CHILD OF TELEVISION

This Week in Television History: July 2026 PART I

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Mon, 6 Jul 2026 00:00:00 -0700

July 12, 1976
Family Feud Premiered
Family Feud is an American television game show created by Mark Goodson where two families compete to name the most popular responses to survey questions in order to win cash and prizes.
The program premiered on ABC on July 12, 1976, and ran as part of its daytime schedule until June 14, 1985. The program was re-launched by CBS on July 4, 1988, and ran until September 10, 1993. Three separate editions for syndication were also produced. The first aired from September 19, 1977 to September 6, 1985. The second aired from September 19, 1988 to September 8, 1995. The current syndicated series premiered on September 20, 1999.
The ABC network version of the show and the first syndicated series were hosted by Richard Dawson. Ray Combs hosted the CBS series and the first six seasons of the accompanying syndicated version, then was replaced by Dawson for the final season. The 1999 syndicated series has been hosted by Louie Anderson(1999–2002), Richard Karn (2002–06), John O'Hurley (2006–10), and Steve Harvey (2010–present). Announcers for the series have included Gene Wood (1976–95), Burton Richardson (1999–2010), Joey Fatone(2010–15), and Rubin Ervin (2015–present).
The program has spawned multiple regional adaptations in over 50 international markets outside the United States. Within a year of its debut, the original version became the number one game show in daytime television; however, as viewing habits changed, the ratings declined. Harvey's takeover in 2010 increased Nielsen ratingssignificantly and eventually placed the program among the top five most popular syndicated television shows in the country. In 2013, TV Guide ranked Family Feud third in its list of the 60 greatest game shows of all time.

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Tony Figueroa

Mental Sorbet: SchoolHouse Rock - No More Kings

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Sat, 4 Jul 2026 00:00:00 -0700

Happy 4th of July

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Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: June 2026 PART V

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 00:00:00 -0700

July 1, 1941
NBC broadcasts the first TV commercial to be sanctioned by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
The FCC began licensing commercial television stations in May 1941, granting the first license to NBC. During a Dodgers-Phillies game that was broadcast July 1, NBC ran its first commercial. Advertiser Bulova paid $9 to advertise its watches on the air.
Although the first TV license was issued by the Federal Radio Commission (which later became the FCC) in 1928, all licenses were noncommercial until 1941, meaning they were not allowed to sell air time for advertisements or other commercial purposes. However, several stations had already aired advertisements by the time the FCC began issuing commercial licenses.
Although the development of television had been eagerly pursued by radio companies for decades, World War II slowed the development process. Only in the late 1940s did the medium become widespread: Until 1947, no commercial TV stations were licensed west of the Mississippi. Geographically Speaking, the first commercially sponsored TV show, debuted in 1946 with the backing of Bristol-Myers. Many other sponsored shows debuted in the early 1950s.

July 1, 1981

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that candidates for federal office had an "affirmative right" to go on national television.

On October 11, 1979, the Carter-Mondale Presidential Committee(Committee) requested each of the three major television networks (petitioners) to provide time for a 30-minute program between 8 p. m. and 10:30 p.m. on any day from the 4th through the 7th of December, 1979. The Committee intended to present, in conjunction with President Carter's formal announcement of his candidacy, a documentary outlining the record of his administration. The petitioners refused to make the requested time available. CBS emphasized the large number of candidates for the Presidential nominations and the potential disruption of regular programming to accommodate requests for equal treatment, but offered to sell a 5-minute segment at 10:55 p.m. on December 8 and a 5-minute segment in the daytime; American Broadcasting Cos. replied that it had not yet decided when it would begin selling political time for the 1980 Presidential campaign, but later indicated that it would allow such sales in January, 1980; and National Broadcasting Co., noting the number of potential requests for time from Presidential candidates, stated that it was not prepared to sell time for political programs as early as December, 1979. The Committee then filed a complaint with the FCC, charging that the networks had violated their obligation to provide "reasonable access" under § 312(a)(7). The FCC ruled that the networks had violated the statute, concluding that their reasons for refusing to sell the time requested were "deficient" under the FCC's standards

Page 453 U. S. 368

of reasonableness, and directing the networks to indicate by a specified date how they intended to fulfill their statutory obligations. On the networks' petition for review, the Court of Appeals affirmed the FCC's orders, holding that the statute created a new, affirmative right of access to the broadcast media for individual candidates for federal elective office, and that the FCC has the authority to independently evaluate whether a campaign has begun for purposes of the statute. The court approved the FCC's insistence that, in responding to a candidate's request for time, broadcasters must weigh certain factors, including the individual needs of the candidate (as expressed by the candidate); the amount of time previously provided to the candidate; potential disruption of regular programming; the number of other candidates likely to invoke equal opportunity rights if the broadcaster granted the request before it; and the timing of the request. The court determined that the record supported the FCC's conclusion that the networks failed to apply the proper standards, and had thus violated the statute's "reasonable access" requirement. The court also rejected petitioners' First Amendment challenge to § 312(a)(7) as applied.

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Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: June 2026 PART IV

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 -0700

June 27, 1966

Dark Shadows, premiered on ABC
The gothic soap opera that originally aired weekdays on the ABC television network, from June 27, 1966, to April 2, 1971. The show was created by Dan Curtis. The story bible, which was written by Art Wallace, does not mention any supernatural elements. It was unprecedented in daytime television when ghosts were introduced about six months after it began.

The series became hugely popular when vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) appeared a year into its run. Dark Shadows also featured werewolves, zombies, man-made monsters, witches, warlocks, time travel, and a parallel universe. A small company of actors each played many roles (as actors came and went, some characters were played by more than one actor). Major writers besides Art Wallace included Malcolm Marmorstein, Sam Hall, Gordon Russell, and Violet Welles.

Dark Shadows was distinguished by its vividly melodramatic performances, atmospheric interiors, memorable storylines, numerous dramatic plot twists, unusually adventurous music score, and broad and epic cosmos of characters and heroic adventures. Now regarded as something of a classic, it continues to enjoy an intense cult following. Although the original series ran for only five years, its scheduling as a daily daytime drama allowed it to amass more single episodes during its run (1,225) than most other science-fiction/fantasy genre series produced for English-language television, including Doctor Who and the entire Star Trek television franchise. Only the paranormal soap opera Passions, with a total of 2,231 episodes, has more.

Directors Tim Burton and Quentin Tarantino, and pop singer Madonna have publicly stated they are fans of the series. As a child, Johnny Depp was so obsessed with Barnabas Collins that he wanted to be him; he collaborated with Tim Burton on a theatrical film adaptation which opened in 2012, in which he plays Barnabas.

In 2004 and 2007, Dark Shadows was ranked #19 and #23 on TV Guide's Top Cult Shows Ever
June 28, 1926

Mel Brooks is born Melvin James Kaminsky
He is known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. Brooks began his career as a comic and a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows. He became well known as part of the comedy duo with Carl Reiner in the comedy skit, The 2000 Year Old Man.
He also created, with Buck Henry, the hit television comedy series, Get Smart, which ran from 1965 to 1970.
In middle age, Brooks became one of the most successful film directors of the 1970s, with many of his films being among the top 10 moneymakers of the year they were released. His best-known films include The Producers,The Twelve Chairs, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Silent Movie, High Anxiety, History of the World, Part I,Spaceballs and Robin Hood: Men in Tights. A musical adaptation of his first film, The Producers, ran on Broadway from 2001 to 2007.
In 2001, having previously won an Emmy, a Grammy and an Oscar, he joined a small list of EGOT winners with his Tony award for The Producers. He received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2009, the 41st AFI Life Achievement Award in June 2013, and a British Film Institute Fellowship in March 2015. Three of his films ranked in theAmerican Film Institute's list of the top 100 comedy films of all-time, all of which ranked in the top 20 of the list:Blazing Saddles at number 6, The Producers at number 11, and Young Frankenstein at number 13.
Brooks was married to Oscar-winning actress Anne Bancroft from 1964 until her death in 2005.

