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"
Here is another "Mental Sorbet" that we could use to momentarily forget about those things that leave a bad taste in our mouths.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas!the 1966animatedtelevision special was directed by Chuck Jones. It is based on the children's book of the same title by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel), the story of The Grinch trying to take away Christmas from the townsfolk below. The special, which is considered a short film as it runs less than an hour, is one of the very few Christmas specials from the 1960's to still be shown regularly on television. Boris Karloff narrates the film and also provides the speaking voice of The Grinch (the opening credits state, "The sounds of the Grinch are by Boris Karloff. And read by Boris Karloff, too!").
The 26-minute short was originally telecast on CBS on December 18, 1966. CBS repeated it annually during the Christmas season until 1987. It was eventually acquired by Turner Broadcasting System, which now shows it several times between November and January. It has since been broadcast on TNT, Cartoon Network, and The WB Television Network. Most recently, it has been shown on ABC, but with some scenes trimmed down because of time constraints (the show was made at a time when commercial breaks on television were shorter than they are now). In any event, as of the present time, it is the lead-off "classic" special (i.e. the first classic special) that airs on network television each Christmas season.
As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history, the more that fact and legend become intertwined. It's hard to say where the truth really lies.
December 7, 1990 Actress Joan Bennett dies at the age of 80.
Bennett came from a family of actors: Her parents acted on the stage, and her two sisters became screen actresses. Born in 1910 in Palisades, New Jersey, Bennett attended boarding schools in Connecticut and France. Married at age 16, she had a child the following year and then divorced at age 18. She made her stage debut the same year and soon began appearing in movies. In 1929, she landed her first starring role, in the film Bulldog Drummond. She went on to star in many well-known films, including Little Women (1933). In 1940, Bennett married producer Walter Wanger and began landing her most important roles, including Man Hunt (1941), The Woman in the Window (1944), and The Secret Behind the Door (1948), all directed by Fritz Lang. Her marriage was troubled, however: In 1952, Wanger was convicted of shooting Bennett's agent in a jealous rage and served several months in jail. Still, the couple stayed married until 1962. Bennett continued making films, including Father of the Bride, in which she starred as the mother of a young bride played by Elizabeth Taylor. In the 1960s and '70s, Bennett focused on stage plays, and from 1966 to 1971 she starred in the daytime serial Dark Shadows. She appeared in her last film, an Italian horror movie called Suspiria, in 1977.
December 8, 1964 William Bendix dies. Bendix played Riley on the radio series The Life of Riley from 1941 to 1951. Meanwhile, the show debuted on television in 1949. At first, young comedian Jackie Gleason played Chester on TV, but Bendix resumed the role in 1953 and kept it until the show was canceled in 1958.
December 8, 1980 John Lennon, is murdered by a deranged fan in front of his New York apartment building.
Lennon was born in 1940 in Liverpool, England. As a boy, Lennon lived with his aunt after his father left the family. Lennon attended Quarry Bank High School, from which he derived the name for his first band, the Quarrymen, formed in 1955. In 1956, he met Paul McCartney, who joined the band, and the two began writing songs together. George Harrison joined the band in 1957, and the three played together under several different names and with varying members until 1960, when they adopted the name the Beatles. The band toured German beerhouses in 1961 and debuted later that year at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, where they gave more than 300 performances during the next two years. Drummer Ringo Starr joined the group in 1962. The group scored several U.K. hits in 1963, launching the "Beatlemania" tidal wave that hit the United States in 1964. In a little more than 10 years, the group transformed rock and roll, scoring 20 No. 1 hits on the Billboard pop charts, more than any group in history. The group's records spent a total of 59 weeks topping the charts between 1964 and 1970. Lennon divorced his first wife, Cynthia Lennon, the mother of his son Julian, and married artist Yoko Ono in 1969. With Ono, he released the album Two Virgins in 1968. He became more involved in liberal political causes and pursued projects with Ono. In 1970, McCartney announced that the Beatles had broken up. Lennon released his first solo album, Imagine, in 1971, and it rose to No. 1 on the charts. During the next few years, he released projects with Ono as well as his own solo albums, including chart-topper Walls and Bridges (1974). He gave his last public performance in 1974 and released his last solo album, Rock 'n' Roll, the following year. In 1975, Lennon and Ono had a son, Sean, and in 1980 the couple released their album Double Fantasy, which topped the charts and included the No. 1 single "(Just Like) Starting Over."
