playing. However, virtually every child star from
Baby Peggy on has stated that they were
keenly aware that what they were doing was work.
October 27, 1954
Disneyland,
Walt Disney's first television series, premieres on ABC.
The one-hour show,
introduced by Tinkerbell, presented a rotating selection of cartoons, dramas,
movies, and other entertainment. The show ran for 34 years under various names,
including Walt Disney Presents and The Wonderful World of Disney.
The program was the longest-running prime-time series on network TV.
The World Series
was televised in color for the first time.
The game was between the New
York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers.
September 29th, 1960
My Three Sons first
aired.
The series ran from 1960 to
1965 on ABC, and moved to CBS until its end on August 24, 1972. My
Three Sons chronicles the life of a widower and aeronautical
engineer named Steven Douglas (Fred MacMurray),
raising his three sons. The series also starred William Frawley as
the boy’s live-in maternal grandfather, Bub. Frawley, was replaced in 1965
by William Demarest due to Frawley’s health issues.
September 29, 1985
The pilot episode of
"MacGyver" aired on ABC.
MacGyver is an American
action-adventure television series created by Lee David Zlotoff. Henry Winkler and John Rich were the executive producers. The show ran for seven seasons
on ABC in
the United States and various other networks abroad from 1985 to 1992. The series was filmed in Los Angeles during seasons one,
two, and seven, and in Vancouver during seasons three
through six. The show's final episode aired on April 25, 1992 on ABC (the
network aired a previously unseen episode for the first time on May 21, 1992,
but it was originally intended to air before the series finale).
The
show follows secret
agent MacGyver,
played by Richard Dean Anderson, who works as a troubleshooter for the fictional
Phoenix Foundation in Los Angeles and as an agent for a fictional United States
government agency, the Department of External Services (DXS).
Educated as a scientist, MacGyver served as a Bomb Team Technician/EOD during the Vietnam War("Countdown").
Resourceful and possessed of an encyclopedic knowledge of the physical sciences, he solves complex problem
by making things out of stuff, along with his ever-present Swiss Army knife. He prefers non-violent
resolutions and prefers not to handle a gun.
The series was a moderate
ratings success, but had a loyal following and was popular in the United States
and around the world. Two television movies, MacGyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis and MacGyver: Trail to Doomsday, aired on ABC in 1994. A
spin-off series, Young MacGyver, was planned in 2003, but only
the pilot was made. Merchandise for MacGyver includes games
and toys, print media and an original audio series. A feature film based on the
series is being developed.
September 30, 1960
The
Flintstones Premiered.
The
Flintstones ran from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966 on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The
Flintstones is about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family Fred
& WilmaFlintstone
and his next door neighbors and best friends Barney
& Betty Rubble.
Critics and fans alike agree that the show was an animated imitation of The Honeymooners with rock puns thrown
in. It aired during an era when color
television was becoming popular in America. Its popularity rested heavily
on its juxtaposition of modern-day concerns in the Stone Age
setting. The Flintstones also became the first primetime animated
series to last more than two seasons this record wasn't surpassed by another
primetime animated TV series until the third season of The Simpsons in 1992.
The show is set in the town of Bedrock where dinosaurs, saber-toothed tigers, woolly mammoths,
and other long extinct animals co-exist with barefoot cavemen. Like their 20th
century peers, these cavemen listen to records, live in split-level homes, and
eat out at restaurants, yet their technology is made entirely from
pre-industrial materials and largely powered through the use of various
animals. For example, the cars are made out of stone, wood, and animal skins,
and powered by the passengers' feet.
It has been noted that Fred Flintstone physically resembled voice actor Alan Reed,
and also Jackie Gleason. The voice of Barney was provided by
legendary voice actor Mel Blanc, though five episodes (the 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th,
and 9th) during the second season employed Hanna-Barbera regular Daws Butler
while Blanc was incapacitated by a near-fatal car accident. Blanc was able to
return to the series much sooner than expected, by virtue of a temporary
recording studio for the entire cast set up at Blanc's bedside. It should be
noted, however, that Blanc's portrayal of Barney Rubble had changed
considerably after the accident. In the earliest episodes, Blanc had used a
much higher pitch. After his recovery from the accident, Blanc used a deeper
voice. Additional similarities with The Honeymooners included the fact that
Reed based Fred's voice upon Jackie
Gleason's interpretation of Ralph
Kramden, while Blanc, after a season of using a nasal, high-pitched voice
for Barney, eventually adopted a style of voice similar to that used by Art Carney
in his portrayal of Ed Norton. The first time that the Art Carney-like voice
was used was for a few seconds in "The Prowler" (the third episode
produced).
