Week 1 - Radio and Television, Golden Age of TV: Dramas

The Birth of Radio

• Phonograph is an early record player, Edison invention, very expensive (one song is 15 dollars today), records would get scratched up and had to be manually cranked

• Radio invented in late 19th century

• Initially used for military purposes

• Private broadcasting became available after WWI

• 600 radio stations in the US in 1922

• Millions of radios had been sold by the end of the 20s

• KDKA was the first commercially liscensed radio station

• Radio started as an expensive status symbol

• Radios became less expensive during the Great Depression and became supplemented through advertising

The Golden Age of Radio (1930s and 1940s)

• Music, news, sports, weather forecasts, scripted entertainment

• People listening to the same things simultaneously

• Democratized the entertainment industry, exposed a wide variety of talent to the entire country

• Advertisers saw radio as a highly effective medium, sponsored programs and created brand loyalty

Radio Programming

• Comedy programs were popular

• First comedy program was The Cuckoo Hour in 1930 with Raymond Knight

• Other radio comedians were Bob Hope, Red Skelton, and Jack Benny

• Sitcoms predate television and started on radio

• George Burns and Gracie Allen turned their vaudeville act into a radio sitcom which was a fictionalized version of their lives

• Soap operas predate television as well

• Soap operas get their name from being sponsored by soap manufacturers targeting housewives

• Soap operas started as 15 minute serial dramas that were broadcasted daily

• Guiding Light was a radio soap opera that transferred to TV that lasted for 57 years

• Advertisers had a great amount of power over radio programming and later television

• Most genres were represented in radio

• Westerns like The Lone Ranger

• Crime dramas like The Shadow starring Orson Welles

• Action adventures like The Air Adventures of Jimmie Allen and Captain Midnight

• Scifi like Flash Gordon

• Horror and suspense like Lights Out

• Scifi and horror sometimes started with a disclaimer stating that the events weren’t real due to panic over Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds

The Birth of Television

• Demonstrated as early as 1924

• Took years to become a practical and widely used medium

John Logie Baird

• 1888 to 1946

• Scottish inventor

• First person to demonstrate the TV is possible

• Able to send a weak signal in 1924 with image and sound

• Created the first working TV system in 1926, mechanical and not electronic

• 1928, sent a transmission from London to New York, proving that transatlantic transmission is possible

Vladimir Zworykin

• 1888 to 1982

• Left Russia for the US during the Russian Civil War

• 1932, invented iconoscope which transmitted images electronically using cathode ray tubes

• Much stronger signal than Baird’s, more practical and used in several early TV cameras

Philo Farnsworth

• 1906 to 1971

• Called “the father of television”

• Created the first all-electronic television

• Watched the Apollo moon landing and stated “this has made it all worthwhile”

The Octagon

• 1928, General Electric made experimental TV called the Octogon

• Screen was just 3 inches long

• Only made four of them and never sold publicly

• Schnectady NY, commissioned play called The Queen’s Messenger, the first television broadcast

• Broadcast wasn’t fully successful due to technical limitations

Early Television Broadcasts

• Showed in 1939 World’s Fair

• Experimental TV stations broadcast through the 30s

• The Television Ghost was one of the first TV series ever and could possibly be the first televised dramatic anthology series

• 15 minute episodes, George Kelting played a spirit who told how they had been murdered, camera stayed focused on the face

• Aired on New York’s W2XAB which eventually became part of CBS

• Audio was simultaneously broadcast from radio stations

• Shows were broadcast but weren’t recorded, making The Television Ghost lost

• Broadcast signals weren’t able to be recorded so the majority of TV broadcasts prior to 1947 are lost

The Kinescope

• Solved the problem of recording TV broadcasts

• Pointed a film camera at a specifically modified TV monitor, allowing recordings to be rebroadcast later

• Only became standard and reliable in the late 1940s

• Varied in quality and process could be frustrating

• Mid 1950s, magnetic videotape emerged as the superior recording technology and made kinescopes obsolete

Early Television Networks

Allen B. DuMont

The Golden Age of Television (1947 to late 1950s)