It was produced and directed by former Warner Bros. and UPA animator Bill Meléndez, who also supplied the voice for the character of Snoopy. Initially sponsored by Coca-Cola, the special aired on CBS from its debut in 1965 through 2000, and has aired on ABC since 2001. For many years it aired only annually, but is now telecast at least twice during the Christmas season. The special has been honored with both an Emmy and Peabody award. A Charlie Brown Christmas is also one of CBS's most successful specials, airing annually more times on that network than even MGM's classic motion picture The Wizard of Oz. Oz was shown thirty-one times on CBS, but not consecutively; between 1968 and 1976, NBC aired the 1939 film.
To quote the Bicentennial Minute, "And that's the way it was".
Actress Lee Meriwether joins Ed and Frankie in the first and second hours to discuss some of her most famous roles on stage, screen and television, including Betty Jones in Barnaby Jones, Dr. Ann McGregor in The Time Tunnel, IMF member Tracey in Mission: Impossible and The Catwoman/Miss Kitka in the original Batman motion picture.
Tony Figueroa remembers The Abbott and Costello Show and such classic TV Christmas specials as Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman during This Week in TV History.
Here is another "Mental Sorbet" that we could use to momentarily forget about those things that leave a bad taste in our mouths.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer made his television debut on NBC in 1964, when Rankin/Bass produced a stop motion animated TV special of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer that became a popular hit in itself. This version was re-broadcast annually many times over the years, even after it was finally released on video and then DVD. It now airs several times during the Christmas season (on CBS rather than NBC), making it the longest-running TV special in terms of consecutive years.
As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history, the more that fact and legend become intertwined. It's hard to say where the truth really lies.
December 5, 1952 The Abbott and Costello Show debuts. They made only 52 episodes, but the show appeared in reruns for decades.
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello teamed up in the early 1930s to form a vaudeville comedy act. The team soon became one of vaudeville's biggest successes. In 1940, they launched their own radio program, which ran until 1949. They made their first film in 1940, One Night in the Tropics, followed by the hit Buck Privates (1941). The pair made more than 30 films together, including a series of horror-movie spoofs, including Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello MeetDr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953), and Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955).
December 6, 1948 Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts debuts.
The show discovered numerous stars, including Rosemary Clooney, Pat Boone, Steve Lawrence, Connie Francis, and Patsy Cline. Elvis Presley flunked his audition for the show in 1955. The show ran for a decade and was canceled in July 1958.
The show was sponsored by General Electric under the umbrella title of The General Electric Fantasy Hour. The special is based on the song by Johnny Marks, which was in turn taken from the 1939 poem of the same title written by Marks' brother-in-law, Robert L. May. Since 1972, the special has aired over CBS, which unveiled a high-definition, digitally remastered version in 2005. As with A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph no longer airs just once annually, but several times during the Christmas season. It has been telecast every year since 1964, making it the longest running Christmas TV special, and one of only four 1960s Christmas specials still being telecast (the others being A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Frosty the Snowman). And again, as with the Charlie Brown special, Rudolph has now been shown more than thirty-one times on CBS, although in this case, CBS was not Rudolph 's original network.
December 6, 1998 Comedian and actor Bill Cosby receives Kennedy Center Honors. Cosby was born in Philadelphia in 1937. He dropped out of high school and joined the navy in 1956, later getting his high school degree by correspondence. In 1960, he entered Temple University on a football scholarship, but by the following year he had become more interested in comedy and began performing regularly in a Greenwich Village nightclub. He went on to pursue a career in show business and was cast in 1965 as the partner of a white undercover agent in I Spy, which ran until 1968. The first TV show to portray a natural working relationship between white and black colleagues, I Spy co-starred Robert Culp. Cosby starred in numerous other TV shows throughout the 1970s and 1980s, including The Bill Cosby Show, from 1969 to 1971, a situation comedy in which Cosby played a high school coach, and The New Bill Cosby Show, a variety show that lasted only one season (1972-73). Meanwhile, Cosby released a series of hit comedy recordings, winning eight Grammies, and earned a doctorate in education. In 1972, he launched an animated cartoon series called Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, which ran until 1984. In the 1970s and '80s, he made many appearances on children's TV shows, including The Electric Company and Sesame Street. In 1984, The Cosby Show debuted, a series featuring obstetrician Cliff Huxtable, his attorney wife, and their houseful of children. Rejected by ABC and NBC when Cosby pitched a similar concept based on a blue-collar family, NBC agreed to try the show once Cosby made the main characters an affluent family. The show, which ran until 1992, became one of the most popular programs on television. From 1994 to 1995, Cosby starred in The Cosby Mysteries, playing a forensic expert, and launched Cosby, about downsized airline worker Clinton Lucas, in 1996. Cosby also starred in several movies, including Leonard, Part 6 (1987), which he produced, and Ghost Dad (1990), but his movies generally failed to make a splash at the box office.
To quote the Bicentennial Minute, "And that's the way it was".
