TV History

My Interview With Linda Wertheimer, From NPR Weekend Edition A little while ago, a friend called me from his car in Los Angeles. He said he was just driving along the Pacific Coast Highway, listening to NPR, and all of a sudden…there I was. Here’s a link to the audio, the audio playback box…

Today Is The Day I Graduate From The University Of Georgia! 101 years ago, The Henry W. Grady College of Journalism was founded. At yesterday’s Convocation ceremony, I became of the 21,000 proud graduates of the school that is the home of The Peabody Awards. Today, I will become one of the 186,000 students…

May 13, 1957…Production Begins On “Jailhouse Rock” In this classic photo, we see two RCA TK41s on either side of the Mitchell film cameras at MGM, during a rehearsal of the big dance number. Both cameras can be seen at the open and close of the video linked above. They are most likely on…

May 12, 1963…Bob Dylan, Ed Sullivan & The Koch Brothers? Yep! After seeing this photo, many swear they remember seeing Bob Dylan on the Sullivan show, but it never happened…it almost did though. In May of 1963, Bob Dylan was still an aspiring young musician who was preparing for the release of his second…

Some Interesting Tidbits On Early Talking Pictures… https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/bobhope/mopic.html From the Library of Congress, here is a page on Bob Hope, but there is a lot more here than you may think, so click the link above. There is info, and rare images here on Lee Deforest’s Phonofilm, and Vitagraph’s Vitaphone motion picture sound recording…

May 9, 1946…”Hour Glass”…Television’s First Variety Show Debuts Not only was this network TV’s first variety show, it was TV’s first hour long program as well, with the exception of two week night boxing matches WNBT carried live. All but the second photo, which shows us “Hour Glass” rehearsing with the NBC made cameras…

Sunday Flashback…Some Of America’s Most Famous Announcers Visiting with Tom Snyder, here are some funny stories and interesting insights into life at the top of the network television food-chain. From “You Bet Your Life” with Groucho Marx, George Fenneman; from “The Jack Benny Show”, Don Wilson; and from “Burns & Allen”, Harry Von Zell.…

May 8, 1945…Victory In Europe Day, Times Square Except for Germany and Japan, every country around the world celebrated the defeat of Adolf Hitler’s war machine, on this day in 1945. In Italy, they celebrated by hanging Mussolini. In New York, half a million celebrated in Times Square, and NBC Radio and Television was…

My Heartfelt Thanks For Your Congratulations…. On Thursday, I posted the UGA magazine article on my graduation, and the outpouring of support, and congratulations was overwhelming. It is greatly appreciated, and I thank you. Over 150 photos were taken for the article, both here at home, and on campus. I want to share some…

May 7, 1949…The First 45 RPM Record Hits The Billboard Charts The song was “You’re Adorable” by Perry Como. The next week, the year’s biggest 45 hit appeared on the Billboard charts…”Riders In The Sky” by Vaughn Monroe. The 45 rpm record was RCA’s pushback against Columbia’s 33 1/3 rpm long-playing disc, introduced the…

Producing Today’s Kentucky Derby…A Mega Job For NBC With 300 crew members, 54 cameras, 15 announcers, and half a dozen mobile units, this is a big day for NBC Sports. Here’s the story, and when race time comes, and you have your mint julep, you can toast the many making the effort to bring…

ULTRA RARE! JFK, Huntley-Brinkley Interview In The Oval Office Above are videotape outtakes, from what would be President Kennedy’s last interview on NBC. The date is September 9, 1963, and these rare behind the scenes photos were taken by long time NBC/WRC-TV production manager, Bill Wells, and are made available to us by his…

40 Years Later….I Graduate From The University Of Georgia Next Friday, May 13, yours truly will finally receive a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism…40 years after I left UGA. My graduate studies application is already in, and hopefully in the fall, I will begin my Masters degree work at UGA’s Grady College of Journalism. When…

May 4, 1957…America’s First Prime Time Rock n Roll Show Debuts On this day in 1957, ABC brought radio’s top DJ, Alan Freed to television, and that made “The Big Beat”, the first nationally-televised rock ’n roll dance show. Freed’s 30 minute, Friday night show came four months before Dick Clark’s afternoon show, “American…

May 4, 1961…Network TV Preps For First US Manned Space Shot The next day, on May 5, Alan Shepard became the first American to enter space, but long before that, the networks had flocked to Cape Canaveral with their standard remote equipment, a load of telephoto lenses, and some imagination. This may be the…

May 3, 1948…CBS Debuts TV’s First, Live, Nightly Network News On this day in 1948, “CBS TV News” became network television’s first daily newscast, with a live newsman…Douglas Edwards. NBC actually had the first daily network news broadcast, which began February 16, 1948. That was the “The NBC Television Newsreel” (later named “Esso Newsreel”…

May 2, 1941…Commercial Television Becomes A Reality…ALMOST On this day in 1941, the FCC set the stage for commercial television to begin, when it agreed to grant 10 stations commercial TV licenses effective July 1, 1941, which called for those stations to broadcast 15 hours per week. W2XBS (WNBT) received license number one, and…

April 30, 1952…TV’s First Toy Commercial, And Other TV Ad Firsts On this day, in 1952, Mr. Potato Head became the first toy advertised on national television. Below is the first animated TV commercial to use identifiable characters. The spot was for Ajax cleanser, which debuted in 1948 and featured the antics of The…