SCROLL DOWN FOR THE INFORMATIVE, FASCINATING HISTORY OF
THE CREATION, EVOLUTION & GOLDEN AGE OF TELEVISION
THE 60+ SELECTIONS CLASSIC OLDIES VIDEO JUKE BOX & THE OTV BLOG.
The Golden Age Of Television & The Roots Of Rock 'n Roll
Remembering When Video Was Monochrome & Music Was Monophonic!
What was then is very relevant to what is now

Before SCTV, SNL & Mad TV, before radio and TV
itself, the popular entertainment medium, aside from movies and music, was vaudeville comedy stage revues. As the radio networks
(CBS, NBC, Mutual, Westinghouse) needed more than just music and news, vaudevillian stars and their
acts were recruited for comedy monologues, sketches and sitcoms. The next move was television in it's infancy.
Live sketch comedy goes back to the dawn of television (1948-52): fledgling show pioneers were Sid Caesar
(with great support from cast members Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner and Howie Morris), Ernie Kovacs, Red Skelton and
Milton Berle (dubbed "Mr.Television" and "Uncle Miltie"). Get this: Berle hosted
the syndicated Bowling For Dollars for one season and Gleason hosted a quiz
show that lasted one broadcast (see our Trivia Quiz for details. While there were those vaudevillians
who lasted a decade on TV, notably Berle, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, George Burns & Gracie Allen,
Skelton's characterizations on all three networks, others, such as Ed Wynn, George Gobel,
Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis and Donald O'Connor, lasted only a few years.
Long before "The Fonz" there was "The Schnoz,"
Jimmy Durante, with his trademark Inka Dinka Doo, who hosted his own musical variety shows
on CBS and later NBC. Dinah "See The USA In Your Chevrolet" Shore did likewise as summer
fillers, eventually winding up with a pre-Oprah style syndicated daytime talk show.
Other 50's-60's hosts of the now extinct musical variety shows: Liberace, Perry Como,
Andy Williams (his Christmas show still runs on ABC every Yule).
Stars & Their Technical Ingenuity Advancements in television production in the 50's are credited to Lucille Ball (filming
before a live audience), Desi Arnaz (three to five camera synched production), Ernie
Kovacs (granddaddy of special effect) and Jackie Gleason (the Eletronicam system
combining film and kinescope into one camera unit). Word has it that Les Paul, the
celebrated guitarist who pioneered multiple track audio recording and Bing Crosby planted
the seed at Ampex Electronics for recording video and audio on magnetic tape
...videotape recording.
Of course our beloved Jackie Gleason used to
say about classic TV comedy, "When it's funny, it's funny and that's what makes
a show endearing as a classic forever after"
Many of today's successful TV show producers stated they studied the masters of yesteryear.an
When it's good television, it's good television no matter how dim the picture or low
the resolution. Jackie Gleason, Lucille Ball and her then husband Desi Arnaz,
came up with ingenious, creative innovations,
would pave the way for future TV sitcoms. Also rans included Father Knows Best
(Robert Young, Jane Eyatt, Elinor Donahue, Billy Gray, Lauren Chapan),
The Bob Cummmings Show (co-starring Ann B. Davis),
My Little Margie (Gale Storm, Charles Farrel) Oh Sussana (Gale Storm, Zazu Pitts),
I Married Joan (Joan Davis, Jim Backus), Our Miss Brooks (Eve Arden),
Mr. Peepers (Wally Cos), The Dennis Day Shoe (co-starring Cliff Arquette),
The Life If Riley (see trivia quiz for original Riley, second longer running series:
William Bendix, Marjorie Reynolds, Lugene Sanders, Wesley Morgan, Tom D'andrea),
The Goldbergs (Gertrude Berg, Harold J. Stone), December Bride (Spring Byington),
Meet Millie (Elena Verdugo, Florence Hallop, Marvin Kaplan),
(The Many Loves Of) Dobie Gillis (Dwayne Hickman, Bob Denver, Tuesday Weld),
The Dick Van Dykd Show (co-starring Mary Tyler Moore, Morey Amsterdam,
Rosemarie, Carl Eeiner, it's creator),.