June 28, 1946
Gilda Susan Radner was born.
She was best known as one of the original cast members of the hit NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, for which she won an Emmy Award in 1978.
Radner was born in Detroit, Michigan, the daughter of Jewish parents Henrietta (née Dworkin), a legal secretary, and Herman Radner, a businessman. She grew up in Detroit with a nanny, Elizabeth Clementine Gillies, whom she called "Dibby" (and on whom she based her famous character Emily Litella),^[3] and an older brother named Michael. She attended the University Liggett School in Grosse Pointe. Radner wrote in her autobiography It's Always Something that toward the end of her life she, "coped with stress by having every possible eating disorder from the time I was nine years old. I have weighed as much as 160 pounds and as little as 93. When I was a kid, I overate constantly. My weight distressed my mother and she took me to a doctor who put me on Dexedrine diet pills when I was ten years old."
Radner was close to her father, who operated Detroit's Seville Hotel, where many nightclub performers and actors stayed while performing in the city. He took her on trips to New York to see Broadway shows. As Radner wrote in It's Always Something, when she was twelve her father developed a brain tumor, and the symptoms began so suddenly that he told people his eyeglasses were too tight. Within days he was bedridden and unable to communicate, and he remained in that condition until his death two years later.
Radner enrolled at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where she made a lifelong platonic friend of fellow student David Saltman, who wrote a biography of her after her death. Radner joined Saltman and his girlfriend on a trip to Paris in the summer of 1966. Saltman wrote that he was so affectionate with his girlfriend that they left Radner to fend for herself during much of their sightseeing. Twenty years later, when many details of Radner's eating disorder were reported in a bestselling book about Saturday Night Live by Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad, Saltman realized she had been in a quandary over the French cuisine, but had no one with whom she could discuss her situation.
In Ann Arbor, Radner began her broadcasting career as the weather girl for college radio station WCBN, but dropped out in her senior year to follow her then-boyfriend, a Canadian sculptor named Jeffrey Rubinoff, to Toronto, Canada. In Toronto, she made her professional acting debut in the 1972 production of Godspell with future stars Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Victor Garber and Martin Short. Afterward, Radner joined the Toronto Second City comedy troupe.
Radner was a featured player on the National Lampoon Radio Hour, a comedy program syndicated to some 600 U.S. radio stations from 1974 to 1975. Fellow cast members included John Belushi, Richard Belzer, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Brian Doyle-Murray, and Rhonda Coullet.
Radner gained name recognition as one of the original "Not Ready for Prime Time Players", a member of the freshman group on the first season of Saturday Night Live. She was the first performer cast for the show. Between 1975 and 1980, she created such characters as obnoxious personal advice expert Roseanne Roseannadanna, "Baba Wawa", a parody of Barbara Walters, and Emily Litella, an elderly hearing-impaired woman who gave angry and misinformed editorial replies on "Weekend Update". Radner also parodied such celebrities as Lucille Ball, Patti Smith, and Olga Korbut in SNL sketches. She won an Emmy Award in 1978 for her work on SNL.
Radner battled bulimia during her time on the show. She once told a reporter that she had thrown up in every toilet in Rockefeller Center. She had a relationship with SNL castmate Bill Murray, with whom she had also worked at the National Lampoon, that ended badly. Few details of their relationship or its end were made public at the time. When Radner wrote It's Always Something, this is the only reference she made to Murray in the entire book: "All the guys [in the National Lampoon group of writers and performers] liked to have me around because I would laugh at them till I peed in my pants and tears rolled out of my eyes. We worked together for a couple of years creating The National Lampoon Show, writing The National Lampoon Radio Hour, and even working on stuff for the magazine. Bill Murray joined the show and Richard Belzer ..." According to Bill Murray, last time Radner and he saw each other was at a party thrown by Laraine Newman. Hearing she was leaving, Murray and Dan Akroyd carried her around and around the house party, repeatedly saying goodbye to everyone, and since all the guests were comedians, they all did comedy bits with her, over and over.
In 1979, incoming NBC President Fred Silverman offered Radner her own prime time variety show, which she ultimately turned down. That year, she was one of the hosts of the Music for UNICEF Concert at the United Nations General Assembly.
Alan Zweibel, who co-created the Roseanne Roseannadanna character and co-wrote all of Roseanne's dialogue, recalled that Radner, one of three original SNL cast members who stayed away from cocaine, chastised him for using it.
Radner had mixed emotions about the fans and strangers who recognized her in public. She sometimes became "angry when she was approached, but upset when she wasn't."
In 1979, Radner appeared on Broadway in a successful one-woman show entitled Gilda Radner - Live From New York. The show featured material that was racier than what NBC censors allowed Saturday Night Live to put on the television airwaves, such as the song Let's Talk Dirty to the Animals. In 1979, shortly before Radner began her final season on Saturday Night Live, her Broadway show was filmed by Mike Nichols under the title Gilda Live!, co-starring Paul Shaffer and Don Novello, and was released to theaters nationwide in 1980 with poor results. A soundtrack album was also unsuccessful. During the production, she met her first husband, G. E. Smith, a musician who also worked on the show. They were married in a civil ceremony in 1980.
In the fall of 1980, after all original SNL cast members departed from the show, Radner starred opposite Sam Waterston in the Jean Kerr play, Lunch Hour, as a pair whose spouses are having an affair, and in response invent one of their own, consisting of trysts on their lunch hour. The show ran for over seven months.
Radner met actor Gene Wilder on the set of the Sidney Poitier film Hanky Panky, when the two appeared together. She described their first meeting as "love at first sight." She was unable to resist her attraction to Wilder as her marriage to guitarist G. E. Smith deteriorated. Radner went on to make a second film, The Woman in Red, released in 1984 with Wilder and their relationship grew. The two were married on September 18, 1984, in St. Tropez. The pair made a third film together, Haunted Honeymoon, released in 1986.
After experiencing severe fatigue and suffering from pain in her upper legs on the set of Haunted Honeymoon in the United Kingdom in 1985, Radner sought medical treatment. After 10 months of false diagnoses, she learned that she had ovarian cancer on October 21, 1986. She suffered extreme physical and emotional pain during chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment.
After Radner was told she had gone into remission, she wrote It's Always Something (a catchphrase of her character Roseanne Roseannadanna), which included many details of her struggle with the illness. Life magazine did a March 1988 cover story on her illness, entitled "Gilda Radner's Answer to Cancer: Healing the Body with Mind and Heart." In 1988, Radner guest-starred on It's Garry Shandling's Show on Showtime, to great critical acclaim. When Shandling asked her why she had not been seen in public for a while, she replied, "Oh, I had cancer. What did you have?" Shandling's reply: "A very bad series of career moves... which, by the way, there's no cure for whatsoever." She also repeated on-camera Mark Twain's apocryphal saying, "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." Radner planned to host an episode of Saturday Night Live that year, but a writers' strike caused the cancellation of the rest of the network television season.
In the fall of 1988, after biopsies and a saline wash of her abdomen showed no signs of cancer, Radner was put on a maintenance chemotherapy treatment to prolong her remission, but later that same year, she learned that her cancer had returned after a routine blood test showed her levels of the tumor marker CA-125 had increased. She was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on May 17, 1989 for a CAT scan. Despite being fearful that she would never wake up, she was given a sedative but passed into a coma during the scan. She did not regain consciousness and died three days later from ovarian cancer at 6:20 am on May 20, 1989; Wilder was at her side.
Gene Wilder had this to say about her death:
She went in for the scan – but the people there could not keep her on the gurney. She was raving like a crazed woman – she knew they would give her morphine and was afraid she’d never regain consciousness. She kept getting off the cart as they were wheeling her out. Finally three people were holding her gently and saying, "Come on Gilda. We’re just going to go down and come back up." She kept saying, "Get me out, get me out!" She’d look at me and beg me, "Help me out of here. I’ve got to get out of here." And I’d tell her, "You’re okay honey. I know. I know." They sedated her, and when she came back, she remained unconscious for three days. I stayed at her side late into the night, sometimes sleeping over. Finally a doctor told me to go home and get some sleep. At 4 am on Saturday, I heard a pounding on my door. It was an old friend, a surgeon, who told me, "Come on. It's time to go." When I got there, a night nurse, whom I still want to thank, had washed Gilda and taken out all the tubes. She put a pretty yellow barrette in her hair. She looked like an angel. So peaceful. She was still alive, and as she lay there, I kissed her. But then her breathing became irregular, and there were long gasps and little gasps. Two hours after I arrived, Gilda was gone. While she was conscious, I never said goodbye.
Her funeral was held in Connecticut on May 24, 1989. In lieu of flowers, her family requested that donations be sent to The Wellness Community. Her gravestone reads: "Gilda Radner Wilder - Comedienne - Ballerina 1946-1989". She was interred at Long Ridge Union Cemetery in Stamford, Connecticut.
By coincidence, the news of her death broke on early Saturday afternoon (Eastern Daylight Time), while Steve Martin was rehearsing as the guest host for that night's season finale of Saturday Night Live. Saturday Night Live personnel—including Lorne Michaels, Phil Hartman, and Mike Myers (who had, in his own words, "fallen in love" with Radner after playing her son in a BC Hydro commercial on Canadian television and considered her the reason he wanted to be on SNL)—had not known she was so close to death. They scrapped Martin's planned opening monologue and instead, Martin, in tears, introduced a video clip of a 1978 sketch in which he and Radner parodied Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse in a well-known dance routine from The Band Wagon.
Wilder established the Gilda Radner Ovarian Detection Center at Cedars-Sinai to screen high-risk candidates (such as women of Ashkenazi Jewish descent) and run basic diagnostic tests. He testified before a Congressional committee that Radner's condition had been misdiagnosed and that if doctors had inquired more deeply into her family background they would have learned that her grandmother, aunt and cousin had all died of ovarian cancer, and therefore they might have attacked the disease earlier.
Radner's death from ovarian cancer helped to raise awareness of early detection and the connection to familial epidemiology. The media attention in the two years after Radner's death led to registry of 450 families with familial ovarian cancer at the Familial Ovarian Cancer Registry, a research database registry at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York. The registry was later renamed the Gilda Radner Familial Ovarian Cancer Registry (GRFOCR). In 1996, Gene Wilder and Registry founder Steven Piver, one of Radner's medical consultants, published Gilda's Disease: Sharing Personal Experiences and a Medical Perspective on Ovarian Cancer. Through Wilder's efforts and those of others, awareness of ovarian cancer and its symptoms has continued to grow.
In 1991, Gilda's Club, a network of affiliate clubhouses where people living with cancer, their friends and families, can meet to learn how to live with cancer, was founded. The center was named for a quip from Radner, who said, "Having cancer gave me membership in an elite club I'd rather not belong to." Many Gilda's Clubs have opened across the United States and in Canada. In 2009, Gilda's Club merged with another similar institution, The Wellness Community, under the new name of Cancer Support Community, which was legally adopted in 2011.
In 2002, the ABC television network aired a television movie about her life: Gilda Radner: It's Always Something, starring Jami Gertz as Radner.
In 2007 she was featured in the film Making Trouble, a tribute to female Jewish comedians, produced by the Jewish Women’s Archive.
Radner won an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Continuing or Single Performance by a Supporting Actress in Variety or Music" for her performance on Saturday Night Live in 1977. She posthumously won a Grammy for "Best Spoken Word Or Non-Musical Recording" in 1990.
In 1992, Radner was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame for her achievements in arts and entertainment. On June 27, 2003, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6801 Hollywood Blvd.
Parts of West Houston Street in New York City, Lombard Street in Toronto, and Chester Street in White Plains, New York have been renamed "Gilda Radner Way."

June 28, 1951

Amos ’n’ Andy moved to CBS-TV from radio.

Amos and Andy began as one of the first radio comedy series, written and voiced by Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll and originating from station WMAQ in Chicago. After the program was first broadcast in 1928, it grew to become a huge influence on radio series that followed. The show ran as a nightly radio serial from 1928 until 1943, as a weekly situation comedy from 1943 until 1955, and as a nightly disc-jockey program from 1954 until 1960. A television adaptation ran on CBS-TV from 1951 until 1953, and continued in syndicated reruns from 1954 until 1966. The Amos 'n Andy Show was produced from June 1951 to April 1953 with 78 filmed episodes, sponsored by the Blatz Brewing Company. The television series used African-American actors in the main roles, although the actors were instructed to keep their voices and speech patterns as close to Gosden and Correll's as possible. Produced at the Hal Roach Studios for CBS, it was one of the first television series to be filmed with a multicamera setup, four months before the more famous I Love Lucy used the technique. The lighting cameraman (Director of Photography) was Robert de Grasse ASC. The operating cameramen (camera operators) were Robert de Grasse, Lucien Andriot ASC, and Benjamin Kline ASC. The classic theme song was "The Perfect Song." In the TV series, however, the theme became Gaetano Braga's "Angel's Serenade", which sounded similar to "The Perfect Song" (and because it was in the public domain), performed by The Jeff Alexander Chorus. The program went on the air June 28, 1951.

The main roles in the television series were played by the following African-American actors:

Amos Jones - Alvin Childress

Andrew Hogg Brown (Andy) - Spencer Williams

George "Kingfish" Stevens - Tim Moore

Sapphire Stevens - Ernestine Wade

Ramona Smith (Sapphire's Mama) - Amanda Randolph

Madame Queen - Lillian Randolph

Algonquin J. Calhoun - Johnny Lee

Lightnin' - Nick Stewart (aka, Nick O'Demus)

This time, the NAACP mounted a formal protest almost as soon as the television version began, and that pressure was considered a primary factor in the video version's cancellation (the sponsor, Blatz Beer, was targeted as well, finally discontinuing their advertising support in June 1953). It has been suggested that CBS erred in its choice of having the program premiere during the NAACP national convention for that year, as the timing may have increased the objections to it. The show was widely repeated in syndicated reruns until 1966 when CBS acquiesced to pressure from the NAACP and the growing civil rights movement and withdrew the program. Until recently, the television show had been released only on bootleg videotape versions, but by 2005, 72 of the 78 known TV episodes were available in bootleg DVD sets.
When the show was cancelled, 65 episodes had been produced. An additional 13 episodes were produced to be added to the syndicated rerun package. These episodes were focused on Kingfish, with little participation from Amos 'n' Andy. This is because these episodes were to be titled The Adventures of Kingfish, but they premiered under the Amos 'n' Andy title instead. The additional episodes first aired on CBS on January 4, 1955. Plans were made for a vaudeville act of the television program in August 1953, with Tim Moore, Alvin Childress and Spencer Williams playing the same roles. It is not known whether there were any performances. Still eager for television success, Gosden, Correll and CBS made initial efforts to give the series another try. The plan was to begin televising Amos 'n' Andy in the fall of 1956, with both of its creators appearing on television in a split screen with the proposed African-American cast.
A group of cast members began a "TV Stars of Amos 'n' Andy" cross-country tour in 1956, which was halted by CBS; the network considered it an infringement of their exclusive rights to the show and its characters. A similar tour had been planned by some cast members in 1953 after cancellation of the series. Following the threatened legal action which brought the 1956 tour to an end, Moore, Childress, Williams and Lee were able to perform like this for at least one night in 1957 in Windsor, Ontario.

In 1978, a one-hour documentary film, Amos 'n' Andy: Anatomy of a Controversy, aired in television syndication (and in later years, on PBS). It told a brief history of the franchise from its radio days to the CBS series, and featured interviews with then-surviving cast members. The film also contained a select complete episode of the classic TV series that had not been seen since it was pulled from the air in 1966.

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Tony Figueroa

James Burrows

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 16:19:18 -0700

Script comes first, then the actors, then you gotta be lucky enough to get the right time slot. Then people have to watch.

