Television's Golden Age
FCC freeze 1948-52 - only 108 stations, 9% own set
CBS TV News,
with Douglas Edwards in 1948
began network
TV news,
produced by Don Hewitt
Ed Sullivan's variety "big shew" & M. Berle's vaudeo
Ed Sullivan Show
1948-71 on Sun. nights
Texaco Star Theater
1948-1953 with "Mr. Television"
Your Show of Shows
1950-1954 with Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner
Lone Ranger
1949-57 - 1st telefilm western - national mythology
Clayton Moore never killed anyone, didn't smoke or drink
Estes Kefauver Senate Crime Hearings
March 12, 1951 - Frank Costello's hands
Edward R. Murrow
See It Now
1951 - "indispensable"
Fred Friendly, Don Hewitt - Studio 41 - two oceans at once
Billy Graham's
Hour of Decision
1951-54 Sun. night
also 4 crusades 1957-59 - passive & internal
I Love Lucy
1951-57 - Desilu 3-camera filmed sitcom
baby show Jan. 19, 1953 = 67.3% of 20m sets
Today
Jan. 14, 1952 at 7a.m. - a comfortable massage
D. Garroway, J. Fred Muggs, Saranwrap
Marty
May 1953 by Paddy Chayefsky on
Philco TV Playhouse
Rod Steiger as lonely Bronx butcher - truthful
Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet
1952-1966 - consensus
America's First Family - Ricky sang his 1st song 1957
Father Knows Best
1954-63 - idealized
Robert Young and Jane Wyatt as Jim and Margaret Anderson
Army-McCarthy Hearings Apr. 22 to May 24, 1954 - courageous
Joseph Welch and TV exposed methods of
Joseph McCarthy
Walt Disney
since 1954 on ABC - idealized technocracy
Davy Crockett
with Fess Parker, Buddy Ebsen
Tonight
1954-57 with Steve Allen
Jack Paar 1957-62, Johnny Carson 1962-92, Jay Leno 1992-
$64,000 Question
1955-1958 - instant wealth & glamor
Hal March - Revlon - Robert Strom $192,000 -
Quiz Show
Queen for a Day
1955-64 on NBC
Jack Bailey - Spiegel catalog
Edge of Night
1956 - daytime soaps - managed demand
protagonist not female but attorney Mike Karr
Gunsmoke
1955-1975 on CBS - 1st adult western
Matt, Kitty, Doc, Chester, Festus, Quint
James Garner in
Bret Maverick
1957-62
male, white, violent, action
Color videotape 1958-59
First
NBC color videotape
telecast October 17, 1958
Kitchen Debate
1959
Twilight Zone
Oct. 2, 1959 - 1964 on CBS
Rod Serling wrote live anthology series
Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
1959-63
Dwayne Hickman as Dobie based on Max Shulman books
Bonanza
on NBC Sunday nights 1959-1973
the Cartwrights in color on the Ponderosa
40m of 44m homes own TV - 88%
advertisers spending $500m per year
Presidency of John F. Kennedy 1961-63
"renascence" (Barnouw p. 281) of the
documentary
Years of Lightning, Day of Drums
pictures
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History of Television
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© 1999-2005 by Steven E. Schoenherr. All rights reserved.
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Recording Technology History Notes
| this page revised 11/23/05