Film and TV icon Lee Meriwether is scheduled to join us on the next edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, premiering Monday, Nov. 30 at 10pm ET, 7pm PT on Shokus Internet Radio, with a rebroadcast Tuesday, Dec. 1 at 11pm ET, 8pm PT on Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org.
Known to many of us for playing Betty Jones on the long-running private detective series Barnaby Jones (CBS, 1973-1980), as well as The Catwoman in the original Batman motion picture from 1966, Lee Meriwether has been a film and TV icon for more than four decades. We’ll talk about these famous characters, plus her roles on such classic series as Star Trek, The Fugitive, Mission: Impossible, Dan August and Perry Mason, her work with such legends as John Wayne, Rock Hudson, Andy Griffith, Jonathan Winters, Irwin Allen and James Garner, and a whole lot more. If you want to be part of our conversation, if you have a question for Ms. Meriwether about her career or any of the films and TV series in which she’s appeared, we invite you to join us for our live broadcast Monday, Nov. 30 beginning at 10pm ET, 7pm PT on Shokus Internet Radio.
Here is another "Mental Sorbet" that we could use to momentarily forget about those things that leave a bad taste in our mouths.
Mel Blanc, the famous voice of the famous Looney Tunes cartoon characters, is hilarious in this episode. He plays a store clerk who is tormented by Jack Benny.
Jack is Christmas shopping at a department store and decides on getting Don Wilson a wallet. He buys the expensive one, believe it or not, and after Blanc does everything he's asked and more with a wonderful gift wrapping, Benny comes back and wants the note changed inside the gift. This happens several more times and the salesman/clerk (Blanc) unravels big-time. Even Benny can't conceal his laughter near the end.In the rest of the show, we see and hear the rest of the cast in some funny bits, we hear a song from Dennis Day and there are guest appearances by familiar faces of the era, such as Richard Deacon.
Here is another "Mental Sorbet" that we could use to momentarily forget about those things that leave a bad taste in our mouths. Oddly enough, this famous WKRP episode was loosely based on a real event! Back in 1946 (some sources say 1945), Yellville, Arkansas inaugurated the "Turkey Trot Festival" which included a wild turkey calling contest, a turkey target shoot, a Miss Drumsticks Pageant and oh yeah: a live turkey release from the roof of the courthouse. After a few years, someone thought it might be fun to actually toss the poor gobblers out of a low-flying airplane for the event. This repeated for a number of years until 1989 when a national animal-rights protest cast the event in a bad light and the "National Enquirer" splashed a photo of the event across the nation forcing promoters to abandon the turkey drop. To quote Arthur Carlson, "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!!!"
As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history, the more that fact and legend become intertwined. It's hard to say where the truth really lies.
November 24, 1978 Letterman's first Tonight Show appearance David Letterman makes his first guest appearance on The Tonight Show. Letterman became a favorite on the show, serving as guest host more than 50 times.
By 1982, Letterman had his own late-night comedy talk show, Late Night with David Letterman, which ran until 1993. When NBC chose Jay Leno instead of Letterman to become the replacement when host Johnny Carson retired, Letterman changed networks and launched The Late Show on rival network CBS.
November 26, 1922 Cartoonist Charles M. Schulz is born in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The son of a barber, Schulz showed an early interest in art and took a correspondence course in cartooning. After serving in the army in World War II, Schulz returned to St. Paul and took a job lettering comics for a small magazine. In 1947, Schulz began drawing a comic strip for the St. Paul Pioneer Press called "L'il Folks," featuring Charlie Brown and his gang of friends. In 1950, after several rejections, Schulz sold syndication rights to United Features, which renamed the strip "Peanuts." Schulz drew the comic himself, without assistants, until his retirement in 1999. Peanuts ran in some 2,600 papers, in 75 countries and 21 languages, earning Schulz some $30 million a year. Schulz died in 2000.
November 29, 1948 Children's show Kukla, Fran and Ollie premieres on prime time network TV.
The show featured beloved puppets Kukla, Ollie (a dragon), and others, with live actress Fran Allison as host. The show began as a local Chicago program before debuting on NBC. It was one of the two most important series made in Chicago, along with Garroway at Large, during the city's brief period as an important production center for network programs in the late 1940s. After its network cancellation in 1957, PBS revived the series from 1969 to 1971.
To quote the Bicentennial Minute, "And that's the way it was".
Ed and Frankie welcome actor Richard Anderson as they discuss his role as Oscar Goldman on The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman and the impact and appeal of both series, as well as his work with such legends as David Janssen, Burt Reynolds, John Frankenheimer and Stanley Kubrick. The interview begins 30 minutes into the first hour and continues into the second hour.
Here is another "Mental Sorbet" that we could use to momentarily forget about those things that leave a bad taste in our mouths.