-James Burrows

James Edward Burrows

December 30, 1940 – June 19, 2026

James Burrows was employed as a dialogue coach on O.K. Crackerby!, a television series starring Burl Ives and created by Burrows' father, Abe. Burrows then took a job as an assistant stage manager for the 1967 play Holly Golightly, an adaptation of the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's. The production was unsuccessful, but the job served as Burrows' introduction to its star, Mary Tyler Moore. Early on, Burrows also worked for the road company of Cactus Flower and the Broadway production of Forty Carats. He also went to direct the short lived Broadway play The Castro Complex. Burrows continued working in theater as a stage manager and transitioned into directing plays. Burrows directed traveling plays and a production at a Jacksonville, Florida dinner theater.

While working in theater, Burrows wrote Moore and her then husband Grant Tinker seeking a job at their production company, MTM Enterprises. In 1974, Tinker hired Burrows as a director for MTM Enterprises where he directed episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show. Tinker asked director Jay Sandrich, known for his work directing The Mary Tyler Moore Show and later The Cosby Show and The Golden Girls, to serve as a mentor to Burrows.

Burrows is best known for his comic timing, complex blocking for actors, and incorporating more sophisticated lighting in television studio shoots. He is also credited as being one of the first sitcom directors to increase the typical multi-camera television shoot from three to four cameras. During this time Burrows directed for numerous shows such as Phyllis, Rhoda, Laverne & Shirley, Busting Loose, The Ted Knight Show, The Associates, and On Our Own.

Burrows co-created Cheers with brothers Glen and Les Charles. The Charles brothers were also former employees of MTM Enterprises and served as producers on the series Taxi where Burrows worked as in-house director for 76 episodes. Burrows and the Charles brothers wanted to create a show where they could have more control. Cheers premiered on NBC on September 30, 1982. Although Cheers initially struggled in the ratings, the series became a hit, running 275 episodes over eleven seasons. Burrows directed all but 35 of those 275 episodes. During his time on Cheers Burrows also directed episodes for shows such as the NBC sitcoms The Hogan Family, Dear John, and Night Court.

Burrows then gained acclaim for directing the NBC sitcom Frasier. He won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series for the pilot, The Good Son in 1993. Burrows directed in total 32 episodes from 1993 to 1997. The series was a spinoff of Cheers focusing on the character of Dr. Frasier Crane portrayed by Kelsey Grammer. The series also starred David Hyde Pierce, John Mahoney, Peri Gilpin, and Jane Leeves. It received critical acclaim for its writing, directing and performances. It won five consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Comedy Series (for seasons 1–5). In 1998, Burrows directed a Chicago-based production of the 1939 comedy The Man Who Came to Dinner starring John Mahoney.

Burrows also directed 15 episodes of another NBC sitcom Friends starring Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc, and Lisa Kudrow. The series follows six friends living in New York City. He received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series for the 1994 episode The One with the Blackout from Season 1. During this time he also received Emmy nominations for directing the pilot episodes of both the NBC sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun starring John Lithgow, Kristen Johnston, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Jane Curtin, and the ABC sitcom Dharma & Greg starring Jenna Elfman and Thomas Gibson. He also directed episodes of the NBC sitcoms Wings, NewsRadio, Caroline in the City, and the CBS sitcoms Pearl and George and Leo.

From 1998 to 2006, Burrows directed numerous episodes of the NBC sitcom Will & Grace starring Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Megan Mullally, and Sean Hayes. Burrows received twelve Primetime Emmy Award nominations for the series winning for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series in 2000. He was nominated for directing the episodes, "Pilot" (1998), "Homo for the Holidays" (2000), "Lows in the Mid-Eighties" (2001), "A Chorus Lie" (2002), "24" (2003), and "It's a Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad World" (2005). Burrows directed every episode of Will & Grace, both during its initial eight-year run and its later three-year revival.

In 2007, he directed episodes of the Chuck Lorre created CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory starring Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, Sara Gilbert, and Mayim Bialik. From 2003 to 2006 he directed numerous episodes of another Chuck Lorre created CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men starring Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer. During this time he also directed episodes of shows such as the CBS sitcoms The Class, Courting Alex, and Gary Unmarried, the Fox sitcom Back to You, and the ABC sitcom Hank.

Burrows directed high-profile sitcoms during the 2010s including the CBS sitcoms Mike & Molly (2010–2016) starring Billy Gardell, and Melissa McCarthy, and The Millers (2013–2015) starring Will Arnett, Margo Martindale, Beau Bridges. Burrows reunited with Matt LeBlanc with Man with a Plan (2016–2020). He also directed the sitcom B Positive (2020–2022) starring Annaleigh Ashford. Burrows directed episodes of numerous television series including the ABC sitcoms Romantically Challenged, Better with You, the CBS sitcoms $#*! My Dad Says, 2 Broke Girls, Partners, Friends with Better Lives, Superior Donuts, and The Neighborhood, the NBC sitcoms Sean Saves the World, Crowded, and the Netflix comedy series Disjointed.

By 2012, Burrows had directed over 50 pilots for television series. Burrows has directed over 1,000 episodes of television, a milestone he achieved in November 2015 with the NBC sitcom Crowded. To celebrate Burrows' achievement, NBC aired a special tribute on February 21, 2016, titled Must See TV: An All-Star Tribute to James Burrows featuring cast reunions from many of the series Burrows has directed such as Cheers, Taxi, Friends, Frasier, The Big Bang Theory, Will & Grace and Mike & Molly. In January 2020, Andy Fisher and Burrows won the Directors Guild of America Award for Variety/Talk/News/Sports – Specials for Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear's All in the Family and The Jeffersons.

In 2016, Burrows directed his 1,000th TV episode, on NBC's Crowded. Burrows took part in two revivals, Will & Grace (2017–2020) with the original cast reunited. He received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series for the episode, "We Love Lucy". In 2023, he directed the first two episodes of the revival of Frasier on Paramount+.

Good Night Jim

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Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: June 2026 PART III

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 00:00:00 -0700

June 16, 1976

The TV show The Jacksons began airing for four weeks on CBS.
The Jacksons was a variety show featuring the Jackson siblings (except for Jermaine, who was signed to Motown while the Jackson group was signed to the Epic/CBS record label). It was the first variety show where the entire cast were siblings. As with the Jackson 5 regular performances, Michael Jackson was the lead performer in musical and dance performances.

The thirty-minute Wednesday evening show began airing on CBS as a summer 1976 show and it continued into the 1976–1977 season, finishing on March 9, 1977 after running for 12 episodes.

June 21, 2001
Carroll O'Connor died in Culver City, California from a heart attack brought on by complications from diabetes.
His funeral Mass was celebrated at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Westwood, Los Angeles, California and was attended by All in the Family cast members Rob Reiner, Sally Struthers and Danielle Brisebois, as well as producer Norman Lear. Actress Jean Stapleton, who played O'Connor's onscreen wife and who had been a close friend of O'Connor's since the early 1960s, did not attend the service due to a stage production performance commitment.

In honor of O'Connor's career, TV Land moved an entire weekend of programming to the next week and showed a continuous marathon of All in the Family. During the commercial breaks TV Land also showed interview footage of O'Connor and various All in the Family actors, producers with whom he had worked, and other associates. O'Connor's best friend Larry Hagman and his family were also there, alongside the surviving cast of In the Heat of the Night, including Alan Autry and Denise Nicholas, who also attended the memorial. Actor Martin Sheen, then starring on The West Wing, delivered the eulogy. O'Connor is buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery with his son Hugh's cenotaph placed on his grave stone.

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Ronnie Schell

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 19:03:18 -0700

I didn't get the big break, but I got many little breaks.

-Ronnie Schell

Ronald Ralph Schell

December 23, 1931 – June 12, 2026

Good Night Mr. Schell

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Gene Shalit

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 18:42:36 -0700

Some films could only have been cast in one way:

Screen tests were given and the losers got the parts.

-Gene Shalit

Eugene Shalit

March 25, 1926 – June 12, 2026

Good Night Mr. Shalit

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Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: June 2026 PART II

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Mon, 8 Jun 2026 00:00:00 -0700

June 9, 1961
Michael J. Fox was born, in Canada.
He first became known for his role as Alex P. Keaton on the popular sitcom Family Ties, and went on to star in such films as Back to the Future and Teen Wolf as well as the TV series Spin City. In 1999, he announced that he was battling Parkinson's Disease. He left Spin City in 2000 but later guest starred on such shows as Scrubs and Boston Legal.
Quotes
My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations.
– Michael J. Fox
Early Career
Actor. Born Michael Andrew Fox, on June 9, 1961, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Fox began using the middle initial 'J' (presumably smoother-sounding than 'A') professionally to distinguish himself from another acting "Michael Fox." Michael J. Fox first achieved stardom in 1982, as the acquisitive Reagan-era poster-boy Alex P. Keaton on the popular television sitcom Family Ties.

Hailing from Canada, where he grew up the youngest of five children to Bill and Phyllis Fox, Michael struggled in school and was too small - he is five feet, four inches tall - to compete in his favorite activity, ice hockey. He found an outlet in drama class, and in 1976 made his professional debut in the CBS series Leo and Me at age 15 (playing a 10-year-old). After starring in the CBS movie Letters from Frank (also filmed in Canada), Fox dropped out of high school and drove to Los Angeles with his father. There, he found work in the series Palmerstown, U.S.A. before landing the role in Family Ties, where he wooed audiences with his confident charm and impeccable comic timing for seven years.
Big Screen Success
He also had enormous success on the big screen, playing Marty McFly in Robert Zemeckis' zany romp, Back to the Future (1985). After playing comic roles in Teen Wolf and The Secret of My Success, Fox wanted to broaden his range and took some unlikely dramatic turns, playing a factory worker in Light of Day, a cocaine-snorting fact checker in Bright Lights, Big City, and earning critical acclaim for his starring role alongside Sean Penn in Brian DePalma's Vietnam saga Casualties of War.
Spin City
Audiences applauded Fox's return to Back to the Future, for sequels II and III in 1989 and 1990. His pitch-perfect portrayal of a George Stephanopoulos-type character in The American President (1995) earned Fox accolades once again, but it was his ceremonious return to prime time television in the ABC sitcom Spin City, which launched in 1996, that put Fox back where he belonged - delighting audiences on a weekly basis with a schedule that allowed him more time with his family. In 1999, he contributed his trademark voice and comic flare as the title character (a little white mouse) in the film adaptation of E.B. White's Stuart Little. Fox was honored with a star on the fabled Hollywood Walk of Fame in December 2002.
Battle with Parkinson's Disease

In late 1999, Fox made the startling announcement that he had been battling Parkinson's disease since 1991, and had even undergone brain surgery to alleviate tremors. Despite Spin City's incredible success and a showering of Emmy and Golden Globe awards, Fox announced in early 2000 that he would leave the show, which he also executive produced, to spend time with his family, and to concentrate on raising money and awareness for Parkinson's disease - including the May 2000 launch of the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. Fox won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his final season on Spin City, along with the respect and support of the entire Hollywood community.

In 2004, Fox guest starred in the television comedy Scrubs as Dr. Kevin Casey, a surgeon with obsessive-compulsive disorder. In 2006, he appeared in a recurring role on the drama Boston Legal. Fox was nominated for an Emmy Award for best guest appearance. In 2009, he appeared on the dark drama, Rescue Me, and his television special Michael J. Fox: Adventures of an Incurable Optimist, based on his best-selling book by the same title, aired on ABC.

Fox married the actress Tracy Pollan (who played Ellen, Alex Keaton's girlfriend, on Family Ties) in 1988. The couple has four children: son Sam, twin girls Aquinnah and Schuyler, and daughter Esmé Annabelle.

