Television and Radio The early, live, half-hour variety program “The Victor Borge Show” debuted on NBC in 1951. Borge’s blend of music and comedy earned him the nicknames “The Clown Prince of Denmark,” “The Unmelancholy Dane,” and “The Great Dane”…Also on this day: Fred bought Wilma a piano for their 10th anniversary on ABC’s “The Flintstones” in 1961; Ida Morgenstern (Nancy Walker) […]
Television Game show “What’s My Line,” hosted by John Daly, debuted on CBS in 1950. The panel on the first telecast was former New Jersey governor Harold Hoffman, columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, poet Louis Untermeyer, and psychiatrist Richard Hoffmann…”The Midnight Special“, the weekly 90-minute showcase of rock, pop and soul music acts, debuted in its regular Friday late-night time slot following “The Tonight […]
Television CBS sitcom “Private Secretary,” starring Ann Sothern, launched in 1953. It ran through 1957 and initially alternated with the “The Jack Benny Show”…News-themed “You Are There” with Walter Cronkite premiered on CBS in 1953. It started as a radio program in 1947. This first TV telecast featured a re-enactment of the Hindenburg disaster…CBS daytime drama “The Secret Storm” opened in 1954 and stayed on the air for 20 […]
Television “These Are My Children”, the first official daytime drama (aka soap opera) debuted on NBC in 1949. The show was broadcast live from WNBQ in Chicago, airing 15 minutes a day, five days a week, at 5 p.m. ET…Lucy (Charlene Tilton) visited her newly remarried parents (Ted Shackelford and Joan Van Ark) on recently launched “Dallas” spin-off “Knots Landing” on CBS in 1980…ABC […]
Television Classic western “The Lone Ranger,” which aired from September 15, 1949 to September 12, 1959, began on radio on this day in 1933…Dramatic anthology “Robert Montgomery Presents” debuted on NBC in 1950 and aired for seven seasons…In 1977, “The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries” opened on ABC and alternated in the Sunday 7 p.m. ET hour. By the second season Nancy Drew was incorporated into the Hardy Boys’ mysteries, […]
Television and Radio “The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour” debuted on CBS in 1969. It ran through June 13, 1972 and is considered one of the victims of the “rural purge”…Shades of “I Love Lucy”: Chrissy (Suzanne Somers) and Jack (John Ritter) got handcuffed together on ABC sitcom “Three’s Company” in 1980. Early the following season, Somer’s demands at contract re-negotiation time (from a reported $30,000 to […]
Television and Radio Elvis Presley made his first television appearance in 1956 on CBS musical/variety hour “Stage Show”…Detective drama “Barnaby Jones,” starring Buddy Ebsen, debuted on CBS in 1973. It aired for eight seasons…”Chico and the Man” star Freddie Prinze, 22, shot and mortally wounded himself in 1977. He died the following day…In 1984, actor Ted McGinley joined the cast of ABC’s “The Love […]