A noteworthy B&W idol mentions: While Shelley Fabares was a teen queen on The Donna Reed ShowThe Patty Duke Show that was written around a teenage girl, actually
two, both played by Patty Duke (later, the suicidal pill popping starlet in
Valley Of The Dolls). Patty played a bouncy, vivacious teen and a live-in twin
cousin (hey, anything's possible even on early TV) who was the exact opposite -
conservatively demure. Also in the cast: William Schallert
(also a player on Dobie Gillis and Jean Byron. Of course, Ricky Nelson
(OK, Rick Nelson now) was the girl's hearthrob on Ozzie & Harriet (with
real life dad & mom as dad and mom),
attempts to make Ronnie Burns with real life parents on(Burns & Allen and
Dwayne Hickman Dobie Gillis girl swooners failed. Oh well, there was
always lovable Maynard G. Krebs (Dobie, who would go on to become
lovable Gilligan.
Noteworthy, but tragic: Honeymooners resurgence. In it's original form,as a standalone sitcom
or sketches on Gleason's variety shows, The (original) Honeymooners episodes were endeared and
today held as classics, in many major markets run as twelve hour marathons on New Years Eve.
In the mid 1966, Jackie resurrected the sitcom as The Jackie Gleason Show presents
The Honeymooners", hour musicals taped in Miami Beach. Audrey
Meadows and Joyce Randolph could not relocate from New York. Shiela Mac Rae was the new Alice,
Jane Kean the new Trixie and it just didn't work. In the mid 70's, Jackie regrouped the original
cast and gave it a go on ABC, less the what was latter day considered politically incorrect fisting and
"Pow, right in the kisser," or "To the moon, Alice," and the smacks on Norton's shoulder.
After three hour runs, ABC pulled the plug on the legendary bus driver, sewer worker and
wives. The kinescope episodes of The Honeymooners from 1954 to 1959 remain the
loved classics. BTW: did you know Audrey Meadows was not the first to play Alice
Kramden. And did you know Jackie played a blue collar worker dad on a sitcom, the role
later played by another comedic actor? Find out who was the first to play Alice and
what was Jackie's first 1949 CBS sitcom role in our Trivia Quiz.
Of course, Jackie had success with his Honeymoonerless American Scene Magazine
(1962-65) with his characterizations of The Poor Soul, Reginald Van Gleason III
(often with former Marx Brothers movies character actress Margaret Du Mont),
Charlie Bracken, The Loud Mouth (with Art Carney whom he bothered at a diner),
Joe the Bartender (with Frank Fontaine a/k/a Crazy Guggenheim.
Noteworthy: The
DuMont Television Network launched The Honeymooners and the career of
Jackie Gleason, DuMont also KO'd the venerable Uncle Miltie on Tuesday nights
with not another comedian, but a Catholic Bishop, Exc. Fulton J. Sheen.
For the fascinating
history of the innovations and downfalls of The DuMont Television Network and it's
founder, click here.. The story of the "forgotten network"is an eye opening
overview of the brutal competitiveness of and governmental bias toward the broadcast industry even at it's inception.
Another struggle of survival in the business of broadcasting was
within the "minority" (race) oppressive 1950's, Black principal roles were portrayed by white stage minstrel (blackface) comics as
Amos and Andy. A second black theme sitcom, , starred noted black film actress Ethel Waters as a maid. It would take
Norman Lear, in the 70's, to bring network television prominence to Afro-American based situation comedies.
