TV History

October 13, 1947…”Kukla, Fran & Ollie” Debuts On Chicago’s WBKB At the link is a timeline of the shows milestones, including their October 13, 1947 debut as “The Junior Jamboree” on WBKB in Chicago, the move to WNBQ and NBC, and their last show, 10 years later, which was also on WBKB. http://kukla.tv/history.html In…

October 13, 1957…A Red Letter Day For Videotape & TV History The first 4.5 minutes of the attached video tells the story and includes comparison shots of the videotape and kinescope version of the oldest surviving, intact videotape program, “The Edsel Show”. Thanks to our friend Kris Trexler’s love of cars, his interest in…

October 12, 1950…Burns And Allen Debuts On CBS Television Their radio show started in 1936 but by 1950, it was time to move to television. When ‘The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show’ began on CBS Television October 12, 1950, it was an immediate success. The show was originally staged live before a studio…

October 12, 1943…NBC Sells Blue Network: The Start Of ABC On October 12, 1943, Edward John Noble, the owner of Life Savers candy and radio station WMCA in New York, bought NBC’s Blue Network for $8 million. This was the start of ABC, but even with Noble’s millions, the first 10 years was a…

WNBC Moves From 3C To Historic 3K In late 1935, NBC radio studio 3H was converted to become television’s first permanent home. This was where RCA and NBC did all their early experimental broadcasts and was the first home of “The Howdy Doody Show” as well as “Kraft Theater”. On September 12, 1955, NBC dedicated…

October 11, 1975…”NBC Saturday Night” Debuts, LIVE In Studio 8H It would be 8 more months until the show became “Saturday Night Live”, after Howard Cosell’s ABC variety show (which had the same name) folded and give up the name, and the term “not ready for prime time players”. The video below is a…

October 10, 2007…The Beginning Of The End For NBC Burbank Some nine years ago, NBC’s Brian Williams broke the news. “Days Of Our Lives”, which airs on NBC is still there, but it’s their production company that rents space in the building and not NBC. Beautiful downtown Burbank will never be the same. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgKBAQrvVqs…

October 1950…FCC Approves CBS Color System, RCA Goes To Court At the link below is the October 14, 1950 Billboard Magazine, which is a fantastic walk down memory lane, but notice the two stories at that bottom of page 3. This is where the color feud between CBS and NBC/RCA started. It was one…

October 9, 1986…’The Late Show With Joan Rivers’ Debuts On Fox Here is the rare video of that first show with David Lee Roth, Pee Wee Herman, Elton John and Cher. In the story, some surprises I had never known about till now. Read on! We all know that the Fox announcement of the…

How Football Officials Know When To Call A “TV TIME OUT” How NFL TV Timeouts Were Handled Early On… Back in the 50s and 60s, televised pro football had what were called “hat men” on the sidelines. They were connected by headphone to the director and here, from the Washington Evening Star, is an…

October 8, 1948…NBC’s WNBQ TV In Chicago Signs On Thanks to long time WMAQ staff member Edward Dabrowsky, and a few others, here are some great shots from times gone by. The station signed on October 8, 1948, as WNBQ, the last of Chicago’s four commercial VHF stations to launch. WNBQ is also the…

Memory Lane…Debut Ads For Some Of TV’s Most Memorable Shows Thanks to Maureen Carney, here are some classic newspaper ads for the debuts of some shows that went on to make history. Enjoy! -Bobby Ellerbee Source

October 7, 1960…Second Kennedy-Nixon Debate, NBC Washington These are newly found photos of the second debate between Senator Kennedy and Vice President Nixon at NBC’s WRC-TV. As you will see in the video, linked below, the moderator was NBC’s Frank McGee, and panel of questioners included Edward Morgan from ABC, Paul Niven from CBS,…

October 5, 1969…”Monty Python’s Flying Circus” Debuts On BBC How did one of the most beloved comedy shows of all time come to be? After hearing how the pitch went, it’s hard to believe that the show ever came to be…but it did! At 4 minutes into this fun trip down memory lane, John…

October 5, 1947…First Live Television Speech From The White House On this day in 1947, President Harry Truman became the first president to broadcast a speech live from the White House. The subject was food conservation, and Truman asked Americans to cut back on their use of grain in order to help starving Europeans.…

October 4, 1976…Barbara Walters Co Anchors ABC Evening News 40 years ago today, Walters became the first female anchor for a US network evening news program. On her move from NBC’s “Today” show, she was teamed with ABC anchorman Harry Reasoner and the sparks immediately started to fly! This short clip goes directly to…

October 4, 1975…The Missed Debut Date For “Saturday Night” As it turns out, “The Not Ready For Prime Time Players” were not even ready for late night television! Really! Here’s the story… NBC’s new 90 minute, live comedy show “NBC Saturday Night” was scheduled to debut at 11:30 on October 4, 1975. The plane…

October 4, 1956….”Playhouse 90″ Debuts On CBS This is how television’s most distinguished anthology series started. Although the weekly 90 minute series only ran for four years, it is still held as the gold standard for live television drama. Jack Palance is the host of this debut show, but the next week, he would…