In a 1986 Playboy
interview, Jackie Gleason said that Alan Reed had done voice-overs for Gleason
in his early movies, and that he (Gleason) considered suing Hanna-Barbera for
copying The Honeymooners but decided to let it pass. According to Henry
Corden, who took over as the voice of Fred Flintstone after Alan Reed died,
and was a friend of Gleason’s, “Jackie’s lawyers told him that he could
probably have The Flintstones pulled right off the air. But they also
told him, “Do you want to be known as the guy who yanked Fred Flintstone off
the air? The guy who took away a show that so many kids love, and so many
parents love, too?”
Although most Flintstones episodes are stand-alone storylines, the series did
have a few story
arcs. The most notable example was a series of episodes surrounding the
birth of Pebbles. Beginning with the episode "The
Surprise", aired midway through the third season (1/25/63), in which Wilma
reveals her pregnancy to Fred, the arc continued through the trials and
tribulations leading up to Pebbles' birth in the episode "Dress
Rehearsal" (2/22/63), and then continued with several episodes showing
Fred and Wilma adjusting to the world of parenthood. A postscript to the arc
occurred in the third episode of the fourth season, in which the Rubbles,
depressed over being unable to have children of their own (making The
Flintstones the first animated series in history to address the issue of
infertility, though subtly), adopt Bamm-Bamm. The 100th episode made (but the
90th to air), Little Bamm-Bamm (10/3/63), established how Bamm-Bamm was
adopted. About nine episodes were made before it, but shown after, which
explains why Bamm-Bamm would not be seen again until episode 101, Daddies
Anonymous (Bamm-Bamm was in a teaser on episode 98, Kleptomaniac Pebbles).
Another story arc, occurring in the final season, centered on Fred and Barney's
dealings with The Great Gazoo (voiced by Harvey
Korman).
The Flintstones was the first American animated show to depict two
people of the opposite sex (Fred and Wilma; Barney and Betty) sleeping together
in one bed, although Fred and Wilma are sometimes depicted as sleeping in
separate beds. For comparison, the first live-action depiction of this in
American TV history was in television's first-ever sitcom: 1947's Mary Kay and
Johnny.
The show contained a laugh track, common to most other sitcoms of the
period. In the mid-1990s, when Turner Networks remastered the episodes, the
original laugh track was removed. Currently, the shows airing on Boomerang and the DVD releases have the
original laugh track restored to most episodes (a number of episodes from
Seasons 1 and 2 still lack them). Some episodes, however, have a newer laugh
track dubbed in, apparently replacing the old one. Because of this practice,
the only episode to originally air without a laugh track ("Sheriff For a
Day" in 1965) now has one.
Following the show's cancellation in 1966, a film based upon the series was
created. The Man
Called Flintstone was a musicalspy caper that
parodied James
Bond and other secret agents. The movie was released to theaters on August
3, 1966 by Columbia Pictures. It was released on DVD in
Canada in March 2005 and in United States in December 2008.
Baywatch Nights began airing in
syndication. The original premise of the show was that, during a midlife
crisis, Sgt. Garner Ellerbee (Gregory Alan Williams), who was the
resident police officer of Baywatch since
the beginning of the series, decides to quit his job as a police officer and
form a detectiveagency. Mitch
Buchannon (David Hasselhoff), his friend from Baywatch,
joins to support him and they are, in turn, joined by a detective named Ryan
McBride (Angie Harmon). Singer Lou Rawls,
who starred in the first season, performed the series theme song, "After
the Sun Goes Down". Mid-way into the first season, the show added two new
cast members (Eddie Cibrian and Donna
D'Errico).