There would be no weekly comedy sketch show series hosted by a woman until many years later
when a young female supporting cast member from The Gary Moore Show
and on a failed sitcom Stanley starring Buddy Hackett, the femme talent named Carol Burnett
finally got her own showcase on CBS with cast members Harvey Korman, Lule Wagoner,
Vickie Lawrence and Tim Conway. The long awaited success and chemistry became legendary.
Entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan became the rigid but endearing presenter of entertainers,
opera singers to acrobats, dancers to sword throwers, lion tamers to puppet mouse Topogigo
Sunday nights on CBS. When rock and roll proved it was here to stay, poker faced Sullivan
challenged teen favorite Dick Clark (ABC) for booking Elvis and The Beatles,
who never appeared on either Clark's American Bandstand or Saturday Night stage
show (see teen dance and variety shows below). Sullivan even allowed so/so R&R one hit
wonders such as "The Sparkletones" (Black Slacks) share his stage with the likes
of Renata Tibaldi and Alan King. There was also Your Hit Parade on which four
vocalist regulars sang the top ten tunes for the week. Who were the crooners? See
our Trivia Quiz/
Hard to categorize was NBC's Colegate Comedy Hour brcause some weeks it was more
musical than comical. The weekly fare had rotating hosts which included
Eddie Cantor, the team of Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, Bud Abbot and Lou Costello,
the latter having also their own weekly syndicated half hour show. The Colegate endeavor, which failed miserably in
the Nielsons, except for Martin & Lewis weeks, was more like Sullivan's show because it had
an array of song and dance musical guests including Danny Kaye, Kay Starr and ol' blue eyes himself, Frank Sinatra;
but even the Chairman of the Board couldn't dig this one out of the ratings cellar. It would
have been funnier if Don Rickles were around TV screens, then, in the late 50's, to heckle
Sinatra ("Hey Frank, make yourself at home...hit somebody" was one of Rickles' most famous barbs to blue eyes
years later on the The Deab Nartin Show)
Producer Don Fedderson had no ratings problem with The Millionaire. No, not a quiz
show, but a weekly series drama in which Michael Anthony, played by Marvin Miller, gave away
a million smackers to some poor soul at the benevolence of the unseen, but heard billionaire,
John Beresford Tipton, who was just curious about human nature and how sudden wealth
could change it. Viewers were also intrigued and the show ran for several seasons
in the late 1950's and early 60's on CBS.
(Most of the recipients were better off without the mysterious windfall).
50's Kiddie TV Delights: Notable children;s shows: Bob Smith's Howdy Doody, with Clarabelle The Clown (Bob Keeshan, later Lew Anderson (pictured page top)
Burr Tilstrom's Kukla Fran & Ollie,, Pinky Lee (pictured left),
who collapsed while dancing frenetically during a live broadcast, Winky Dink, Fearless Fosdick (marionettes), Shari Lewis & Lambchop,
Paul Winchell & Jerry Mahoney; these kidvid shows were on the networks,
while local stations concocted ultra-low budget cartoon shows, such as Newark New Jersey's
(Junior Frolics) had hosts like "Uncle" Fred Sayles narrating silent screen
cartoons (Farmer Brown a/k/a Farmer Grey, KoKo The Clown, et al) over instrumental records.
First Animated Cartoons in syndication: Rocky & Bullwinkle, Gumby, Underdog, Superman were
the favorites. Curiously, Bullwinkle with villains Boris Badeniff and Natasha, had
overtones of cold war propaganda, a la Animal Farm. but "Moose and Squirrel" was a
weekly syndicated series. Major market independent TV stations had cartoon blocks
of Felix The Cat, Looney Toons,(Bugs, Daffy, Tweety, et al); Allied Artist Toons; Little LuLu, Betty Boop, among
others. 50'S non-animated-animal series faves doggies Lassie (debut 1954 with Tommy Rettig, June Lockhart,
Jon Provost, syndicated), Rin Tin Tin (orig, 30s-40's movies, then ABC in 1954
starring Lee Aaker); horsies
My Friend Flicka (40's movie turned to TV 1954 with Roddy Mc Dowall, Preston Foster.
a syndie), Mr Ed (the talking horse, of course, of course, with Alan Young, Connie Hines,
early 60's on CBS). There was also Cleo, the talking dog,
on The People's Choice sitcom
starring Jackie Cooper as Socrates Miller and Patricia Breslin
as fiance Mandy, her huge papa played by John Stephenson, Mary Jane Crost the voice of Cleo, which ran on NBC 1954-58.