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Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: June 2026 PART I

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Mon, 1 Jun 2026 00:00:00 -0700

June 1, 1926
Andy Samuel Griffith (born June 1, 1926) is an American actor, director, producer, Grammy Award-winning Southern-gospel singer, and writer.
He gained prominence in the starring role in director Elia Kazan's epic film, A Face in the Crowd (1957) before he became better known for his television roles, playing the lead characters in the 1960–68 situation comedy, The Andy Griffith Show, and in the 1986–95 legal drama, Matlock. Griffith was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by US President George W. Bush on November 9, 2005.
Early life and education
Griffith was born in Mount Airy, North Carolina, the only child of Geneva (née Nunn) and Carl Lee Griffith. At a very young age, Griffith had to live with relatives until his parents could afford to get a home of their own. Without a crib or a bed, he slept in drawers for a few months. In 1929, when Griffith was three years old, his father took a job working as a carpenter and was finally able to purchase a home in Mount Airy's "blue-collar" southside.
Like his mother, Griffith grew up listening to music. His father instilled a sense of humor from old family stories. By the time he entered school he was well aware that he was from what many considered the "wrong side of the tracks". He was a shy student, but once he found a way to make his peers laugh, he began to come out of his shell and come into his own.
As a student at Mount Airy High School, Griffith cultivated an interest in the arts, and he participated in the school's drama program. A growing love of music, particularly swing, would change his life. Griffith was raised Baptist and looked up to Ed Mickey, a minister at Grace Moravian Church, who led the brass band and taught him to sing and play the trombone. Mickey nurtured Griffith's talent throughout high school until graduation in 1944. Griffith was delighted when he was offered a role in The Lost Colony, a play still performed today on Roanoke Island. He performed as a cast member of the play for several years, playing a variety of roles, until he finally landed the role of Sir Walter Raleigh, the namesake of North Carolina's capital.
He began college studying to be a Moravian preacher, but he changed his major to music and became a part of the school's Carolina Play Makers. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and graduated with a bachelor of music degree in 1949. At UNC he was president of the UNC Men's Glee Club and a member of the Alpha Rho Chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, America's oldest fraternity for men in music. He also played roles in several student operettas, including The Chimes of Normandy (1946), and Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers (1945), The Mikado (1948) and H.M.S. Pinafore (1949).^[4]
After graduation, he taught English for a few years at Goldsboro High School in Goldsboro, North Carolina, where he taught, among others, Carl Kasell. He also began to write.
Griffith's early career was as a monologist, delivering long stories such as What it Was, Was Football, which is told from the point of view of a rural backwoodsman trying to figure out what was going on in a football game.^[6] Released as a single in 1953 on the Colonial label, the monologue was a hit for Griffith, reaching number nine on the charts in 1954.
Griffith starred in a one-hour teleplay version of No Time for Sergeants (March 1955)—a story about a country boy in the US Air Force—on The United States Steel Hour, a television anthology series. He expanded that role in a full-length theatrical version of the same name (October 1955) on Broadway in New York City, New York.^[8] His Broadway career also included the title role in the 1957 musical, Destry Rides Again, co-starring Delores Gray. The show, with a score by Harold Rome, ran for more than a year.
Griffith later reprised his role for the film version (1958) of No Time for Sergeants; the film also featured Don Knotts, as a corporal in charge of manual-dexterity tests, marking the beginning of a life-long association between Griffith and Knotts. No Time for Sergeants is considered the direct inspiration for the later television situation comedy Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
He also portrayed a US Coast Guard sailor in the feature film Onionhead (1958); it was neither a critical nor a commercial success.
Dramatic role in A Face in the Crowd (1957)
In 1957 Griffith made his film début, starring in the film A Face in the Crowd. Although he plays a "country boy", this country boy is manipulative and power-hungry, a drifter who becomes a television host and uses his show as a gateway to political power. Co-starring Patricia Neal, Walter Matthau, Tony Franciosa, and Lee Remick (in her film début as well), this now-classic film, directed by Elia Kazan, showcases Griffith's powerful talents. Written by Budd Schulberg, and partly based on the on-stage phoniness of Arthur Godfrey, the film demonstrated, quite early on, the power that television can have upon the masses. This prescient film was seldom run on television until the 1990s.
A 2005 DVD reissue of A Face in the Crowd includes a mini-documentary on the film, with comments from Schulberg and surviving cast members Griffith, Franciosa, and Neal. In his interview, Griffith, revered for his wholesome image for decades, reveals a more complex side of himself. He recalls Kazan prepping him to shoot his first scene with Remick's teenaged baton twirler, who captivates Griffith's character on a trip to Arkansas. Griffith also expresses his belief that the film was far more popular and respected in more recent decades than it was when originally released.
Griffith's first appearance on television had been in 1955 in the one-hour teleplay of No Time for Sergeants on The United States Steel Hour. That was the first of two appearances on that series.
In 1960, Griffith appeared as a county sheriff (who was also a justice of the peace and the editor of the local newspaper) in an episode of Make Room for Daddy, starring Danny Thomas. This episode, in which Thomas' character is stopped for speeding in a little town, served as a backdoor pilot for The Andy Griffith Show. Both shows were produced by Sheldon Leonard.
The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968)
Beginning in 1960, Griffith starred as Sheriff Andy Taylor in The Andy Griffith Show for the CBS television network. The show took place in the fictional town of Mayberry, North Carolina, where Taylor, a widower, was the sheriff and town sage. The show was filmed at Desilu Studios, with exteriors filmed at Forty Acres in Culver City, CA.
From 1960 to 1965, the show co-starred character actor and comedian—and Griffith's longtime friend—Don Knotts in the role of Deputy Barney Fife, Taylor's best friend and partner. He was also Taylor's cousin in the show. In the series première episode, in a conversation between the two, Fife calls Taylor "Cousin Andy", and Taylor calls Fife "Cousin Barney". The show also starred child actor Ron Howard (then known as Ronny Howard), who played Taylor's only child, Opie Taylor.
It was an immediate hit. Although Griffith never received a writing credit for the show, he worked on the development of every script. While Knotts was frequently lauded and won multiple Emmy Awards for his comedic performances (as did Frances Bavier in 1967), Griffith was never nominated for an Emmy Award during the show's run.
In 1967, Griffith was under contract with CBS to do one more season of the show. However, he decided to quit the show to pursue a movie career and other projects. The series continued as Mayberry R.F.D., with Ken Berry starring as a widower farmer and many of the regular characters recurring, some regularly and some as guest appearances. Griffith served as executive producer (according to Griffith, he came in once a week to review the week's scripts and give input) and guest starred in five episodes (the pilot episode involved his marriage to Helen Crump).^[10] He made final appearances as Taylor in the 1986 reunion television film, Return to Mayberry, and in two reunion specials in 1993 and 2003.
Matlock (1986–1995)
After leaving his still-popular show in 1968, and starting his own production company (Andy Griffith Enterprises) in 1972, Griffith starred in less-successful television series such as Headmaster (1970), The New Andy Griffith Show (1971), Adams of Eagle Lake (1975) Salvage 1 (1979), and The Yeagers (1980).
After spending time in rehabilitation for leg paralysis from Guillain–Barré syndrome in 1986, Griffith returned to television as the title character, Ben Matlock, in the legal drama Matlock (1986–1995) on NBC and ABC. Matlock was a country lawyer in Atlanta, Georgia, who was known for his Southern drawl and for always winning his cases. Matlock also starred unfamiliar actors (both of whom were childhood fans of Andy Griffith) Nancy Stafford as Michelle Thomas (1987–1992) and Clarence Gilyard Jr. as Conrad McMasters (1989–1993). By the end of its first season it was a ratings powerhouse on Tuesday nights. Although the show was nominated for four Emmy Awards, Griffith once again was never nominated. He did, however, win a People's Choice Award in 1987 for his work as Matlock.
During the series' sixth season, he served as unofficial director, executive producer and writer of the show.
This show is mentioned on TV's longest animated show The Simpsons and is noted as Grandpa Simpson's favorite show as well as Marge Simpson's mother Jacqueline Bouvier's as well.
Griffith has also made other character appearances through the years on Playhouse 90, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., The Mod Squad, Hawaii Five-O, The Doris Day Show, Here's Lucy, The Bionic Woman, Fantasy Island, among many others. He also reprised his role as Ben Matlock on Diagnosis: Murder in 1997, and his most recent guest-starring role was in 2001 in an episode of Dawson's Creek.
For most of the 1970s, Griffith starred or appeared in many television films including The Strangers In 7A (1972), Go Ask Alice (1973), Winter Kill (1974), and Pray for the Wildcats (1974), which marked his first villainous role. Griffith appeared again as a villain in Savages (1974), a television film based on the novel Deathwatch (1972) by Robb White. Griffith received his only Primetime Emmy Award nomination as Outstanding Supporting Actor – Miniseries or a Movie for his role as the father of a murder victim in the television film Murder In Texas (1981) and won further acclaim for his role as a homicidal villain in the television film Murder in Coweta County (1983), co-starring music legend Johnny Cash as the sheriff. He also proved to be a good character actor and appeared in several television mini-series, including the television version of From Here to Eternity (1979), Roots: The Next Generations (1979), Centennial (1978), and the Watergate scandal-inspired Washington: Behind Closed Doors (1977), playing a former president loosely based on Lyndon B. Johnson.
Most of the TV movies Griffith starred in were also attempts to launch a new series. 1974's Winter Kill launched the short lived Adams of Eagle Lake which was canceled after only two episodes in 1975. A year later, he starred as a New York City attorney for the DA's office in Street Killing which also failed to launch a new series. Two television films for NBC in 1977, The Girl in The Empty Grave and Deadly Game, were attempts for Griffith to launch a new series featuring him as Police Chief Abel Marsh, a more hard-edged version of Andy Taylor; despite strong ratings for both films, both were unsuccessful.
While appearing in television films and guest roles on television series over the next 10 years, Griffith also appeared in two feature films, both of which flopped at the box office. He co-starred with Jeff Bridges as a crusty old 1930s western actor in the comedy Hearts of the West (1975), and he appeared alongside Tom Berenger as a gay villainous colonel and cattle baron in the western comedy spoof Rustlers' Rhapsody (1985).
He also appeared as an attorney in the NBC mini-series Fatal Vision in 1984, which is considered a precursor to his role in Matlock.
Griffith stunned many unfamiliar with his A Face in the Crowd work in the television film Crime of Innocence (1985), where he portrayed a callous judge who routinely sentenced juveniles to hard prison time. He further stunned audiences with his role as a dangerous and mysterious grandfather in 1995's Gramps, co-starring the late John Ritter. He also appeared as a comical villain in the spy movie spoof Spy Hard (1996) starring Leslie Nielsen. In the television film A Holiday Romance (1999), Griffith played the role of "Jake Peterson." In the film Daddy and Them (2001), Griffith portrayed a patriarch of a dysfunctional southern family.
In the feature film Waitress (2007), Griffith played a crusty diner owner who takes a shine to Keri Russell's character. His latest appearance was the leading role in the romantic comedy, independent film Play The Game (2009) as a lonely, widowed grandfather re-entering the dating world after a 60-year hiatus. The cast of Play The Game also included Rance Howard, Ron Howard's real-life father, who made appearances in various supporting roles on The Andy Griffith Show, and Clint Howard, Ron's younger brother, who had the recurring role of Leon (the kid offering the ice cream cone or peanut butter sandwich) on TAGS.
Singing and recording career
Griffith sang as part of some of his acting roles, most notably in A Face In The Crowd and in many episodes of both The Andy Griffith Show and Matlock. In addition to his recordings of comic monologues in the 1950s, he made an album of upbeat country and gospel tunes during the run of The Andy Griffith Show, which included a version of the show's theme sung by Griffith under the title "The Fishin' Hole". In recent years, he has recorded successful albums of classic Christian hymns for Sparrow Records. His most successful was the 1996 release I Love to Tell the Story: 25 Timeless Hymns, which was certified platinum by the RIAA.

Griffith appeared in country singer Brad Paisley's music video "Waitin' on a Woman" (2008).
June 5, 1956

Elvis rocks The Milton Berle Show
By the end of 1955, Elvis Presley had nearly 18 months of nonstop touring behind him and two dozen singles already under his belt, though his only hits were on the Country and Western charts. He was a hardworking and hard-to-categorize up-and-comer, but the next six months would make him a superstar. It was his debut single on RCA/Victor, his new label, which propelled Elvis to the top of the pop charts. But if "Heartbreak Hotel" is what made him the king of the radio and record stores during the spring of 1956, it was television that truly made him the King of Rock and Roll. And if any one moment might be called his coronation, it was his appearance on The Milton Berle Show on this day in 1956, when he set his guitar aside and put every part of his being into a blistering, scandalous performance of "Hound Dog."