• Started with the invention of the kinescope in 1947

• Flourished in post WWII US

• Television was rare in 1947 and was seen as a luxury item

• Price lowered eventually

• Only a few hours of programming on a channel per day at the beginning

• 1950s with the invention of the remote control, has a wire that people would trip over so most people just changed the channel on the TV itself

• Antennae for the signal were needed (rabbit ears) and were adjusted by hand

• Working in television was difficult, hot lights and lots of cables

• Many shows were filmed live and required precision

• Television was considered to be a step down from film, theatre, and radio

• TV executives adapted radio to television, giving them more programming and an existing audience 

How TV Conquered Radio

• Radio shows were adapted to television, providing more programming and an existing audience

• Golden Age of Radio ended

• Sometimes radio shows would continue along TV adaptations, but the radio versions didn’t last long

Golden Age TV Programming

Gertrude Berg

• 1899 to 1965

• Creator and star of The Goldbergs

• Showrunner, produced and scripted thousands of episodes

• Sometimes considered the first TV star

• Won first Emmy Award for Lead Actress in a Television Series

• Won a Tony Award later on

• Acted out all of the roles in her pilot pitch when the executive couldn’t read her handwriting

Famous Firsts

Innovations of Golden Age TV

• Dramatic anthology series brought top writers, actors, and directors to television, self contained standalone stories

• Prestigious and wanted to bring live theatre experience to people’s homes

• Producers brought in up and coming playwrights, actors, and directors to give the medium highbrow appeal

• Anthology dramas became so popular and prestigious that film producers were drawn to them

• Anthology dramas adapted to feature films include Oscar winning films Marty (1955) and Twelve Angry Men (1957)

• Anthology shows elevated the careers of Rod Serling, Paddy Chayefsky, and Reginald Rose

Milton Berle

• 1908 to 2002

• Contributed to television’s popularity

• Known for costumes

• TV’s biggest star

• Known as “Mr. Television” 

• First entertainer to be featured in Time and Newsweek in the same week

• Pushed to integrate Texaco Star Theater by fighting for the Four Step Brothers to appear on the show

• Often did “man in dress” comedy and mocked women and the LGBTQ+ community

Sid Caesar

• 1922 to 2014

• Sketch comedian, wasn’t a writer

• Originally a saxophonist

• Served in the Coast Guard

• Hosted Your Show of Shows

• Hosted Caesar’s Hour

• Helped start Mel Brooks’ career

• Writers included Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, Woody Allen (ew), Selma Diamond, Larry Gelbart, Joe Stein, and Mike Stewart

• Struggled with monologues

• Disappeared from public life after Golden Age due to alcoholism and barbituate addiction

• Returned occasionally to make appearances in movies and TV shows

TV Networks

• Big three TV networks were NBC, ABC, and CBS

• NBC, ABC, and CBS all started as radio networks with established talent

DuMont Television Network

• 1946 to 1956

• Forgotten pioneer network

• Didn’t start with a radio station

• Competitive for the decade

• Created to sell TV sets

• Used talent from Broadway

• Used multiple sponsors for shows instead of just one

• Aired frist TV soap opera

• Aired first American TV sitcom

• Aired Captaion Video and His Video Rangers, successful kids’ scifi show

• Aired Serving Through Science, first regular science related network series

• Picked up The Goldbergs from CBS

• Created shows for audiences of color and hired actors and performers of color, like Hazel Scott and Anna May Wong

• Eventually unable to compete with the main three networks

• Many of the shows were recorded on kinescope and weren’t well preserved

• Majority of DuMont programming is now lost

Allen B. DuMont

• 1901 to 1965

• Inventor and businessman

• Invented cathode ray tube that could last for 1000 hours

• Demonstrated technology at 1939 World’s Fair

• Manufactured and sold his own line of TV sets

• DuMont TV sets were the highest quality available

• Sometimese also included radios and record players

• Created TV Network to sell TV sets

• Became a philanthropist and gave away a lot of his money

• Funded a nonprofit that would turn into PBS

Golden Age TV Sitcoms

• Sitcoms were developed in radio but became primarily associated with television