Mr. Wizard: The Unsung Hero Of 50's Educational Kidvid Before public television,
parents turned to an unassuming TV personality, Don Herbert, who, to children and
elementary school teachers, was affectionately known as Mr. Wixard who today would be
teaching us all about DTV, but in those analog only days, he would demonstrate gravity,
static electricity, rocket propulsion and other fascinating science basics.
Don was a general science and English major at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (then it was La Crosse State Normal College) who was interested in drama. His career as an actor was interrupted by World War II when he enlisted in the United States Army as a Private. Herbert later joined the United States Army Air Forces, took pilot training, and became a B-24 bomber pilot who flew combat missions with the Fifteenth Air Force, flying out of a base in Italy. When Herbert was discharged in 1945, he was a Captain and had earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters.
After the war, Herbert worked at a radio station in Chicago, then formulated Mr. Wizard and a general science experiments show
that had a lad or lass assist him in a TV studio fashioned lab.
Herbert debuted the show on Chicago NBC station WNBQ, aon March 3, 1951. The televised experiments,
many of which seemed impossible at first, would be taught to young viewers.
Well over five hundred episodes were televised on the entire NBC network before it was canceled in 1965
(replaced by adventure cartoons to sell sugary cereal and drinks, this more significant to network
advertisers and programmers. Now you know why PBS became sorely needed to inspire kids minds in the latter 60's).
Yes, NBC had a late night talk show debuting with Fred Allen, then Jack Paar The Tonight Show, Johnny Carson followed.
followed. ABC had the venerable Joe Franklin.
Merv Griffin, who vied with Carson to host The Tonight Show on NBC, found success
in syndication with co-host Arthur Treacher. Dick Cavett found a talk show home later on ABC after
Franklin was relegated to Memory Lane on then New York station channel 9, later
licensed to Secaucus, NJ after station owners RKO-General got in dutch with the FCC.
Poignant early TV evening news anchors included
Edward R. Murrow and John Cameron Swayze ("Hop-scotching the world for headlines!")
Morning guys were Dave Garroway, (pictured left, who prolifically signed off with "Peace"). Robert Q. Lewis,
Arthur Godfrey, among others (these after stations decided to go on the air at 9AM rather than 5PM,
see "remember when..." below). Independent stations, strapped financially, aired armed forces
advertorials provided by the Army,Navy and Marines...along with Three Stooges,
Laurel & Hardy and Little Rascals film shorts. Interesting clips of early television commercials
can be found included with our Oldies Television Trivia Quiz,link below our
channel selector. Were there infomercials back in the early days of television? There was
Star Nail, Jon Gnagy Learn To Draw Kits, Leg Magique, Jack La Lane Super Juicer

Sports without ESPN: Baseball legends like Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson (left) Pee Wee Reese, Joe Di Maggio or
Yogi Berra were not seen nationwide as they played ball in the early days of television,
games were carried on local stations where the games were played. Ditto football.Tennis,
hockey and golf were not considered hot sports events in the early 50's when air time was
at a premium. The networks began broadcasting World Series and Super Bowls, other games
remained locally broadcast. Boxing and wrestling films were shown late night on weekends, bowling
was relegated to the weekend afternoons when a station had no baseball. After Milton
Berle's ratings declined on NBC in the mid 60's, the network loaned him to the
syndicated Bowling For Dollars The thinking was to turn tenpin into a game
show and since Groucho Marx's sardonic wisecracking gained popularity on his quiz
show, maybe Berle could do likewise and popularize TV bowling. Of course it
didn't work. Berle was awkward, not familiar with the sport. The most celebrated
early TV baseball announcers were Mel Allen (pictured above) and Red Barber.
