Today in History: Thursday, March 28, 2024

Television
Raymond Burr, formerly known as Perry Mason, took on a new TV persona as the wheelchair-using Detective Robert Ironside in a TV movie in 1967, which morphed into the regularly scheduled police drama “Ironside” the following fall.

Jeffrey Tambor starred as an acerbic English professor who is blind in the sitcom “Mr. Sunshine” that premiered on ABC in 1986. The show only lasted 11 episodes. Henry Winkler (“Happy Days”) was one of its executive producers…The final episode of the ABC daytime soap “The City” aired in 1997. “The City,” which was spun-off from “Loving,“ aired for two seasons…Animated sitcom “Futurama” debuted on Fox in 1999. It aired for four seasons and was revived in the form of four direct-to-video movies in 2007. Comedy Central brought it back as a regularly scheduled half-hour from 2010 to 2013.

Family sitcom “My Wife and Kids” debuted on ABC in 2001. Starring and co-created by Damon Wayans, the series ran for 123 episodes across four-and-one-half seasons. It also starred Tisha Campbell.

Firefighter comedy “Tacoma FD” debuted on truTV in 2019. It ran for four abbreviated seasons through 2023.

Movies
Alfred Hitchcock thriller “The Birds” opened in theaters in 1963. From Wipekedia: “The Birds” was partly inspired by the true events of a mass bird attack on the seaside town of Capitola in California on August 18, 1961, when “Capitola residents awoke to a scene that seemed straight out of a horror movie. Hordes of seabirds were dive-bombing their homes, crashing into cars and spewing half-digested anchovies onto lawns.” Hitchcock heard of this event and used it as research material for this film which was then in progress. The real cause of the birds’ behavior was toxic algae but that was not known back in the 1960s.

Celebrity Birthdays
Actress Dianne Wiest (“Hannah and Her Sisters”) is 78; Country singer Reba McEntire is 69; rapper Cheryl James aka Salt from Salt-N-Pepa is 58; country singer Rodney Atkins is 55; actor Vince Vaughn is 54; reality star Kate Gosselin is 49; actress Julia Stiles is 43; singer-actress Stefani Germanotta aka Lady Gaga is 38.

Did You Know?
Steven Bochco, who created dramas “Hill Street Blues” and “L.A. Law,“ was hired by Universal Pictures early in his career as a writer, and then a story editor, on dramas “Ironside,“ “Columbo,“ “McMillan & Wife,“ “Griff,“ “Delvecchio” and“The Invisible Man.“