Phil Silbers and Nat Hiken

• Executives paired them together

• Phil Silvers was comedian and Nat Hiken was writer

• Hiken was named a Communist in 1950 which nearly derailed his career, defended himself by taking out an ad in Variety denouncing Communist beliefs

Cartoons and Children’s Shows

• Animation and puppetry predate television and were put into kids genres

• However, many animated shows and shows with puppetry weren’t purely aimed at children

• The company that predates NBC started making experimental TV broadcasts in 1928

• These experiments couldn’t use real actors becasuae of the lights and had to be in black and white

• Felix the Cat was a popular animated character created in 1919, a statue of Felix was broadcast under lights, this image was presented on the first commercial broadcast leading up to the 1939 World’s Fair

• Felix was considered a mascot for television

Media of the Week

Code - 

Mentioned but Didn’t Watch

Watched for Homework

Optional Viewing

Watched in Class

The Queen’s Messenger (1928)

• First television broadcast drama

• Broadcast on the Octogon

• Espionage thriller with guns, daggers, and poison

• The actors faces and hands weren’t able to be broadcast simultaneously, creating a disconcerting viewing experience

• Newspaper reported that broadcasting moving pictures into homes was still far into the future

The Lone Ranger - “There Really Is a Lone Ranger” (1951)

Captain Midnight - “Mission to Mexico” (1955)

The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show - “George Teaches Gracie Not to be Careless” (1953)

The Goldbergs - “A Sad Day” (1954)

• Radio show successfully adapted to TV in 1949, started in 1928

• Actress Gertrude Berg sold her idea for a show to NBC, TV adaptation was CBS

• Centers around fictional Molly Goldberg and her family in the Bronx

• First radio and TV show to portray Jewish people and culture in a positive light

Dragnet - “The Big Producer” (1954)

• First TV police procedural

• Adaptation of a successful radio show

• Jack Webb was inspired by the audience’s response to his film He Walked by Night

• Based on real police stories

• Ran for 8 years on radio, 1951 TV adaptation and three spinoff TV shows

Perry Mason - “The Sun Bather’s Diary” (1958)

• First ever weekly hourlong TV drama

• Courtroom procedural adapted from a successful radio show, and a series of detective novels and films

• Starred Raymond Burr as a trial lawyer defending the unjustly accused

• Created by attorney and novelist Erle Stanley Gardner who insisted upon legal accuracy after being disappointed by previous adaptations of his novels

• Challenging show to write for due to legal accuracy

Playhouse 90 - “Requiem for a Heavyweight” (1956)

• Washed up boxer searching for meaning at the end of his career

• Brought Rod Serling’s writing career to new heights

• Starred Jack Palance, Keenan Wynn, and Ed Wynn

• Live broadcast

• Won multiple Emmy Awards

• Serling won the first Peabody Award given for a teleplay

Philco Television Playhouse - “Marty” (1953)

• Adapted into Oscar winning film

• Aimed to bring a play experience to viewers at home

Studio One - “Twelve Angry Men” (1954)

• Adapted into film

• Aimed to bring a play experience to viewers at home

Alfred Hitchcock Presents - “Lamb to the Slaughter” (1958)

• Alfred Hitchcock told suspenseful stories about the dark side of human nature

• Ran for 10 years

• Popular Golden Age anthology series

• Helped add prestige to TV medium by bringing Hitchcock to the small screen

• Some of the writers included Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, and Roald Dahl

Texaco Star Theater (1948)

• First successful comedy and variety show in TV history

• Sponsored by oil company Texaco (Chevron)

• Sketch comedy, music, standup, vaudeville, dramatic performances

• Highest rated who of 1950

• “Must see viewing” and helped solidify TV as more than just a trend

Your Show of Shows (1950)

• Hosted by Sid Caesar

• Ensemble cast included Carl Reiner and Imogen Coca

• Won Emmy for Outstanding Variety Series in 1952 and 1953

• Influenced SNL

The Hazel Scott Show (1950)