Enter The Medics
There was the never fail medical drama that began with Medic (Richard Boone as "Konrad Steiner,
Doctor of Medicine"). It's the grandaddy of all medical shows and could hold up today with
E/R or Chicago Hope (see our ch. 45). Created by James E. Moser, Medic
was carefully researched, well written and an Emmy Award Winner back in the mid 50's. More
melodramatic was Janet Dean, Registered Nurse. with Ella Raines as the dutiful
sometimes hospital, sometimes visiting RN. Then came...

The inopposite docs:
Who can forget the boyish, mild-mannered "Dr. Kildare" (Richard Chamberlain) and the
obnoxious Dr. Ben Casey (Vince Edwards).

The Simile Docs Ben Casey is grandfather to and,
Hugh Laurie admits, inspiration for Fox's top rated medical drama House, Marcus Welby, MD
(Robert Young), Medical Center and Jack Webb's Emergency. (One of our viewers
got one up on us by submitting Breaking Point, the forgotten TV medic show that
sort of a psychiatry version of Ben Casey starring Paul Richards which ran on ABC
in 1963 after Vince Edwards hung up his stethoscope. Today, E/R, Gray;s Anatomy
...on and on ...people always were and are fascinated by medical melodrama).
General Hospital is the long running daytime medical serial...soap opera The Daytime soap operas (so called, given the name by predominant advertisers) go back also
to 1930's radio and 1950's television: The Secret Storm, The Edge Of Night, The Guiding Light to name only a few of many.
If you weren't there, you would be surprised, maybe even be amazed, by how much the golden age of television really has inspired
today's vast videodrome (homage to Debbie Harry for the term.)
Dancing With The Stars became an instant smash hit when it premiered 2006 on ABC, but
in the fifties Arthur Murray Dance Party, which also featured dance contests with
luminaries, got big ratings. Dance studio mogul Arthur Murray gave viewers dance lessoms,
but his personable wife, Kathryn, hosted the long running summer replacement series.

Howdy, Podner! Annie Oakley (Gail Davis), Hopalong Cassidy (William Boyd),
Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and The Lone Ranger (Clayton Moore), among others, began the weekly western TV series craze in the early 1950's. By the latter part of that century,
prime time top rating oaters emerged, including Gunsmoe (James Arness), Maverick (James Garner), The Rifleman (Chuck Connors), Bat Masterson, (Gene Barry) The Virginia( James Drury),
Have Gun, Will Travel (Richard Boone as Palladin)., Ponderosa Ranch honcho Hoss Cartwright (Lorne Greene) and sons (Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, Pernell Roberts would take TV westerns
to a new height with Bonanza. When the Emmy award winning series ended in the mid 1950's, horses, podners and varmints faded
from the video screen as regular first run network TV offerings.Happy Trails.
The Evolution Of Television.
In 1923, the iconoscope, a crude but functional
form of the CRT Cathode Ray ("Picture") Tube, laid the path for today's big screens and digital pictures. (There was also the mechanical scanner patented in the same year).
By the mid 1930's, experimental TV stations operated as the "red" and "blue"network, which blossomed into
Du Mont (named after Allen B. Du Mont), CBS, NBC and
later ABC. Our Oldies Television Trivia Quiz has historic information about videotech
pioneers Vladimir Zworkyn and Phil Farnsworth.
Once Upon A Time, In The Beginning....