This was not Presley's first television appearance, nor even his first appearance onMilton Berle. Between January and March 1956, Elvis made six appearances on Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey's Stage Show, and on April 3, he appeared for the first time with Uncle Miltie. But every one of those appearances featured Elvis either in close-up singing a slow ballad, or full body but with his movements somewhat restricted by the acoustic guitar he was playing. It was on his second Milton Berle Show appearance that he put the guitar aside and America witnessed, for the very first time, the 21-year-old Elvis Presley from head to toe, gyrating his soon-to-be-famous (or infamous) pelvis.

Reaction to Elvis' performance in the mainstream media was almost uniformly negative. "Mr. Presley has no discernible singing ability....For the ear, he is an unutterable bore," wrote critic Jack Gould in the next day's New York Times. "His one specialty is an accented movement of the body that heretofore has been primarily identified with the repertoire of the blonde bombshells of the burlesque runway. The gyration never had anything to do with the world of popular music and still doesn't." In the New York Daily News, Ben Gross described Presley's performance as "tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos," while the New York Journal-American's Jack O'Brien said that Elvis "makes up for vocal shortcomings with the weirdest and plainly suggestive animation short of an aborigine's mating dance." Meanwhile, the Catholic weekly America got right to the point in its headline: "Beware of Elvis Presley."

June 6, 1971

The Ed Sullivan Show airs for the very last time.
Sunday nights, 8:00 pm, CBS. Ask almost any American born in the 1950s or earlier what television program ran in that timeslot on that network, and they'll probably know the answer: The Ed Sullivan Show. For more than two decades, Sullivan's variety show was the premiere television showcase for entertainers of all stripes, including borscht-belt comedians, plate-spinning vaudeville throwbacks and, most significantly, some of the biggest and most current names in rock and roll. Twenty-three years after its 1948 premiere, The Ed Sullivan Show had its final broadcast on this day in 1971.

In its first eight years of existence, there was no such thing as rock and roll to be featured on the program originally called Toast of the Town, yet even its first broadcast made music history when Broadway composers Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II gave the world its first taste of the score from their upcoming musical, South Pacific. Over the years, live performances of new and current Broadway shows were featured regularly on Ed Sullivan, including Julie Andrews singing "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?" from My Fair Lady and Richard Burton singing "What Do The Simple Folk Do?" from Camelot. Classical and opera performers also made frequent appearances, but of course The Ed Sullivan Show is now remembered most for providing so many iconic moments in the history of televised rock and roll.

Elvis Presley's first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, in September 1956, was actually one of his most restrained and least thrilling. It was notable, however, given Ed Sullivan's assertion earlier that year that he'd never allow "The King" on his show. By the time the Beatles rolled around, Sullivan was far more comfortable with the hysteria young Elvis had caused. In fact, it was Ed Sullivan personally witnessing Beatlemania up close at London's Heathrow airport in 1963 that led the Beatles being booked for their historic February 1964 American television debut. Through the rest of the 60s, The Ed Sullivan Show continued to host the day's biggest rock acts: The Rolling Stones, The Supremes, The Doors, The Mamas and the Papas, Janis Joplin and more.

Gladys Knight and the Pips were the musical guests on the final episode of The Ed Sullivan Show, which was cancelled shortly after its rerun broadcast on this day in 1971.

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Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: May 2026 PART IV

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 -0700

May 30, 1908
Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and countless other Warner Bros. cartoon characters, was born in San Francisco.
His parents, who ran a women's clothing business, moved with their son to Portland, Oregon, when Blanc was a child. Blanc began performing as a musician and singer on local radio programs in Portland before he was 20. In the late 1920s, he and his wife, Estelle, created a daily radio show called "Cobwebs and Nuts," which became a hit. Blanc made many other radio appearances and became a regular on Jack Benny's hit radio show, providing the sounds of Benny's ancient car (The Maxwell) and playing several other characters.
In 1937, Blanc made his debut with Warner Bros., providing the voice for a drunken bull in a short cartoon called "Picador Porky." Another actor provided the pig's voice, but Blanc later replaced him. In 1940, Bugs Bunny debuted in a short called "A Wild Hare." Blanc said he wanted the rabbit to sound tough and streetwise, so he created a comic combination of Bronx and Brooklyn accents. Other characters Blanc created for Warner Bros. included the Road Runner, Sylvester, and Tweety Bird. He performed in some 850 cartoons for Warner Bros. during his 50-year career. For other studios, he provided the voices of Barney Rubble and Dino the dinosaur in The Flintstones, Mr. Spacely for The Jetsons, and Woody Woodpecker's laugh.
In his 1988 autobiography, That's Not All Folks, Blanc described a nearly fatal traffic accident that left him in a coma. Unable to rouse him by using his real name, a doctor finally said, "How are you, Bugs Bunny?" and Mel replied, in Bugs' voice, "Ehh, just fine, doc. How are you?"

Blanc continued to provide voices until the late 1980s, most memorably voicing Daffy Duck dueling with Donald Duck in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988). After Mel Blanc died of complications from heart disease, his son Noel, trained by his father, provided the voices for the characters the elder Blanc had helped bring to life.

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Tony Figueroa

Mental Sorbet: " Jump Up / Hello Goodbye" Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, Jon Batiste, Louis Cato & Stephen Colbert

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Fri, 22 May 2026 14:03:48 -0700

We love doing the show for you,

but what we really, really love is doing the show with you.

-Stephen Colbert

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Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: May 2026 PART III

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Mon, 18 May 2026 00:00:00 -0700

May 23, 1994
"All Good Things..." comprises the 25th and 26th episodes of the seventh season and the series finale of the syndicated Americanscience fiction television series Star Trek: The Next Generation.

It is the 177th and 178th episodes of the series overall. The title is derived from the expression "All good things must come to an end", a phrase used by the character "Q" during the episode itself. Capt. Jean-Luc Picard inexplicably finds his mind jumping between the present (stardate 47988) and the past just prior to the USSEnterprise-D's first mission six years earlier at Farpoint Station and over twenty-five years into the future, where an aged Picard has retired to the family vineyard in Labarre, France. These jumps occur without warning, and the resulting discontinuity in Picard's behavior frequently leaves him and those around him confused.
In the present, Picard is ordered to take the Enterprise to the edge of the Romulan Neutral Zone to investigate a spatial anomaly.
In the future, he gains passage on the USS Pasteur, which is under the command of his now ex-wife, Dr. Beverly Picard, whom he convinces to find the anomaly.
In the past, despite having the Enterprise's mission to Farpoint Station cancelled by Starfleet to investigate the anomaly, Picard insists on continuing, believing the impending encounter with Q to be more important. After reaching the place where he had first encountered the Q in the form of a net near Farpoint Station and finding nothing there, Picard enters his ready room, only to find himself once again in Q's courtroom. Q reveals that the trial started seven years ago never concluded, and the current situation is humanity's last chance to prove themselves to the Q Continuum, but secretly reveals that he himself is the cause of Picard's time jumping. Q challenges Picard to solve the mystery of the anomaly, cryptically stating that Picard will destroy humanity.
As Jean-Luc Picard arrives at the anomaly in all three time periods, he discovers that the anomaly is much larger in the past, but does not exist at all in the future. As the past and present Enterprises scan the anomaly with tachyon beams, the USS Pasteur is attacked by Klingon ships, but the crew is saved due to the timely arrival of the future Enterpriseunder the command of Admiral William Riker. He fires on several of the attacking Klingon warships, which causes them to flee the neutral zone. It is revealed that Riker and Worf are in a feud over the late Enterprise counselor Deanna Troi, with whom both had a serious relationship and who had died years earlier. Q once again appears to Picard and takes him to billions of years in the past on Earth, where the anomaly, growing larger as it moves backwards in time, has taken over the whole of the Alpha Quadrant and has prevented the formation of life on Earth. When Picard returns to the future, he discovers the anomaly has appeared, created as a result of his orders, and the tachyon pulses from the three eras are sustaining it. Data and Geordi determine that they can stop the anomaly by having all three Enterprises fly into the centre of it and create static warp shells. Picard relays the orders to each Enterprise. Each ship suffers warp core breaches, with Q telling the future Picard that "all good things must come to an end" just before the future Enterpriseexplodes.
Picard finds himself facing Q in the courtroom as before. Q congratulates Picard for being able to think in multiple timelines simultaneously to solve the puzzle, which is proof that humanity can still evolve, much to the surprise of the Q Continuum. Q admits to helping Picard to solve it with the time jumping since he was the one that put them in this situation, and then goes on to explain that the anomaly never actually existed and that his past and present have been restored. He then withdraws from the courtroom and bids farewell to Picard by saying "See you ... out there". Picard then returns to the Enterprise of the present and no longer jumping through time.

As the senior staff plays their regular poker game, they reflect on the future the captain told them, to prevent them from drifting apart. For the first time ever, Picard decides to join the game, expressing regret he had not done so before, saying "...and the sky's the limit," suggesting more adventures lay ahead for the crew.

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Mental Sorbet: Letterman & Colbert Toss Stuff Off The Roof Of The Ed Sullivan

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Fri, 15 May 2026 15:04:34 -0700

Letterman: In the words of the great Ed Murrow, good night and good luck, motherf*ckers!

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Tony Figueroa

Mental Sorbet: Strike Force Five Is And Always Will Be: Kimmel, Fallon, Meyers, Oliver and Colbert

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Tue, 12 May 2026 12:59:54 -0700

Strike Force Five was a limited series podcast hosted by American comedians and talk show hosts Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver. Each episode features conversations between the comedians on different subjects defined by an alternating leading host. Running 12 episodes from August 30 to October 10, 2023, it was created to support the five hosts' employees who were all temporarily out of work due to the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike, and its improvised nature aimed to demonstrate their importance to their shows.

On May 11, 2026 Stephen Colbert reunites with his Strike Force Five podcast co-hosts for a rowdy group interview that went far too long for one broadcast episode. Watch the entire segment here then keep an eye out for a special emergency episode of the Strike Force Five podcast dropping soon wherever you get your podcasts. Special thanks to Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and John Oliver! 

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Tony Figueroa

Rex Reed

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Tue, 12 May 2026 12:36:11 -0700

In Hollywood, if you don't have happiness you send out for it.

Rex Reed

Rex Taylor Reed

October 2, 1938 – May 12, 2026

Good Night Rex

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Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: May 2026 PART II

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Mon, 11 May 2026 00:00:00 -0700

May 17, 1974
LAPD raid leaves six SLA members dead
In Los Angeles, California, police surround a home in Compton where the leaders of the terrorist group known as the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) are hiding out.
The SLA had kidnapped Patricia Hearst, of the fabulously wealthy Hearst family publishing empire, months earlier, earning headlines across the country. Police found the house in Compton when a local mother reported that her kids had seen a bunch of people playing with an arsenal of automatic weapons in the living room of the home.
The LAPD's 500-man siege on the Compton home was only the latest event in a short, but exceedingly bizarre, episode. The SLA was a small group of violent radicals who quickly made their way to national prominence, far out of proportion to their actual influence. They began by killing Oakland's superintendent of schools in late 1973 but really burst into society's consciousness when they kidnapped Hearst the following February.
Months later, the SLA released a tape on which Hearst said that she was changing her name to Tania and joining the SLA. Shortly thereafter, a surveillance camera in a bank caught Hearst carrying a machine gun during an SLA robbery. In another incident, SLA member General Teko was caught trying to shoplift from a sporting goods store, but escaped when Hearst sprayed the front of the building with machine gun fire.
Although law enforcement officials began talking about the SLA as if they were a well-established paramilitary terrorist organization, the SLA had only a handful of members, most of who were disaffected middle class youths.
On May 17, Los Angeles police shot an estimated 1,200 rounds of ammunition into the tiny Compton home as six SLA members shot back. Teargas containers thrown into the hideout started a fire, but the SLA refused to surrender. Autopsy results showed that they continued to fire back even as smoke and flames were searing their lungs; they clearly chose suicide and martyrdom over jail. Randolph Hearst, Patty's father, remarked that the massive attack had turned "dingbats into martyrs." The raid left six SLA members dead, including leader Donald DeFreeze, also known as Cinque. Patty Hearst was not inside the home at the time. She was not found until September 1975.