• Starred singer and jazz pianist Hazel Scott

• Performed live music with jazz musicians Charles Mingus and Max Roach

• First US television show with a Black host

• Refused to perform in segregated venues and turned down disrespectful movie roles

• Critically acclaimed but cancelled after the HUAC accused Scott of being a Communist

The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong (1951)

• Drama about an art gallery owner who worked as a detective to solve art related crimes

• Starred Anna May Wong

• First TV show to feature an Asian American lead actor

• Wong was Hollywood’s first Chinese American star in the silent era

• Frusted by limited and stereotypical roles

• Special quarters were printed with Anna May Wong in 2022

Pinwright’s Progress (1946)

• World’s first regular half hour TV sitcom

• British

• Ran for 10 episodes

• Descriptions of episode plots exist, but there’s no surviving footage of the show

Mary Kay and Johnny (1947)

• First American TV sitcom

• Starred real life married couple

• Aired on DuMont Network

• Ran for over 3 years

• First show where a couple shared the same bed

• Pregnancy was acknowledged on air

• The baby was written into the show

The Honeymooners (1955)

• Short run for one year but strong legacy

• One of the few DuMont shows with many surviving episodes

• Bickering married couple

• Very popular, #2 rated show in the US

• Jackie Gleason starred after starring in his own variety show where The Honeymooners was a popular sketch

• Filmed before a live studio audience

• Never fully rehearsed before a shoot

• Gleason claimed to have a photographic memory but he didn’t and would sometimes flub his lines on air

• Successful while having no big guest stars and a low production value

• Set was intentionally drab and Gleason wanted the characters to be poorer than the viewers

• The show survives today because Gleason kept his own copies of kinescope recordings

• Template of foolish husband and suffering, smart wife, would become a popular sitcom archetype (notably used by The Flintstones)

I Love Lucy (1951)

• #1 show for four of six seasons

• Played by actual married couple, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz

• Executives are initially reluctant because Desi Arnaz is Cuban American, so the show would be about an interracial marriage

• Ball and Arnaz develop a vaudeville act and prove the popularity of their idea to executives

• First scripted TV show to be shot in 35mm film

• Developed multi-cam technique so a live studio audience could produce natural reactions without sitting through multiple takes

• Pushed for rebroadcasting rights, Arnaz and Ball got the rerun rights for very cheap since reruns weren’t popular at the time, the show was so popular that reruns were invented and Ball and Arnaz made lots of money

The Phil Silvers Show - “The Court Martial” (1956)

• Also known as Sgt. Bilko and You’ll Never Get Rich

• Workplace sitcom that ran for 4 seasons on CBS

• Helped set the stage for future workplace sitcoms

• Set in the army

• Successful, won Emmy for Best Comedy Series in 1956, 1957, and 1958

• The show often includes at least one character of color, doesn’t have many lines but is considered an equal and isn’t stereotyped

Crusader Rabbit - Episode 1 (1950)

• First cartoon made specifically for television

• The first Saturday morning cartoon

• Rabbit and tiger

• Originally intended to tell the story of Don Quixote through a donkey character but was changed to a rabbit

• Kids’ show that appealed to all ages

Howdy Doody (1947)

• Children’s show centered around a puppet

• Western themed variety show

• Comedy, music, interactive segments

• Purely for kids, popular and wholesome

Captain Kangaroo (1955)

• Lasted until 1984

• Starred Bob Keeshan

• Featured variety of puppets

• Warm and imaginative, mixed fantasy and reality

• Surrogate grandfather for kids in the audience

Kukla, Fran, and Ollie - “Salute to Television” (1949)

• Most revolutionary kids’ show of the Golden Age

• Started in 1947

• Influential to future puppet TV shows like Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, and Mystery Science Theater 3000

• Stars comedian Fran Allison with two puppets

• Appealed to adults and children

• Created by Burr Tillstrom, who played most of the puppets

• Self aware about being a TV show and covered topics that weren’t specific to kids

• Rehearsed but largely ad libbed