...When programs were frequently interrupted by a "Please Stand By-Technical Difficulties" sign,
...When TV stations didn't go on the air until 5PM and went off the air at midnight
...When there was 20+ hot vacuum tubes the size of a ketchup bottle inside the TV that too often burned out
...When a white dot stayed in the center of the picture tube for minutes after the TV was turned off
...When TV sets had focus, horizontal hold, vertical hold and rotary channel selector knobs
...When pseudo-color TV was simulated by placing a tri-tinted plastic sheet over the screen
...When "instant on" tube TV sets caught fire and had to be recalled.


Earliest television receivers ("TV sets" as then called) used vacuum tubes and the
cathode ray ("picture") tubes were round, Cabinet front screen cutout bezels were usually squared,
cutting off top and bottom of the transmitted picture (studio camera operators
sometimes, not always, compensated). Eventually, RCA developed the square picture tubes
and the NTSC picture ratio standard was set into place. Picture screen sizes
began with 10" diagonal, then edged up to 21" by the early 60's. Console TV's
boasted large 12" speakers and television-radio (FM/AM)-phonograph (record players,
usually automatic changers), average price tag $500, were very popular. There are
interesting facts about Vladimir Zworkyn and Phil Farnsworth, the pioneers of
television in our trivia quiz.
What was the DuMont Television Network (the "forgotten network")?
For the fascinating
history of the innovations and downfalls of The DuMont Television Network and it's
founder, click here.
Sci-Fi & TV While Flash Gordon's enemy Ming the Merciless was watching his
nemesis on a "Televisor," the aforemention men of science (Farnsworth, Zworkyn. et a;)
were perfecting the once dream of transmitting an image over the wireless medium that
Marconio (and others) made into reality. In the 1950's, television sci-fi was
ablaze with Rod Serling's Twilight Zone and mimicker One Step Beyond
which showcased Gene Roddenberry's first television outing with none other than
William Shatner as a spacecraft cruiser returning from a mission on (guess where) Vulcan (...but. no
Mr. Spock yet). One of Du Mont's biggest hits, aside from The Honeymooners
and the good Bishop, was Captain Video & His Video Rangers which was the
outer space craze of it's time (more info about Captain Vid on our ch. 46.
Science Fiction was always a ratings getter, save a few bomb's like the
mid 50's syndicated Top Secret also on DuMont, But distrib Ziv wasn't about to transport itself
into oblivion; it's highly successful Science Fiction Theatre with host Truman Bradley
combining real science with the futuristic dramas that aired on CBS and NBC. In the early 60's, young public
television used Flash to rattle the tin cup, Serling was still going strong (not so his
immitators) and when NBC agreed to launch
Star Trek from Desilu/Paramount to get their Mission Impossible, they were
unaware the craze and two decades of syndicated spinoffs that would support Paramount's UPN foray.
When NBC pulled the plug on Trek in it's third season, England's ATV launched
Space: 1999 with Mission's Martin Landau and Barbara Bain at the helm.
Even after 40 years, the original
Star Trek is still in broadcast syndication, even in major markets
(i.e. Saturday nights at midnight on WPIX Ch 11 New York) and
same full length episodes (legally) all over the internet (cbs.com, hulu, johnqtv. veoh).
After all, wasn't the internet once science fiction in the 60's?
Gabfest TV talk shows were around since TV itself. early 50's Pioneers On Networks: Dave Garroway,
Jack Paar, Fred Allen, Joe Franklin, who claims he had "the first eyeball to eyeball talk show."
Problem with the claim? It was on the johnny-come-lately network, ABC; prior named were
already gabbing on the other networks. Perhaps the first two daytime talkers in the early 50's
were Robert Q. Lewis (see also our trivia quiz), Arthur Godfery and Art Linkletter, who started the "kids say the
darnest thing" craze. Later would come, via syndication, Dinah Shore, Merv Griffin,
Mike Douglas, Virginia Graham and the first Tabloid-TV gabber, Phil Donahue .(Phil would be
farthest from the last, albeit Phil was soft spoken....remember Morton Downey jr?).
