Just a few random TV related events that happened on December 1. Discuss or comment as you please……
1935: Comedian/director/writer Woody Allen is born (as Allan Stewart Konigsberg) in Brooklyn, New York.
1940: Comedian Richard Pryor is born in Peoria, Illinois.
1945: The Army-Navy football game is relayed 90 miles by coaxial cable from Philadelphia to New York City.
1948: WHEN-TV (channel 8, now WTVH on channel 5) launches, bringing local TV to Syracuse for the first time.
1949: WKTV (channel 13, later channel 2) begins broadcasting in Utica, New York.
1949: WNBF-TV (channel 12, now WBNG-TV) signs on in Binghamton, New York.
1949: Omaha, Nebraska’s six-week old TV station KOTV (channel 6), struggling because so few TV sets were in use in the area, places 3,000 TV sets in public viewing sites (many outside appliance stores) and broadcasts a day of “sampler” programs from all 4 commercial networks. The marketing stunt is successful, generating slow but steadily growing sales of receivers.
1950: Actor and drummer Keith Thibodeaux (I Love Lucy, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour) is born in Louisiana. The actor (who played "Little Ricky") was credited as “Richard Keith” in those shows because Desi Arnaz believed American viewers would have trouble pronouncing his last name. (As if Desi ever pronounced anything correctly in English.....)
1952: The 50th state joins the TV age as KGMB signs on to channel 9 in Honolulu, Hawaii.
1952: Bud and Lou come to the small screen as The Abbott and Costello Show debuts in syndication.
1953: WSIL-TV (channel 22, later channel 3) begins operating in Harrisburg, Illinois.
1953: RCA demonstrates magnetic tape recording of both color and black-and-white video signals at its Princeton laboratories. Though functional, the system was impractical for commercial use: a high-speed longitudinal tape system which could only record and playback a few minutes of a program.
1953: WJDM-TV (channel 7, now WJHG-TV) debuts in Panama City, Florida. The station would survive as an independent for a time until snagging a primary affiliation with NBC, and (as they were at the time the only station in the market) secondary affiliations with CBS and ABC as well.
1954: RCA begins commercial production of color TV sets with the model 21CT55 receiver, a 21-inch version of the CT-100 circuit. The new sets employed the CTC4 chassis, the first to use printed circuits.
1954: Legendary comedy duo Laurel and Hardy make their only TV appearance on Ralph Edwards’ This is Your Life. The live show is almost kayoed and Edwards is forced to nervously ad-lib for time when the meticulous Stan Laurel at first is reluctant to participate, feeling that he had been unfairly “tricked” into appearing on an unrehearsed broadcast. (His attitude reportedly softened after many fans wrote to tell him how much they appreciated the show.)
1956: CHEK-TV (channel 6) begins broadcasting in Victoria, British Columbia. It is the province’s first privately-owned TV station.
1970: Comedienne Sarah Silverman is born in Bedford, New Hampshire.
1975: Ch-ch-changes.....The Edge of Night moves from CBS to ABC, and CBS’s As the World Turns expands to one hour. Meanwhile, over on NBC, Wheel of Fortune also expands to an hour, an experiment that would last only 7 weeks.
1976: The Punk group The Sex Pistols causes a storm of controversy and outrage in the U.K. by repeatedly swearing on the regional Thames Television news program Today. Host Bill Grundy, who goaded them into the act, is temporarily sacked.
1977: What would eventually become the national children’s network Nickelodeon has its humble beginnings as The Pinwheel Channel (named after the long-running show that was the anchor of its schedule) on a single cable system in Columbus, Ohio. It would be almost a year and a half before the channel debuted on a second system (in Buffalo, New York) and 4 years before being rebranded as Nickelodeon.
1992: The Young and the Restless airs its 5000th episode.
1994: Two new cable channels launch: The Game Show Network (GSN) and Home & Garden Television (HGTV).
2004: Tom Brokaw steps down as anchorman of NBC Nightly News and is replaced by Brian Williams.
2004: Mike Ahern retires after 37 years (the last 30 as chief anchorman) at Indianapolis, Indiana’s WISH-TV.
2005: Oprah Winfrey appears on Late Show with David Letterman, joining the host for the first time in 16 years.
2005: Actor Jack Colvin (The Incredible Hulk) dies in Santa Monica, California, aged 71.
(Just a little featurette I hope to do as time permits. It’s an entirely random selection based on a quick Net search, and is not meant to be comprehensive. So, don’t post nasty messages about “you forgot THIS” or “how could you not mention THAT?” Do so, and I’ll just take my keyboard and go home…..)