During the second season, facing slipping ratings which
were never as good as the original series, the producers decided to switch to
a science fiction format (inspired by the
success of The X-Files). Gregory Alan Williams left the
series and was replaced by Dorian
Gregory as Diamont Teague, a paranormal expert.
The new format did not help the series and it was canceled after the second
season. The character Donna Marco was later carried over to the
original Baywatch series afterwards.
October 1, 1955
The
Honeymooners debuts on CBS.
The TV comedy, which starred Jackie
Gleason, enjoyed enduring popularity despite the fact that it aired only 39
episodes.
The show originated in
1951 as a sketch on Gleason's variety show Cavalcade of Stars. He
continued the sketches when he launched a new program, The Jackie Gleason
Show, in 1952. In these skits, Gleason played bus driver Ralph Kramden, and
Audrey Meadows played his long-suffering wife, Alice, who deflated his
get-rich-quick schemes but often saved the day. Art Carney played friend and
sidekick Ed Norton, and Joyce Randolph played Ed's wife, Trixie.
In a departure from most
TV shows at the time, The Honeymooners was filmed in front of a live
audience and broadcast at a later date. To allow Gleason more time to pursue
other producing projects, he taped two episodes a week, leaving him free for
several months at the end of the season.
Unfortunately,
the two shows did not do as well with audiences as Gleason had hoped, and only
39 episodes of the The Honeymooners aired. In 1956, Gleason returned to
his hour-long variety format, occasionally including Honeymooners skits.
In 1966, he began creating hour-long Honeymooners episodes, which he
aired in lieu of his usual variety format. From 1966 to 1970, about half of
Gleason's shows were these hour-long episodes. In 1971, the episodes were
rebroadcast as their own series. On May 9, 1971, the final episode aired.
October 2, 1985
Rock Hudson dies of AIDS in Beverly Hills, California.
Earlier that same year, Hudson announced through a
press release that he was suffering from the disease, becoming the first major
celebrity to go public with such a diagnosis. The first cases of AIDS, a
condition caused by a virus that attacks and destroys the human immune system,
were reported in homosexual men in the United States in the early 1980s. At the
time of Hudson’s death, AIDS was not fully understood by the medical community
and was stigmatized by the general public as a condition affecting only gay
men, intravenous drug users and people who received contaminated blood
transfusions.
Hudson was born Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., on November 17, 1925, in Winnetka,
Illinois. He rose to fame in the 1950s, starring in such films as Giant (1956),
for which he received an Academy Award nomination,and A Farewell to
Arms (1957). Hudson’s good looks and charm were on full display in 1959’s Pillow
Talk and several other romantic comedies he made with Doris Day in the
early 1960s. In the 1970s, Hudson co-starred in the popular TV series McMillan
and Wife. Early in the next decade, he began experiencing health problems
and underwent heart bypass surgery. His final TV role was a recurring part on Dynasty
from 1984 to 1985.
In July 1985, Hudson was hospitalized while in Paris. Some media reports
indicated that he was suffering from liver cancer. However, on July 25, Hudson
issued a press release stating he had AIDS and was in France for treatment. Hudson,
who had a three-year marriage during the 1950s to a woman who had been his
agent’s secretary, never spoke publicly about his sexuality.
Hudson’s death was credited with bringing attention to an epidemic that
would go on to kill millions of men, women and children of all backgrounds from
around the world. Hudson’s friend and former Giant co-star Elizabeth
Taylor became an AIDS activist and rallied the Hollywood community to raise
millions for research. In 1993, Tom Hanks received a Best Actor Oscar for his
performance in the director Jonathan Demme’s Philadelphia, the first
major Hollywood movie to focus on AIDS.
October 3, 1955
Captain Kangaroo
premiered.
Captain Kangaroo is a children's television series which aired weekday
mornings on CBS for nearly 30 years,
from October 3, 1955 until December 8, 1984, making it the longest-running
nationally broadcast children's television program of its day. In 1986, the American Program Service
(now American Public Television, Boston) integrated some
newly produced segments into reruns of past episodes,
distributing the newer version of the series until 1993.
The show was conceived
and the title character played by Bob
Keeshan,
who based the show on "the warm relationship between grandparents and
children." Keeshan had portrayed the original Clarabell the Clown on The Howdy
Doody Show when it aired on NBC.