The noted 50's newscasters: John Cameron Swayze ("hop scotching the world for headlines"),
Edward R. Murrow and a young upstart, Walter Cronkite.

The Early TV Scandals: Rock & Roll Payola, Dance Shows & Hiked Skirts, and Rigged Quiz Shows.
The TV teen dance craze started on the East Coast and spread worldwide, with their (then critiqued) provocative movements..
"Dick Clark's American Bandstand" that went from local Philadelphia WFIL TV 6 (4PM Mon-Fri) in 1957 to the nationwide ABC network
and into syndication up to the 1980's. (Did you know Dick took over the helm after a previous host was discovered
dating one of the high school dancers?) There were also the local shows hosted by Alan Freed
(1958-62 5-6PM Mon-Fri, 8PM Sat WNEW-TV 5 NY), Clay Cole, Rate The Record 6-7PM Mon-Fri 1958 WNTA-TV 13 Newark NJ, then
The Clay Cole Show 5 to 6PM M-F & Sat 5PM lip synchs with co-star Angela Martin, 1959-62 WPIX-TV 11 NY),
Al Jarvis, movie actor (Make Believe Ballroom) and KECA-TV Los Angeles talk show host
got in on the dance party craze with his weekday afternoon show on KABC-TV (also L.A.) which spanned the
late fifties through early sixties. Jerry Blavatt the Geeter with the Heater
on WPHL-TV 17 PA and John Zacherle, who morphed from host-spook-spoofing horror flicks
on WABC-TV 7 NY 1957-61 to DiscoTeen, 6-7PM Mon-Fri 1962-3,
on WNJU-TV 47 Newark NJ, the latter two on UHF frequencies that many TV "sets" then could not yet receive!
A teen dance show on 3-4PM Mon-Sat WOOK-TV 49, studio in a house on the outskirts of Baltimore,
was k'o'd for two many provocative teen girl dancers on platform "up the skirt" camera angles (but this show
wasn't the first or only show in dutch for such thing, Alan Freed's Big Beat Dance Party on New York's
then WNEW-TV Ch. 5 was
castigated, too, for
cameras showing too much of a girl's legs during dances on the Saturday night show (click to see clip), but Alan Freed's TV shows were
not axed by Metromedia until
the payola scandal in 1959, later to be swept into yesterday's news by the "21" Jack Barry quiz show scandal (Remember Charles Van Doren?).
The Day The Music Died February 3, 1959.
It was a cold, blistery, snowy winter night when the plane crashed, which claimed the lives of Buddy
Holly, Ritchie Valens, Jiles .P. "Big Bopper" Richardson and the pilot, Roger Peterson. The three 50's rock and roll idols were headed to a dance party tour scheduled to run in 24 cities from January 23rd to February 15th in 1958. Dion & TThe Belmonts,
also booked on the show, took a tour bus along with backup musician Waylon Jennings.
Unfortunately, there was controversy in this tragedy, too. Tabloid newspapers alleged a cover-up of an onboard
shooting. There are more details about the harrowing music event along with a tear evoking final performance
of The Big Bopper, J. P. Richardson, on The Dick Clark show on Oldies Television Channel 22.
Yes, Virginia, there was a Snookey Lansen Who was Snookey Lansen? That's the number
one question we see on search engines leading to our Trivia Quiz page. The answer is there.
Hint: he was on network TV every Saturday night at 10PM. Okay, we'll cheat and give you
the answer here, too. The venerable Snooky Lansen was one of an ensemble of four singers
appearing each week to sing homogenized versions of top ten songs on Your Hit Parade.
The Snook was joined by three other relatively unknowns: Dorothy Collins, Russel Arms
and Giselle MacKenzie who, in '54, had a mild barely breaking #20 hit with "Hard To Get" on an RCA bumpoff
label, X Records, which the show "phonyously" placed one week at #2.