1935: Comedian/director/writer Woody Allen is born (as Allan Stewart Konigsberg) in Brooklyn, New York.
1940: Comedian Richard Pryor is born in Peoria, Illinois.
1945: The Army-Navy football game is relayed 90 miles by coaxial cable from Philadelphia to New York City.
1948: WHEN-TV (channel 8, now WTVH on channel 5) launches, bringing local TV to Syracuse for the first time.
1949: WKTV (channel 13, later channel 2) begins broadcasting in Utica, New York.
1949: WNBF-TV (channel 12, now WBNG-TV) signs on in Binghamton, New York.
1949: Omaha, Nebraska’s six-week old TV station KOTV (channel 6), struggling because so few TV sets were in use in the area, places 3,000 TV sets in public viewing sites (many outside appliance stores) and broadcasts a day of “sampler” programs from all 4 commercial networks. The marketing stunt is successful, generating slow but steadily growing sales of receivers.
1950: Actor and drummer Keith Thibodeaux (I Love Lucy, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour) is born in Louisiana. The actor (who played "Little Ricky") was credited as “Richard Keith” in those shows because Desi Arnaz believed American viewers would have trouble pronouncing his last name. (As if Desi ever pronounced anything correctly in English.....)
1952: The 50th state joins the TV age as KGMB signs on to channel 9 in Honolulu, Hawaii.
1952: Bud and Lou come to the small screen as The Abbott and Costello Show debuts in syndication.
1953: WSIL-TV (channel 22, later channel 3) begins operating in Harrisburg, Illinois.
1953: RCA demonstrates magnetic tape recording of both color and black-and-white video signals at its Princeton laboratories. Though functional, the system was impractical for commercial use: a high-speed longitudinal tape system which could only record and playback a few minutes of a program.
1953: WJDM-TV (channel 7, now WJHG-TV) debuts in Panama City, Florida. The station would survive as an independent for a time until snagging a primary affiliation with NBC, and (as they were at the time the only station in the market) secondary affiliations with CBS and ABC as well.
1954: RCA begins commercial production of color TV sets with the model 21CT55 receiver, a 21-inch version of the CT-100 circuit. The new sets employed the CTC4 chassis, the first to use printed circuits.
1954: Legendary comedy duo Laurel and Hardy make their only TV appearance on Ralph Edwards’ This is Your Life. The live show is almost kayoed and Edwards is forced to nervously ad-lib for time when the meticulous Stan Laurel at first is reluctant to participate, feeling that he had been unfairly “tricked” into appearing on an unrehearsed broadcast. (His attitude reportedly softened after many fans wrote to tell him how much they appreciated the show.)
1956: CHEK-TV (channel 6) begins broadcasting in Victoria, British Columbia. It is the province’s first privately-owned TV station.
1970: Comedienne Sarah Silverman is born in Bedford, New Hampshire.
1975: Ch-ch-changes.....The Edge of Night moves from CBS to ABC, and CBS’s As the World Turns expands to one hour. Meanwhile, over on NBC, Wheel of Fortune also expands to an hour, an experiment that would last only 7 weeks.
1976: The Punk group The Sex Pistols causes a storm of controversy and outrage in the U.K. by repeatedly swearing on the regional Thames Television news program Today. Host Bill Grundy, who goaded them into the act, is temporarily sacked.
1977: What would eventually become the national children’s network Nickelodeon has its humble beginnings as The Pinwheel Channel (named after the long-running show that was the anchor of its schedule) on a single cable system in Columbus, Ohio. It would be almost a year and a half before the channel debuted on a second system (in Buffalo, New York) and 4 years before being rebranded as Nickelodeon.
1992: The Young and the Restless airs its 5000th episode.
1994: Two new cable channels launch: The Game Show Network (GSN) and Home & Garden Television (HGTV).
2004: Tom Brokaw steps down as anchorman of NBC Nightly News and is replaced by Brian Williams.
2004: Mike Ahern retires after 37 years (the last 30 as chief anchorman) at Indianapolis, Indiana’s WISH-TV.
2005: Oprah Winfrey appears on Late Show with David Letterman, joining the host for the first time in 16 years.
2005: Actor Jack Colvin (The Incredible Hulk) dies in Santa Monica, California, aged 71.
(Just a little featurette I hope to do as time permits. It’s an entirely random selection based on a quick Net search, and is not meant to be comprehensive. So, don’t post nasty messages about “you forgot THIS” or “how could you not mention THAT?” Do so, and I’ll just take my keyboard and go home…..)