BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: TELEVISION

 TELEVISION IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA

One thing I must set down about England
is that television was in general use
over there before we had it, and I was
surprised to see the sets in the store
windows. The Ringling Circus radio publicity
department had used the clown Felix Adler on
a television program in New York City as far
back as 1932, but this was a novelty "one-
shot" because television wasn't for public
consumption in the States back then.
  "I did several radio shows in England and
one television appearance as long ago as 1937.

Emmett Kelly. Clown (New York: Prentice-Hall,
1954)

TELEVISION IN 1946

Yul (BRYNNER) had bee dabbling in television since 1946, when only

a couple of thousand television sets were privately owned and shows

were broadcast only two hours per day twice a week.

Maura Spiegel. Sydney Lumet: a Life (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 2019)

**
ON TELEVISION & NEWSPAPERS

“…tube and newspapers give us without let-up the multitudinous currencies

of our greedy capitalism (hah!), a system thst would immerse each of us in

boiing detergents if there were profit in so doing.”

Reed Whittemore. The Poet as Journalist (Washington, D.C.: The New Republic Books, 1976)

SGT BILKO, STARRING PHIL SILVERS

“The 1955-59 original series broke barriers by boasting television’s

first racially and sexually integrated cast, an achievement usually claimed

by Star Trek.”

** “The original show’s supporting cast were individually perfect (The Manchurian Candidate pays tribute by naming its soldiers after the actors who played Bilko’s Platoon).

Kim Newman on SGT BILKO in Syntax Society Magazine (May 1996).

THE FIRST IMAGE SCANNING DEVICE

“From 1884 until the 1920s the only device for breaking an image down and converting it into electrical impulses was a mechanical scanning device known as the ‘Nipkov Dish’ named after its inventor Paul Nipkov… The bulk and complexity of the device, as well as the poor quality of the pictures led to supplant the mechanical device with a more efficient all electronic scanning device. Jeff Greenfield.Television: The First Fifty Years (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1977) **

MYSTERIES ON SUNDAY NIGHT TELEVISION 1974-75. A SMALL STEP FOR WOMEN AS CHIEF OF DETECTIVES

Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, authors of The Complete Directory to Prime Time TV Shows 1946-Present (1992) tells readers that “Amy Prentiss was one of four rotating elements that made up the 1974-1975 edition of NBC Sunday Mystery Movie. The others were Columbo, McCloud, and McMillan and Wife.” Jessica Walter played the less-remembered Amy Prentiss (Who was the first Chief of Detectives on a big city police force. “Unfortunately, viewers took less readily to the idea of woman as boss, and the program was canceled after a short run.” ps- Can you name the actors who played Columbo, McCloud, and McMillan? ** Answers: Peter Falk, Dennis Weaver, & Rock Hudson

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TELEVISION IN 1946

Yul (BRYNNER) had bee dabbling in television since 1946, when only

a couple of thousand television sets were privately owned and shows

were broadcast only two hours per day twice a week.

TELEVISION IN 1947

Kukla, Fran and Ollie is an early American television 
show using puppets. It was created for children, but soon watched by more adults than children. It did not have 
a script and was entirely ad-libbed. It was broadcast 
from Chicago between 1947 to 1957. Comedienne Fran Allison starred, interacting with puppets, Kukla and Ollie (and sometimes other puppets) whose puppeteer was the show's
 creator, Burr Tillstrom. After the original run, the team appeared in other productions over several decades.

Maura Spiegel. Sydney Lumet: a Life (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 2019)

REED WHITTEMORE AS TELEVISION CRITIC

A television set sits at my left hand a window
at my right -- which shall I look at and out?
The TV,obviously, I am paid munificently by this
noble rag* to watch the tube and its vision of
life, not the yellowing leaves and the blue sky.
Nature's programs change slowly, except for
occasional storms they offer no challenge to
the journalistic mind. And nature's art is
excessively subtle; it knows not the world
bludgeons. No, the journalist must stick with
his tube -- and of course his newspapers."

* The New Republic

Reed Whittemore. The Poet as Journalist
(Washington, D.C.: The New Republic Books,
1976)

GEORGE TOZZI

George Tozzi
Never met Ozzie
& Harriet,
Or if there is a tape of their meeting,
   he decided to bury it.

Louis Phillips