Things got rough in the late 50's on Your Hit Parade when the fortysomething
big band era singers had to perform teen craze rock & roll tunes like Stagger Lee & Hound Dog. It was humorous
to see conservatively dressed Dorothy Collins do a jitterbuggy jump dance to the rockabilly Blue Suede Shoes.
Actually, Snooky Lansen adapted the best to Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry tunes, but with a name like Snooky
you have to be good. CBS pulled Your Hit Parade off the turntable permanently in 1962, that year
airing only sporadically on various nights, sort of like the way NBC tried to kill Star Trek
five years later. We know where Shatner went, but Snooky, where are you?
The second most asked question to search engines eludes to
TV censorship back in the fifties. In a nutshell: the word "pregnant"
was taboo (the forbidden word list was not just seven as it is today, but well over seventy). Visually,
a married couple could not be seen in the same bed together (thus the twin beds on
sitcoms). Permitted then, was smoking on camera. On general entertainment shows today,
smoking on camera is disallowed by network censors, which would be quite
an enigma for Ernie Kovacs. George Burns and Groucho Marx, if their shows were on right now.
Visual depictions or words deemed to make fun on mainstream religion were also censored on TV
in the 1950's and most of the 60's. Jokes about Snooky Lansen, however, always fair game.
The Beatles, The British Invasion and Ed Sullivan
Unfortunately, Ed Sullivan could not get the credit for the first to have Elvis on TV.
The Tommy & Jimmy Dorsey Show beat him to it. So did Berle. In 1963, when Brian Epstein
showed Sullivan a film of The Beatles performing She Loves You on Britain TV (the very performance
we have for you on Oldies Television Channel 54), Ed inked
the foursome to debut in America on his show after the stadium arrival brouha. Thus began
the British Invasion and Ed Sullivan, knowing attracting young viewers was
attractive to television advertisers) would debut not only The Beatles, but
their opposites, The Rolling Stones, complete with Mick Jagger's tongue, along
with Herman's Hermits, The Dave Clark Five, and countless appearances by Petula Clark,
Sullivan's personal talent favorite of all the British pop stars. While EMI's Capitol Records
was tickled with the money from three to five Beatle's songs being in the top 20 at the
same time during most of 1964 amd '65, not everyone was tickled to death over the British invasion.
American artists felt squeezed out of the record charts and TV appearances from such
shows as Sullivan's. Eventually, things equalized and Elvis' Burning Love and even
a non rock & roll Patti Page record, Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte were in the top ten
with Nowhere Man and DC5's Needles and Pins (-ah)
We've Got Your Favorite Oldies Music Memories Right Here On OLDIESTELEVISION.COM
Here to relive or experience anew are all the great music performances on the "bandstand" format TV shows coast to coast,
onstage music live and lip-synched by stars who formed the roots of Rock and Roll like
Bill Haley & The Comets, Chuck Berry, Danny & The Juniors, Fats Domino, Little Richard and, of course,
The King, Elvis? How about the stars who sang songs that went from streetcorner harmony to the making out
love harmony in the back seat. Call it Doo Wop, call it Back Seat Music, call it Group Vocal, we'll
always remember The Dubs, The Duprees, The Five Satins, the underestimated Reparata & The Delrons, and the classic Tony
Williams and The Platters (and we've got Tony Williams singing lead on TV with the original Platters, not Paul Robi or any other
substitute). Berry Gordy brought us the Motown Sound with The Supremes, The Temptations...
we could go on and on, but why say it? Click on the Oldies TV banner at the bottom of this
webpage, see and hear the stars, the songs, the memories from when Rock & Roll was young
The Golden Oldies...still today, they are the heart of Rock & Roll! Don't forget our
Oldies Music Video Jukebox is here, links below on this home index page.
We are pro-oldies, but not anti-newies; we have today's music videos linked here, too! Future Gold! Also,
international music, classic and new indie movies on a separate set of channel links below,
and. of course, they are all free, too.
The Oldies TV Trivia