Captain Kangaroo had a loose structure,
built around life in the "Treasure House" where the Captain (whose
name came from the big pockets in his coat) would tell stories, meet guests,
and indulge in silly stunts with regular characters, both humans and puppets.
The show was telecast live to the East Coast and the Midwest for its first four
years (and broadcast on kinescope for the West Coast, as Keeshan would not
perform the show live three times a day) and was in black-and-white until 1968. The May 17,
1971 episode saw two major changes on the show: The Treasure House was
renovated and renamed "The Captain's Place" and the Captain replaced
his black coat with a red coat. In September 1981, CBS shortened the hour-long
show to a half-hour, briefly retitled it Wake Up with the Captain, and
moved it to an earlier time slot; it was later moved to weekends in September
1982, and returned to an hour-long format. It was canceled by CBS at the end of
1984. In the early years of the series, Keeshan wore make-up in order to look
suitably old for the character he was playing, but the show ran for so long
that by the end, he was wearing make-up to look younger.
In 1997–1998, a sequel
revival series tentatively titled The
All New Captain Kangaroo was attempted by Saban Entertainment. John
McDonough played the Captain on this version, which was shot in Tampa,
Florida.
Keeshan was invited to appear as a special guest called "The
Admiral," but after seeing sample episodes, he declined to appear or have
any association with the new incarnation. It ran for one season and inspired a
spin-off show, Mister Moose's Fun Time.
October 3, 1955
ABC aired The
Mickey MouseClub for the first
time.
The Mickey Mouse Club was Walt Disney's second venture into producing
a television series, the first being the Walt
Disney anthology television series,
initially titled Disneyland. Disney used both shows to help finance
and promote the building of the Disneyland theme park. Being busy with these projects and
others, Disney turned The Mickey Mouse Club over to Bill Walsh to create and develop the format, initially
aided by Hal
Adelquist.
The result was a variety show for
children, with such regular features as a newsreel, a cartoon, and a serial, as
well as music, talent and comedy segments. One unique feature of the show was
the Mouseketeer Roll Call, in which many (but not all) of that day's line-up of
regular performers would introduce themselves by name to the television
audience. In the serials, teens faced challenges in everyday situations, often
overcome by their common sense or through recourse to the advice of respected
elders. Mickey Mouse himself appeared in every show not only in vintage
cartoons originally made for theatrical release, but in opening, interstitial
and closing segments made especially for the show. In both the vintage cartoons
and in the new animated segments, Mickey was voiced by his creator Walt Disney. (Disney had previously voiced the character
theatrically from 1928 to 1947, and then was replaced by sound effects artist Jimmy
MacDonald.)
October 3, 1960
"The
Andy Griffith Show" Premiered.
There are many great
comedic characters on TV, but many of these comedic characters went to a
farcical extreme. Some even dropped I.Q. points for the sake of a joke. Andy
Griffith felt that the integrity of Mayberry’s citizens was more important than
a punch line.
Sheldon Leonard, producer of The Danny Thomas Show and Danny Thomas, hired veteran comedy writer Arthur Stander (who had written many of
the Danny Thomas episodes) to create a pilot show for Andy Griffith which
featured him as justice of the peace and newspaper editor in a small town.
On February 15, 1960, "Danny Meets Andy Griffith" was telecast on The
Danny Thomas Show. In the episode, Griffith played fictional Sheriff Andy
Taylor of Mayberry, North Carolina, who arrests Thomas for
running a stop sign. Future players in The Andy Griffith Show, Frances Bavier
and Ron Howard, appeared in the episode as townspeople, Henrietta Perkins, and
Sheriff Taylor's son, Opie. General Foods,
sponsor of The Danny Thomas Show, had first access to the spinoff and committed to it immediately. On October 3, 1960
at 9:30 p.m., The Andy Griffith Show made its debut. Andy is teamed with an
inept but well-meaning deputy, Barney Fife (Don Knotts),
has a spinster aunt and housekeeper, Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier),
and a young son, Opie (Ron Howard, billed as Ronny).