Patty Hearst was put on trial for armed robbery and convicted, despite her claim that she had been coerced, through repeated rape, isolation, and brainwashing, into joining the SLA. Prosecutors believed that she actually orchestrated her own kidnapping because of her prior involvement with one of the SLA members. Despite any real proof of this theory, she was convicted and sent to prison. President Carter commuted Hearst's sentence after she had served almost two years. Hearst was pardoned by President Clinton in January 2001.

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Tony Figueroa

Ted Turner

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Wed, 6 May 2026 11:23:25 -0700

If I only had a little humility, I'd be perfect.

Ted Turner

Robert Edward Turner III

November 19, 1938 – May 6, 2026

In the late 1960s Turner began buying several Southern radio stations. In 1969, he sold his radio stations to buy a struggling television station in Atlanta, UHF Channel 17 WJRJ (now WPCH). At the time, UHF stations did well only in markets without VHF stations, like Fresno, California, or in markets with only one station on VHF. Independent UHF stations were not ratings winners or that profitable even in larger markets, but Turner concluded that this would change as people wanted more than several choices. He changed the call sign to WTCG, erroneously claimed to have stood for "Watch This Channel Grow" but in actuality stood for Turner Communications Group. Initially, the station ran old movies from prior decades, along with theatrical cartoons and bygone sitcoms and drama programs. As a better syndicated product fell off the VHF stations, Turner would acquire it for his station at a very low price. WTCG ran mostly second- and even third-hand programming of the time, including fare such as Gilligan's Island, I Love Lucy, Star Trek, Hazel, and Bugs Bunny. Other low-cost content included humorist Bill Tush reading the news at 3 a.m., prompting Turner to jokingly comment that, "we have a 100% share at this time". Tush once delivered the news with his "co-anchor" Rex, a German Shepherd. The dog (who belonged to an associate) was shown next to Tush on set, wearing a shirt and tie while eating a peanut butter sandwich. Rex appeared only on one episode, but a myth grew where many people thought the dog was a nightly guest. By 1972, WTCG had acquired the rights to telecast Atlanta Braves and Atlanta Hawks games. Turner would go on to purchase UHF Channel 36 WRET (now WCNC) in Charlotte, North Carolina, and ran it with a format similar to WTCG.

In 1976, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allowed WTCG to use a satellite to transmit content to local cable television providers around the nation. On December 17, 1976, the rechristened WTCG-TV Super-Station began to broadcast old movies, situation comedy reruns, cartoons, and sports nationwide to cable-television subscribers. As cable systems developed, many carried his station to free their schedules, which increased his viewers and advertising. The number of subscribers eventually reached 2 million and Turner's net worth rose to $100 million. He bought a 5,000-acre (2,000 ha) plantation in Jacksonboro, South Carolina, for $2 million.

In 1976, Turner bought the Atlanta Braves, and in 1977, he bought the Atlanta Hawks, partially to provide programming for WTCG. Using the rechristened WTBS superstation's status to broadcast Braves games into nearly every home in North America, Turner turned the Braves into a household name even before their run of success in the 1990s and early 2000s. At one point, he suggested to pitcher Andy Messersmith, who wore number 17, that he change his surname to "Channel" to promote the television station.

In 1978, Turner struck a deal with a student-operated radio station at MIT, Technology Broadcasting System (now WMBR), to obtain the rights to the WTBS call sign for $50,000. Such a move allowed Turner to strengthen the branding of his "Super-Station" using the initials TBS. Turner Communications Group was renamed Turner Broadcasting System and WTCG was renamed WTBS.

In 1986, Turner founded the Goodwill Games with the goal of easing tensions between capitalist and communist countries. Broadcasting the events of these games also provided his superstation the ability to provide Olympic-style sports programming.

Turner Field, first used for the 1996 Summer Olympics as Centennial Olympic Stadium and then converted into a baseball-only facility for the Braves, was named after him.

In 1978, Turner contacted media executive Reese Schonfeld about his plans to launch a 24-hour news channel (Schonfeld had previously approached Turner with the proposition in 1977 but was rebuffed). Schonfeld responded that it could be done with a staff of 300 if they used an all electronic newsroom and satellites for all transmissions. It would require an initial investment of $15 million–$20 million and several million dollars per month to operate.

In 1979, Turner sold his North Carolina station, WRET, to fund the transaction and established its headquarters in lower-cost, non-union Atlanta. Schonfeld was appointed first president and chief executive of the then-named Cable News Network (CNN). CNN hired Jim Kitchell, former general manager of news at NBC as vice president of production and operations; Sam Zelman as vice president of news and executive producer; Bill MacPhail as head of sports, Ted Kavanau as director of personnel, and Burt Reinhardt as vice president of the network. In 1982, Schonfeld was succeeded as CEO by Turner after a dispute over Schonfeld's firing of Sandi Freeman; and was succeeded as president by CNN's executive vice president, Burt Reinhardt.

In 1981, Turner Broadcasting System acquired Brut Productions from Fabergé Cosmetics After a failed attempt to acquire CBS, Turner purchased the film studio MGM/UA Entertainment Co. from Kirk Kerkorian in 1986 for $1.5 billion. Following the acquisition, Turner had amassed enormous debt and sold parts of the acquisition; Kerkorian bought back MGM/UA Entertainment. The MGM/UA Studio lot in Culver City was sold to Lorimar/Telepictures. Turner kept MGM's pre-May 1986 and pre-merger film and television library.

Turner Entertainment Co. was established in August 1986 to oversee film and television properties owned by Turner thanks to the deal with Kerkorian.

Having acquired MGM's library of 2,200 films that were made before 1986, Turner syndicated them to television stations across the country. When broadcasting some older films originally filmed in black-and-white, he aired colorized versions of them. Opposition to Turner's colorization arose among cinephiles, film critics, actors, and directors. Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that broadcasting a colorized Casablanca "will be one of the saddest days in the history of the movies. It is sad because it demonstrates that there is no movie that Turner will spare, no classic however great that is safe from the vulgarity of his computerized graffiti gangs." Due in part to Turner's colorization, the Library of Congress established the National Film Registry with the aim to preserve American films in their original formats.

In 1988, Turner purchased Jim Crockett Promotions. He renamed it World Championship Wrestling (WCW), which became the main competitor to Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation (WWF). This rivalry became known as the Monday Night War, and would last throughout the 1990s. In 2001, under AOL Time Warner, WCW was sold to the WWF.

Also in 1988, Turner introduced Turner Network Television (TNT) with Gone with the Wind. TNT, initially showing older movies and television shows, added original programs and newer reruns. Turner would later create Turner Classic Movies (TCM) in 1994, airing Turner's library of pre-1986 MGM films, Warner Bros. films made before 1948, and all RKO films, as well as license to 1000 other films, though it has expanded its library since.

In 1989, Turner created the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship for fiction offering positive solutions to global problems. The winner, from 2500 entries worldwide, was Daniel Quinn's Ishmael.

In 1990, he created the Turner Foundation, which focuses on philanthropic grants concerning issues pertaining to the environment and overpopulation. In the same year he created Captain Planet, an environmental superhero. Turner produced the television series Captain Planet and the Planeteers and its later sequel series with Captain Planet as the featured character.

In 1992, the pre-May 1986 MGM library, which also included Warner Bros. properties including the early Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies libraries and also the Fleischer Studios and Famous Studios Popeye cartoons from Paramount (and then United Artists), became the core of Cartoon Network. A year before, Turner's companies purchased Hanna-Barbera Productions (whose longtime parent, Taft/Great American Broadcasting, had been headquartered in Turner's original hometown of Cincinnati), beating out several other bidders including MCA Inc. (whose subsidiaries included Universal Pictures and Universal Destinations & Experiences) and Hallmark Cards. With the 1996 Time Warner merger, the channel's archives gained the later Warner Bros. cartoon library as well as other Time Warner-owned cartoons.

In 1993, Turner and Russian journalist Eduard Sagalajev founded the Moscow Independent Broadcasting Corporation (MIBC). This corporation operated the sixth frequency in Russian television and founded the Russian channel TV-6. Turner pulled out in 1994, at the insistence of local executives. He considered re-entering the market in 2001, during a challenging period of independent NTV.

In 1993, Turner also considered acquiring Paramount Pictures, but withdrew from this endeavor following a meeting with then-QVC head Barry Diller.

Time Warner merger

Turner Broadcasting System merged with Time Warner on October 10, 1996, with Turner as vice chairman and head of Time Warner and Turner's cable networks division. Turner was dropped as head of cable networks by CEO Gerald Levin but remained as Vice Chairman of Time Warner. He would be succeeded in March 2001 as head of Turner Broadcasting by Jamie Kellner, who was also greatly responsible for cancelling WCW's television contracts on networks which Turner previously ran. He resigned as AOL Time Warner vice chairman in 2003 and then from the Time Warner board of directors in 2006.

On January 11, 2001, Time Warner was purchased by America Online (AOL) to become AOL Time Warner, a merger which Turner initially supported. However, the burst of the dot-com bubble hurt the growth and profitability of the AOL division, which in turn dragged down AOL Time Warner's performance and stock price. At a board meeting in fall 2001, Turner's outburst against AOL Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin eventually led to Levin's announced resignation effective in early 2002, being replaced by Richard Parsons. In contrast to Levin, who as CEO isolated Turner from important company matters, Parsons invited Turner back to provide strategic advice, although Turner never received an operational role that he sought. Time Warner dropped "AOL" from its name in October 2003. In December 2009, AOL was spun off from the Time Warner conglomerate as a separate company.

Turner was Time Warner's biggest individual shareholder. It is estimated he lost as much as $7 billion when the stock collapsed in the wake of the merger. When asked about buying back his former assets, he replied that he "can't afford them now". In June 2014, Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox made a bid for Time Warner valuing it at $80 billion. The Time Warner board rejected the offer and it was formally withdrawn on August 5, 2014.

Turner had a long-running feud with fellow cable magnate Rupert Murdoch for years. This originated in 1983 when a Murdoch-sponsored yacht collided with the yacht skippered by Turner, Condor, during the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, causing it to run aground 6.2 miles (10.0 km) from the finish line. At the post-race dinner, a drunken Turner verbally assaulted Murdoch, afterward challenging him to a televised fistfight in Las Vegas.

Murdoch's Fox News, established in 1996, became a rival to Turner's CNN, a channel that Murdoch regarded with disdain for its "liberal slant" in news coverage. Time Warner declined to carry it on their New York City cable network in response, who in the midst of a merger, Turner said would "squash Rupert Murdoch like a bug."

In 2003, Turner challenged Murdoch to another fistfight, and later on accused Murdoch of being a "warmonger" for his support and backing of President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq.

However, in an interview with Variety in 2019, Turner said he and Murdoch had since made amends.

For most of his first decade as owner of the Braves, Turner was a very hands-on owner. This peaked in 1977, his second year as owner.

Turner was suspended for one year by Commissioner of Baseball Bowie Kuhn on January 3, 1977, for his actions while pursuing the signing of free agent outfielder Gary Matthews from the San Francisco Giants. Matthews signed a five-year, $1.875 million contract with the Braves on November 18, 1976. Kuhn's actions stemmed from remarks made by Turner to then-Giants owner Bob Lurie during the 1976 World Series. In addition, the Braves were also stripped of their first-round selections in the June 1978 draft of high school and college players. Turner, however, successfully appealed the suspension and Kuhn relented and reinstated the draft selections, one of which would turn out to be Bob Horner from Arizona State University.