Initially, Griffith played Taylor
as a heavy-handed country bumpkin, grinning from ear to ear and speaking in a
hesitant, frantic manner. The style recalled that used in the delivery of his
popular monologues such as "What it Was,
Was Football". He gradually
abandoned the 'rustic Taylor' and developed a serious and thoughtful
characterization.
Producer Aaron Ruben recalled:
"He was being that marvelously funny character from No Time for
Sergeants, Will Stockdale [a role
Griffith played on stage and in film]...One day he said, 'My God, I just
realized that I'm the straight man. I'm playing straight to all these kooks
around me.' He didn't like himself [in first year reruns]...and in the next
season he changed, becoming this Lincolnesque
character."
As Griffith stopped portraying some of the sheriffs more unsophisticated
character traits and mannerisms, it was impossible for him to create his own
problems and troubles in the manner of other central sitcom characters such as
Lucy in I Love Lucy or Archie Bunker in All in the Family, whose problems were the
result of their temperaments, philosophies and attitudes. Consequently, the
characters around Taylor were employed to create the problems and troubles,
with rock-solid Taylor stepping in as problem solver, mediator, advisor,
disciplinarian and counselor. Aunt Bee, for example, was given several wayward
romances requiring Andy's intervention, Opie suffered childhood missteps that
needed a father's counsel and discipline, and Barney engaged in ill-considered
acts on the job that required Sheriff Taylor's professional oversight and
reprimand. Andy Griffith has also said that he realized during the earlier
episodes of the program that it was much funnier for him to play the straight
man to Knotts' "Barney," rather than his being the originator of the
comedic scenes between them.
Andy's friends and neighbors include barber Floyd
Lawson (Howard McNear), service station attendants and
cousins Gomer
Pyle (Jim
Nabors) and Goober Pyle (George
Lindsey), and local drunkard Otis
Campbell (Hal Smith). On the distaff side, townswoman Clara
Edwards (Hope Summers), Barney's sweetheart Thelma Lou
(Betty
Lynn) and Andy's schoolteacher sweetheart Helen Crump
(Aneta
Corsaut) become semi-regulars. Elinor
Donahue made twelve appearances as Andy's girlfriend in the first season.
In the color seasons, County Clerk Howard
Sprague (Jack Dodson) and handyman Emmett Clark (Paul
Hartman) appeared regularly, while Barney's replacement deputy Warren
Ferguson (Jack Burns) appeared in the sixth season. Unseen
characters such as telephone operator Sarah, and Barney's love interest, local
diner waitress Juanita Beasley, as mentioned in first season episode "Andy
Forecloses", are often referenced. In the series' last few episodes,
farmer Sam Jones (Ken Berry) debuts, and later becomes the star of the
show's sequel series, Mayberry R.F.D..
Knotts left the show at the end of the fifth season to pursue a career in
films but returned to make five guest appearances as Barney in seasons six
through eight. His last appearance in the final season in a story about a
summit meeting with Russian dignitaries "ranked eleventh among single
comedy programs most watched in television between 1960 to [1984], with an
audience of thirty-three and a half million."
The color episodes of the
show in its later years are markedly different from the black and white
episodes of the first five seasons, and are generally far less popular with
fans of the show. New writers took over the scriptwriting for the post-Knotts
color seasons, and they generally abandoned the character-based sitcom format
in favor of dry humor revolving around rather mundane aspects of life in a
small town. Finally, it has also been observed that Griffith's character
underwent another metamorphosis when the show went to color. While the original
"country bumpkin" Sheriff Taylor had already been replaced during the
black and white years by a somewhat less country-acting character, the Sheriff
Taylor of the color episodes is a sophisticated, almost urbane man, to the
point that he often seems, contrary to the Sheriff Taylor of the black and
white episodes, to be discontent, irritated and fed up with life in Mayberry
(as Andy Griffith was in fact trying to figure out a way to leave the series).
Many of the color episodes revolve around Andy's being agitated about something
by one of the other characters (quite often Goober or Warren, but sometimes
Howard, Aunt Bee or Opie).
The show was filmed at Desilu Studios,
with exteriors filmed at Forty Acres
in Culver City, CA. Woodsy locales were filmed north of Beverly Hills
at Franklin Canyon. The show's theme music, "The Fishin'
Hole", was composed by Earle Hagen
and Herbert Spencer, with lyrics written by Everett Sloane.
Whistling in the opening sequence, as well as the closing credits sequence, was
performed by Earle Hagen. One of the show's tunes, "The Mayberry
March", was reworked a number of times in different tempi, styles and
orchestrations as background music.
The show's sole sponsor was General Foods,
with promotional consideration paid for (in the form of cars) by Ford Motor Company (mentioned in the credits).
In the last episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, the character Sam
Jones, played by Ken Berry, was introduced and a sequel series, Mayberry R.F.D., was fashioned around him for the fall of 1968 (in
essence replacing Andy Griffith — the '68 season would be his last).
Several performers reprised their original roles in the sequel, with Bavier
becoming Sam's housekeeper. To create a smooth transition from the original
series to Mayberry, Andy and Helen were married in the first episode, remained
for a few additional episodes, and then left the show, with a move to Raleigh
being the explanation given the audience. After the sequel series' cancellation
in 1971, George Lindsey played a Goober-like character over several years on
the popular variety show Hee Haw.
In 1986, the reunion telemovieReturn to Mayberry was broadcast with several cast members reprising
their original roles. Absent, however, was Frances Bavier.
She was living in Siler City,
North Carolina in ill health, and
declined to participate. In the telemovie, Aunt Bee is portrayed as deceased,
with Andy visiting her grave.
I think there is a lot of
Barney in all of us. We may strive to be like Andy Taylor, act like Andy Taylor
and may even fool ourselves into thinking that we are Andy Taylor. But we are
really are Barney Fife full of good intentions but with a bullet in our pocket.
October 3, 1995
O.J. Simpson acquitted.
At the end of a sensational
trial, former football star O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the brutal 1994 double
murder of his estranged wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald
Goldman. In the epic 252-day trial, Simpson’s “dream team” of lawyers employed
creative and controversial methods to convince jurors that Simpson’s guilt had
not been proved “beyond a reasonable doubt,” thus surmounting what the
prosecution called a “mountain of evidence” implicating him as the murderer.
Orenthal James Simpson–a
Heisman Trophy winner, star running back with the Buffalo Bills, and popular
television personality–married Nicole Brown in 1985. He reportedly regularly
abused his wife and in 1989 pleaded no contest to a charge of spousal battery.
In 1992, she left him and filed for divorce. On the night of June 12, 1994,
Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were stabbed and slashed to death in
the front yard of Mrs. Simpson’s condominium in Brentwood, Los Angeles. By June
17, police had gathered enough evidence to charge O.J. Simpson with the
murders.
Simpson had no alibi for the
time frame of the murders. Some 40 minutes after the murders were committed, a
limousine driver sent to take Simpson to the airport saw a man in dark clothing
hurrying up the drive of his Rockingham estate. A few minutes later, Simpson
spoke to the driver though the gate phone and let him in. During the previous
25 minutes, the driver had repeatedly called the house and received no answer.
A single leather glove found
outside Simpson’s home matched a glove found at the crime scene. In preliminary
DNA tests, blood found on the glove was shown to have come from Simpson and the
two victims. After his arrest, further DNA tests would confirm this finding.
Simpson had a wound on his hand, and his blood was a DNA match to drops found
at the Brentwood crime scene. Nicole Brown Simpson’s blood was discovered on a
pair of socks found at the Rockingham estate. Simpson had recently purchased a
“Stiletto” knife of the type the coroner believed was used by the killer. Shoe
prints in the blood at Brentwood matched Simpson’s shoe size and later were
shown to match a type of shoe he had owned. Neither the knife nor shoes were
found by police.
On June 17, a warrant was put
out for Simpson’s arrest, but he refused to surrender. Just before 7 p.m.,
police located him in a white Ford Bronco being driven by his friend, former
teammate Al Cowlings. Cowlings refused to pull over and told police over his
cellular phone that Simpson was suicidal and had a gun to his head. Police
agreed not to stop the vehicle by force, and a low-speed chase ensued. Los
Angeles news helicopters learned of the event unfolding on their freeways, and
live television coverage began. As millions watched, the Bronco was escorted
across Los Angeles by a phalanx of police cars. Just before 8 p.m., the
dramatic journey ended when Cowlings pulled into the Rockingham estate. After
an hour of tense negotiation, Simpson emerged from the vehicle and surrendered.