On May 11, 1977, with the team mired in a 16-game losing streak, Turner sent manager Dave Bristol on a 10-day "scouting trip" and Turner himself took over as interim manager – the first owner/manager in the majors since Connie Mack. He ran the team for one game (a loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates) before National League president Chub Feeney ordered him to stop running the team. Feeney cited major league rules which bar managers and players from owning stock in their clubs. Turner appealed to Commissioner of Baseball Bowie Kuhn, and showed up to manage the Braves when they returned home. However, Kuhn turned down the appeal, citing Turner's "lack of familiarity with game operations."

In the mid-1980s Turner began leaving day-to-day operations to the baseball operations staff, and the team (still under Turner's ownership) won the 1995 World Series.

The Atlanta Braves were sold by Time Warner (which had assumed control after the merger with Turner Broadcasting System) to Liberty Media in 2007.

Good Night Captain Outrageous

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: May 2026 PART I

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Mon, 4 May 2026 00:00:00 -0700

May 8, 1976

The theme song from Welcome Back, Kotter is the #1 song in America
In 1975, John Sebastian, former member of the beloved 60s pop group the Lovin' Spoonful, was asked to write and record the theme song for a brand-new ABC television show with the working title Kotter. As any songwriter would, Sebastian first tried working that title into his song, but somehow the rhymes he came up with for "Kotter"—otter, water, daughter, slaughter—didn't really lend themselves to a show about a middle-aged schoolteacher returning to his scrappy Brooklyn neighborhood to teach remedial students at his own former high school. So Sebastian took a more thoughtful approach to the task at hand and came up with a song about finding your true calling in a life you thought you'd left behind. That song, "Welcome Back," not only went on to become a #1 pop single on this day in 1976, but it also led the show's producers to change its title to Welcome Back, Kotter.

What Sebastian's sweet, wistful and playfully nostalgic tune did not do, however, was influence the tone and content of the show. To listen to "Welcome Back," you'd think that Welcome Back, Kotter was a seriocomic slice-of-life program in the mold of, say, The Courtship of Eddie's Father—another 70s TV show with a theme song by a great 60s songwriter (Harry Nilsson). Instead, Welcome Back, Kotter was little more than a flimsy platform for catchphrase-spouting caricatures, albeit an insanely successful one. Arnold Horshack's "Oooh, oooh, oooh," Freddie "Boom Boom" Washington's "Hi therrre," Vinnie Barbarino's "What? What?" and Gabe Kotter's "Up your nose with a rubber hose" were the pop-cultural coin-of-the-realm in 1975-76, and though they bore little relation in tone or spirit to the song that topped the charts on this day in 1976, the disconnect did nothing to hinder the popularity of all things Kotter-related. Indeed, if you weren't wearing an Uncle Sam or King Kong T-shirt in the summer of America's bicentennial year, you were probably wearing one with a picture of "the Sweathogs" and a colorful phrase like "Off my case, toilet face" on it.

"Welcome Back" was the first and only television theme song that John Sebastian ever wrote, but it was far from the only television theme song of the mid-1970s to become a legitimate pop hit. Only weeks earlier in 1976, the instrumental "Theme From S.W.A.T." had topped the Billboard Hot 100, and the excellent Mike Post-written theme The Rockford Files had made the top 10 the previous summer.

May 9, 1971

**Last Honeymooners episode airs.**

The last original episode of the sitcom The Honeymooners, starring Jackie Gleason as Brooklyn bus driver Ralph Kramden, airs.

Although a perennial rerun favorite in syndication, The Honeymooners actually aired only 39 episodes in its familiar sitcom format, running for just one season in 1955-56. The show debuted on October 5, 1951, as a six-minute sketch on the variety show Cavalcade of Stars, hosted by Jackie Gleason. Cavalcade of Stars evolved into The Jackie Gleason Show in 1952, and Gleason continued the sketches, playing the blustery Ralph Kramden. Regular cast member Audrey Meadows soon replaced the original casting choice, Pert Kelton, as Ralph’s long-suffering wife, Alice, who deflated his get-rich-quick schemes but often saved the day. Art Carney played Gleason’s friend and sidekick, Ed Norton, from the beginning, and Joyce Randolph was the most memorable incarnation of Ed’s wife, Trixie.

In 1955, Gleason had tired of the hour-long variety-show format and wanted to try something new. He suggested creating two half-hour programs: The Honeymooners and Stage Show, a musical-variety show, which Gleason would produce. Among Stage Show’s many musical guests was the first-time TV performer Elvis Presley, who visited the show in January 1956.

In a departure from most TV shows of the time, The Honeymooners was filmed in front of a live audience and broadcast at a later date. To allow Gleason more time to pursue other producing projects, he taped two episodes a week, leaving him free for several months at the end of the season. Shows were taped at New York’s Adelphi Theatre in front of around 1,000 people.

Unfortunately, the two shows did not appeal to audiences as much as Gleason had hoped. He soon returned to his hour-long variety format, occasionally including Honeymooners skits. He sold the full Honeymooners episodes to CBS for $1.5 million, and they would go on to earn the network a windfall in syndication. In 1966, Gleason began creating hour-long Honeymooners episodes, which he aired in lieu of his usual variety format. From 1966 to 1970, about half of Gleason’s shows were these hour-long episodes. In 1971, the episodes were rebroadcast as their own series, until May 9, 1971, when the final episode aired.

Despite its brief life as a traditional sitcom, The Honeymooners remains one of the most memorable TV comedies of all time, rivaled only by I Love Lucy in its pioneering role in television history. Its influence has stretched into modern-day sitcom classics such as Roseanne (also a show focused on a working-class American family) and Seinfeld (another sitcom about wacky New York neighbors). The devotion of Honeymooners fans throughout the years has bordered on cultish worship, including the formation of a club known as RALPH: Royal Association for the Longevity and Preservation of the Honeymooners.
May 9, 1991
**Michael Landon appeared on the Tonight Show and talked about condition with cancer.**

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Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: April 2026 PART IV

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0700

April 27, 1986

Video pirate disrupts HBO signals.
A video pirate manages to override the satellite transmission of an HBO movie on this day in 1986. He interrupted the show with a message stating he did not intend to pay for his HBO service.
April 29, 1961
**ABC’s Wide World of Sports premiered.**
Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport... the thrill of victory... and the agony of defeat... the human drama of athletic competition... This is ABC's Wide
World of Sports!Wide World of Sports was the creation of Edgar Scherick through his company, Sports Programs, Inc. After selling his company to ABC, he hired a youngRoone Arledge to produce the show.
The series' April 29, 1961 debut telecast featured both the Penn and Drake Relays. Jim McKay (who hosted the program for most of its history) and Jesse Abramson, the track and field writer for the New York Herald Tribune, broadcast from Franklin Field with Bob Richards as the field reporter. Jim Simpson called the action from Drake Stadium with Bill Flemming working the field.
During its initial season in the spring and summer of 1961, Wide World of Sports was initially broadcast from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturdays. Beginning in 1962, it was pushed to 5:00 to 6:30 p.m., and later to 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time to allow ABC affiliates in the Eastern and Central Time Zonesto carry local early-evening newscasts.
In 1961, Wide World of Sports covered a bowling event in which Roy Lown beat Pat Patterson. The broadcast was so successful that in 1962, ABC Sports began covering the Professional Bowlers Tour.
In 1964, Wide World of Sports covered the Oklahoma Rattlesnake Hunt championships; the following year, ABC premiered outdoor program The American Sportsman, which remained on the network for nearly 20 years.
In 1973, the Superstars was first televised as a segment on Wide World of Sports; the following year, the Superstars debuted as a weekly winter series that lasted for 10 years.
In 1963, ABC Sports producers began selecting the Athlete of the Year. Its first winner was track and field star Jim Beatty for being the first to run a sub-4-minute mile indoors. Through the years, this award was won by such now legendary athletes of Muhammad Ali, Jim Ryun, Lance Armstrong, Mario Andretti,Dennis Conner, Wayne Gretzky, Carl Lewis and Tiger Woods. The award was discontinued in 2001.
In later years, with the rise of cable television offering more outlets for sports programming, Wide World of Sports lost many of the events that had been staples of the program for many years (many, although not all, of them ended up on ESPN, a sister network to ABC for most of its existence). Ultimately, on January 3, 1998, Jim McKay announced that Wide World of Sports, in its traditional anthology series, had been cancelled after a 37-year run. The Wide World of Sportsname remained in use afterward as an umbrella title for ABC's weekend sports programming.

In August 2006, ABC Sports came under the oversight of ESPN, under the relaunched banner name ESPN on ABC. The Wide World of Sports title continues to occasionally be revived for Saturday afternoon sports programming on ABC, most recently during the 140th Belmont Stakes as a tribute to Jim McKay, following his death in June 2008. Most of ABC's sports programming since Wide World of Sports ended as a program has been displaced from ABC and moved to ESPN; the cable network began producing its own anthology series on Saturday afternoons in 2010, ESPN Sports Saturday, which consists of documentaries originally featured on ESPN's E:60 and 30 for 30 programs, and a modified version of the ESPN interactive series SportsNation, titled Winners Bracket.
May 1, 1931

President Herbert Hoover officially dedicates New York City's Empire State Building. Less than eight months later, a television-transmitting antenna had been erected atop the structure (The top was originally designed as a mooring mast for dirigibles). During the ensuing 36 years, television and FM radio signals have continued to be transmitted from this location. Today, 22 stations share the site.

May 2, 1941

The Federal Communications Commission agreed to let regular scheduling of TV broadcasts by commercial TV stations begin on July 1, 1941. This was the start of network television.
May 2, 1996
Phil Donahue taped the final edition of his talk show "Donahue." On July 15, 2002, he returned to television with a talk show under the same name.

May 3, 1991
**Prime-time soap opera Dallas airs its last episode.** The episode was watched by 33.3 million viewers (38% of all viewers in that time slot)
The show debuted in April of 1978, and broke ratings records in 1980 when 83.6 million viewers tuned in to find out "Who Shot J.R.?". In the final episode, titled Conundrum (An homage to It's a Wonderful Life) J.R. is contemplating committing suicide. The drunk J.R. walks around the pool with a bourbon bottle and a loaded gun, when suddenly another person appears, a spirit named Adam (portrayed by Joel Grey), whose "boss" has been watching J.R. and likes him. Adam proceeds to take him on a journey to show him what life would have been like for other people if he had not been born. At the end of the episode Adam encourages J.R. on to kill himself. J.R. will not do it, as he does not want Adam to be sent back to heaven with his job incomplete. At this point Adam reveals that he's not an angel, but a minion of Satan. Bobby has returned home. The gun goes off while Bobby is in the hallway, and he rushes to J.R.'s room. He looks at what has gone down, gasps, "Oh, my God," and the series ends on that note with the fate of J.R. never settled (although it eventually would be five years later, in the reunion movie, Dallas: J.R. Returns.).
In 2010, cable network TNT announced they had ordered a pilot for the continuation of the Dallas series. After viewing the completed pilot episode, TNT proceeded to order a full season of 10 episodes.
The new series premiered on June 13, 2012, centering primarily around John Ross and Christopher Ewing, the now-grown sons of J.R. and Bobby. Larry Hagman, Patrick Duffy and Linda Gray returned in full-time capacity, reprising their original roles. The series is produced by Warner Horizon Television, a subsidiary of Warner Bros., which holds the rights to the Dallas franchise through its acquisition of Lorimar Television and is a sister company to TNT, both under the ownership of TimeWarner.

The new series is a continuation of the old series, with the story continuing after a 20-year break. It does not take the events of the TV movies Dallas: J.R. Returns or Dallas: War of the Ewings as canon. Instead we find the characters as they are today, 20 years after the events of the Season 14 cliffhanger.[29] In an interview with UltimateDallas.com, Cynthia Cidre was asked to describe the new Dallas. She responded, "I tried to be really, really respectful of the original Dallas because it was really clear to me that the people who love Dallas are [like] Trekkies, really committed to that show and I really did not understand that before, so I never wanted to violate anything that had happened in the past. On the other hand that was the past, twenty years had gone by, so at the same time I think we're properly balanced between the characters of Bobby Ewing, J.R. and Sue Ellen. I also have the new cast and it's John Ross and Christopher, the children of Bobby and J.R., and their love interests. Total respect and a balance of old and new."

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Tony Figueroa

Alan Osmond

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 22:35:09 -0700

I might have MS, but MS doesn't have me.

-Alan Osmond

Alan Ralph Osmond

June 22, 1949 – April 20, 2026

Alan Ralph Osmond was born on June 22, 1949, in Ogden, Utah, the son of Olive May (née Davis; 1925–2004) and George Virl Osmond (1917–2007). He was the oldest of the seven siblings who could sing, as the two oldest brothers, Virl and Tom, are hearing impaired.

Starting in 1958, Alan and three of his younger brothers (Wayne, Merrill, and Jay in their respective age orders) began singing as a barbershop quartet. In 1961, the group headed to Los Angeles to audition for The Lawrence Welk Show, only for host Lawrence Welk to refuse to hear them sing; they met The Lennon Sisters at this audition, who directed them to Disneyland, where they found paying work as performers.^[3] It was at Disneyland that Jay Emerson Williams, Andy Williams's father, discovered the group. In 1962, the four Osmonds were cast over a seven-year period on NBC's The Andy Williams Show, a musical variety program. They also appeared in nine episodes of the 1963–1964 ABC western television series, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, with Alan in the role of young Micah Kissel.

During much of the Osmonds' career, Alan, being the oldest of the group, was the band's creative leader, playing piano and guitar, co-writing many of their songs with Merrill, co-producing most of their recordings, and arranging the dance choreography. He nevertheless seldom sang anything more than backing vocals, in contrast to his younger brothers. Leading The Osmonds at a young age, Alan was called "No. 1" by his brothers.

He mostly stopped performing with the group after 2007, and what he professed to be his final performance with them was October 13, 2018, at Neal Blaisdell Arena in Honolulu, although, Alan did appear for a get-together with Jay, Wayne and Merrill in 2019, as per request for their sister Marie Osmond's 60th birthday. He was still writing songs at the time of his last performances, including a composition to celebrate the centennial anniversary of Orem, Utah.

Alan, like all the Osmonds, was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Alan enlisted in the California Army National Guard in the late 1960s. He served at Fort Ord in northern California as a 144th artillery unit clerk. During his time in the service, he was known as the Mormon Dream. Osmond was also known to sing Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, and Johnny Cash songs during his time in the California Army National Guard – his favorites being Hound Dog and Country Pie.

In 1980, Alan Osmond, along with his brother Merrill Osmond, created Stadium of Fire, which has become one of the largest Independence Day celebrations in the United States. He stated that this, along with his move into country music in the early 1980s, was a reflection of their patriotic values: "we're kind of flag-wavers. You find that in the country area, too."

In September 2024, Osmond released his autobiography, One Way Ticket.

Good Night Allen

Osmond began to experience dysfunction in his right hand during an Osmond Brothers concert in 1987. He was later diagnosed with progressive multiple sclerosis (MS), which he publicly announced during the MDA Labor Day Telethon in 1994. The Osmond Brothers initially adjusted their routines to accommodate Alan's condition before he was forced to retire from the road in the late 1990s. Osmond credited his faith, and belief in the preexistence of the soul, with giving him hope and optimism for the future in the face of his condition.

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Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: April 2026 PART III

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0700

April 22, 1926

Charlotte Rae is born Charlotte Rae Lubotsky.
The of stage, comedienne, singer and dancer, who in her six decades of television is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Edna Garrett in the sitcoms Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life (in which she starred from 1979 to 1986). She received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy in 1982. She also appeared in two Facts of Life television movies: The Facts of Life Goes to Paris in 1982 and The Facts of Life Reunion in 2001. She voiced the character of "Nanny" in 101 Dalmatians: The Series.

Her first significant success was on the sitcom Car 54, Where Are You? (1961–1963), in which she played Sylvia Schnauzer, the wife of Officer Leo Schnauzer (played by Al Lewis). She was nominated for an Emmy Award for her supporting role in the 1975 drama Queen of the Stardust Ballroom. In January 1975, Rae became a cast member on the ABC television comedy Hot L Baltimore, wherein she played Mrs. Bellotti, whose dysfunctional adult son Moose, who was never actually seen, lived at the "hot l" (the hotel was so bad the "E" on the sign never worked). Mrs. Bellotti, who was a bit odd herself, would visit Moose and then laugh about all the odd situations that Moose would get into with the others living at the hotel. Rae also appeared in early seasons of Sesame Street as Molly the Mail Lady.

Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life

In 1978, NBC was losing to both CBS and ABC in sitcom ratings, and Fred Silverman, future producer and former head of CBS, ABC, and NBC, insisted that Norman Lear produce Diff'rent Strokes. Knowing that Rae was one of Lear's favorite actresses, he hired her immediately for the role of housekeeper Edna Garrett, and she co-starred with Conrad Bain in all 24 episodes of the first season. Her character proved to be so popular that producers decided to do an episode that could lead to a spinoff. That episode (called "The Girls School") was about girls attending a fictional school called Eastland. In July 1979, Rae proposed the idea for the spinoff. NBC approved the show, to be called The Facts of Life, which would portray a housemother in a prestigious private school and dealt with such issues facing teenagers as weight issues, depression, drugs, alcohol, and dating.

After working as a character actress/comedienne in supporting roles or in guest shots on television series and specials, The Facts Of Life gave Rae not only her best-known role but it finally made her a television star. The role of Edna Garrett was the unifying center of attention of the program as well as a warm, motherly figure for the girls. Rae's role was very similar to that of Kate Bradley on the 1960's CBS-TV series Petticoat Junction, which also gave radio and television actress Bea Benaderet late stardom.

The Facts of Life had marginal ratings at first but after a major restructuring and time change, the show became a ratings winner between 1980 and 1986. Midway throughout both the 1984-85 and 1985-86 seasons, she missed several episodes because she was planning on leaving the show, and the story lines focused more on the other characters. At the beginning of the eighth season, Rae left the show and Cloris Leachman was then brought in as Mrs. Garrett's sister, Beverly Ann Stickle, for the show's last two years, until the show was canceled in 1988.

In 2001, Rae, Lisa Whelchel, Mindy Cohn, and Kim Fields were reunited in a TV movie, The Facts of Life Reunion. In 2007, the entire cast was invited to attend the TV Land Awards where several members of the cast, including Rae, sang the show's theme song. On April 19, 2011, the entire cast was reunited again to attend the TV Land Awards, where the show was nominated and won the award for Pop Culture Icon. The same day, Nancy McKeon and Kim Fields (who played Jo & Tootie, respectively) also gave a speech in honor of her 85th birthday. The cast did likewise on ABC's Good Morning America, where at the end of the segment, reporter, Cynthia McFadden wished Rae a happy birthday, and the cast sang the show's theme song.

April 22, 1976

Barbara Walters signs $5 million contract.
Barbara Walters signs a record-breaking five-year, $5 million contract with ABC. The contract made her the first news anchorwoman in network history and the highest paid TV journalist to date.
April 24, 1936

A group of firemen responding to an alarm in Camden, New Jersey, is televised.
It was the first time an unplanned event was broadcast on television, anticipating the development of live TV news coverage. Fortunately, the event would not inspire anyone to create reality programming.

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Tony Figueroa

Sid Krofft

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 19:57:00 -0700

When you're weird, you gotta be weird all the way!

-Sid Krofft

Sid Krofft born Cydus Yolas

July 30, 1929 – April 10, 2026

This is my favorite tribute to the Krofft Brothers

Good Night Sid

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Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: April 2026 PART II

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0700

April 13, 1986

Return to Mayberry airs on NBC.
The cast of the popular Andy Griffith Show is reunited for a one-time television special. Besides stars Andy Griffith and Don Knotts, the original show featured little Ronny Howard, who grew up to become a star of television's Happy Days and, later, a famous film director. The Andy Griffith Show ran from 1960 to 1968.

April 14, 1956

First video camera for sound and pictures demostrated.
The first videotape recorder is demonstrated. The machine, invented by Ray Dolby, Charles Ginsberg, and Charles Anderson, recorded both images and sound. CBS purchased three of the video tape recorders for $75,000 each in 1956.
April 18, 1971
The Jackson 5 and Bill Cosby were guests on Diana Ross' solo TV special Diana!

Diana! is American singer Diana Ross' first solo TV special, which aired on ABC on April 18, 1971, choreographed by David Winters of West Side Story fame, who at that time choreographed all of Ross' stage and TV shows. The special featured performances by The Jackson 5, and also included Jackson 5 lead singerMichael Jackson's solo debut. Michael Jackson performed Frank Sinatra's "It Was a Very Good Year", which drew laughter as its adult-themed lyrics were changed to fit his age. Other guests included Danny Thomas andBill Cosby, who would be featured on a similar TV special by the Jackson 5 (Goin' Back to Indiana) a few months later.
Since this was right at the beginning of her solo career, she took the opportunity to promote the two hits from her debut, the gold audience participant "Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)" and the number 1 song "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". She also performed a cover of The Carpenters "(They Long to Be) Close to You" and the top-20 gold single "Remember Me" released that previous December 1970 included on her forthcoming album "Surrender" to be released later that summer. (Though she performed "Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)" on the special, it was not included on the soundtrack).

The television special, and its subsequent soundtrack, was a Neilsen's ratings winner, hitting the top 20 (number 17) of shows that week and garnering Emmy nominations for Ross and Bob Mackie and in technical categories.

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Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: April 2026 PART I

TDFig@aol.com (Tony Figueroa) — Mon, 6 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0700

April 12, 1941
Life of Riley radio show debuts.
An unrelated radio show with the name Life of Riley was a summer replacement show heard on CBS from April 12, 1941 to September 6, 1941. The CBS program starred Lionel Stander as J. Riley Farnsworth and had no real connection with the more famous series that followed a few years later staring William Bendix as a bullheaded family man. The show ran for 10 years on radio and about six years on television.

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Tony Figueroa

CHILD OF TELEVISION

This Week in Television History: July 2026 PART I

Mental Sorbet: SchoolHouse Rock - No More Kings

This Week in Television History: June 2026 PART V

July 1, 1981

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that candidates for federal office had an "affirmative right" to go on national television.

This Week in Television History: June 2026 PART IV

June 28, 1951

Amos ’n’ Andy moved to CBS-TV from radio.

James Burrows

Script comes first, then the actors, then you gotta be lucky enough to get the right time slot. Then people have to watch.

-James Burrows

James Edward Burrows December 30, 1940 – June 19, 2026

This Week in Television History: June 2026 PART III

Ronnie Schell

Gene Shalit

This Week in Television History: June 2026 PART II

This Week in Television History: June 2026 PART I

This Week in Television History: May 2026 PART IV

Mental Sorbet: " Jump Up / Hello Goodbye" Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, Jon Batiste, Louis Cato & Stephen Colbert

This Week in Television History: May 2026 PART III

Mental Sorbet: Letterman & Colbert Toss Stuff Off The Roof Of The Ed Sullivan

Mental Sorbet: Strike Force Five Is And Always Will Be: Kimmel, Fallon, Meyers, Oliver and Colbert

Rex Reed

This Week in Television History: May 2026 PART II

Ted Turner

Time Warner merger

This Week in Television History: May 2026 PART I

This Week in Television History: April 2026 PART IV

Alan Osmond

This Week in Television History: April 2026 PART III

Sid Krofft

This Week in Television History: April 2026 PART II

This Week in Television History: April 2026 PART I

James Edward Burrows

December 30, 1940 – June 19, 2026