In the vehicle was found a travel bag containing, among other things, Simpson’s
passport, a disguise kit consisting of a fake moustache and beard, and a
revolver. Three days later, Simpson appeared before a judge and pleaded not
guilty.
Simpson’s subsequent criminal
trial was a sensational media event of unprecedented proportions. It was the
longest trial ever held in California, and courtroom television cameras
captured the carnival-like atmosphere of the proceedings. The prosecution’s
mountain of evidence was systemically called into doubt by Simpson’s team of
expensive attorneys, who made the dramatic case that their client was framed by
unscrupulous and racist police officers. Citing the questionable character of
detective Mark Fuhrman and alleged blunders in the police investigation,
defense lawyers painted Simpson as yet another African American victim of the
white judicial system. The jurors’ reasonable doubt grew when the defense spent
weeks attacking the damning DNA evidence, arguing in overly technical terms
that delays and other anomalies in the gathering of evidence called the
findings into question. Critics of the trial accused Judge Lance Ito of losing
control of his courtroom.
In polls, a majority of African
Americans believed Simpson to be innocent of the crime, while white America was
confident of his guilt. However, the jury–made up of nine African Americans,
two whites, and one Hispanic–was not so divided; they took just four hours of
deliberation to reach the verdict of not guilty on both murder charges. On
October 3, 1995, an estimated 140 million Americans listened in on radio or
watched on television as the verdict was delivered.
In February 1997, Simpson was
found liable for several charges related to the murders in a civil trial and
was forced to award $33.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages to the
victims’ families. However, with few assets remaining after his long and costly
legal battle, he has avoided paying the damages.
In 2007, Simpson ran into
legal problems once again when he was arrested for breaking into a Las Vegas
hotel room and taking sports memorabilia, which he claimed had been stolen from
him, at gunpoint. On October 3, 2008, he was found guilty of 12 charges related
to the incident, including armed robbery and kidnapping, and sentenced to 33
years in prison.
October 4, 1990
Beverly Hills, 90210 debuts on Fox.
Created by Darren Star and produced by Aaron
Spelling, the show turned its relatively unknown cast of actors, including Luke
Perry, Jason Priestley and Tori Spelling (Aaron’s daughter), into household
names. It also tackled a number of topical issues ranging from domestic abuse
to teen pregnancy to AIDS and paved the way for other popular teen dramas,
including Dawson’s Creek and The O.C.
Beverly Hills, 90210 originally centered around Brenda (Shannen
Dougherty) and Brandon Walsh (Priestley), middle-class high-school-age twins
from Minnesota who relocate to ritzy Beverly Hills with their parents. The
Walshes attend the fictional West Beverly Hills High School, along with bad boy
Dylan (Perry), popular blonde Kelly (Jennie Garth), rich kid Steve (Ian
Ziering), virginal Donna (Spelling) and nerdy David (Brian Austin Green). Over
the course of the show’s 10 seasons, the characters became entangled in
numerous love triangles, graduated from high school and moved on to college and
careers.
The show was the first big hit for the screenwriter and producer Darren
Star, who went on to create the 90210 spinoff Melrose Place,
which originally aired from 1992 to 1999, and the popular HBO TV series Sex
and the City, which originally aired from 1998 to 2004. Aaron Spelling, who
died in 2006 at the age of 83, was one of the most prolific producers in the
history of television. Spelling’s credits include The Mod Squad, Charlie’s
Angels, Dynasty, Starsky and Hutch, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island and
7th Heaven.
The final episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 aired on May
17, 2000. A new version of the show, titled 90210, premiered on
September 2, 2008. The show follows a Kansas family who moves to Beverly Hills.
Of the original Beverly Hills, 90210, cast, Jennie Garth reprises her
role as Kelly, now a guidance counselor at West Beverly Hills High, while
Shannon Doherty has guest starred as Brenda, who has become an actress.
