T.H.A.T.
(Television History and Trivia)from
www.hologlobepress.com
by
Victor Edward Swanson,
Publisher
RULES OF USE
The material provided on this page is a service of Victor Swanson and The Hologlobe Press. The material may be used freely by a person, if the person does not use the material for commercial purposes. The material may be used by persons employed in the media, such as staffers of radio stations, but persons employed in the media must announce that the material has been taken from the Web site of The Hologlobe Press, the main Internet address to which is www.hologlobepress.com. Of course, the material is provided for fun or to teach.
Announcement
I must here pass along an announcement, which
covers a subject that your local television newscaster
probably did not present to you. On April 14, 2015,
the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee
unanimously passed a bill that hurts the country
greatly. Many rotten reporters around the country
have pushed the idea that the bill was a good idea,
since supposedly it gets the U.S. Senate involved
Barack Obama's nuclear-themed agreement with
Iran. It is nonsense in the high degree. The U.S. Senate,
based on The United States Constitution, always
is involved in approving or disapproving of any
agreement that a U.S. president should make with
a foreign country, no matter what the agreement
might be called by the U.S. president. All such
agreements are "treaties." Then, on May 7, 2015,
the bill passed the full U.S. Senate. Before the bill showed
up, it always took a vote of two-thirds of the members
of the U.S. Senate to approve any agreement made
by the U.S. president. Now, because of the bill,
it could ultimately take a vote of two-thirds of
the U.S. Senate to stop Barack Obama's agreement
on nuclear stuff with the Iranians (if the process gets
to a point where Barack Obama uses a "veto"
move to cut down a simple majority vote that had
been made to stop the agreement). The bill makes
it harder for the U.S. Senate to block Barack Obama
from setting the agreement in place, which, as
Israel has announced, is a highly rotten agreement, since
it will ultimately hurt Israel. Incidentally, April 14, 2015,
was the day in which the Russia lifted the ban on selling
high-tech air-defense weapons to Iran, which means that
soon Iran will be able to protect much better any of its
facilities that might be involved in making nuclear
weapons or ICMs, and that hurts Israel and the U.S.,
since, in essence, Iran has sworn to remove Israel from
the Earth. And, by the way, the world is heading
deeper into World War III, which is already
on, based on many things, such as information
from Judicial Watch, which has for some months
reported that ISIS has training camps set up in
near the U.S./Mexico boarder.
- - - T.H.A.T., Edition No. 133 - - -
I was born in 1953 in the Detroit area, so I never saw any of the television shows produced locally for Detroit-area viewers between 1946 and 1953, and I will say that I saw no shows between 1953 and some time in the late 1950s. Some time in the late 1950s--I believe--the family got an RCA television set (which had a small screen). I have some recollections of television shows of the late 1950s, and I even met Sagebrush Shorty (a television personality) in person at a hardware show along Inkster Road near Avondale Road in Inkster, Michigan, in the late 1950s or very early 1960s. Given that, I can say that I never saw such television programs of the 1940s and early 1950s as John Powers Charm School, Pat 'n' Johnny, and Air Base #7 (with Major Jim Scott, who was played by Joseph Van Dininck), and I also I cannot picture myself watching Krogo the Clown (played by Casey Kasem) of the late-middle 1950s. I have to note that I have seen some kinescope copies of some television shows of the 1950s that were made in Detroit for Detroit-area viewers. Between October 1946 and about February 1958, no television station in Detroit had a videotape machine, so, today, there are no shows made between October 1946 and February 1958 available on old original videotapes (between those dates, Detroit-area television stations did use film to make newsreels, and, maybe--maybe--some of that material yet exists somewhere in the country). If you forget about film clips and such, the age of only live television in Detroit was between October 1946 and February 1958. For my records, the age in which there was completely live television ended on February 24, 1958--that was the day during which the management of WJBK-TV, Channel 2, Detroit, showed off to advertisers and news people the very first videotape machine at a television station in Detroit, and the machine was an Ampex brand machine, and by May 1959, WJBK-TV would have two tape machines before another television station in Detroit would even have one. By the way, videotape began to be used by the broadcast-television-network industry in 1956. Oh, recently, I discovered that WJBK-TV was the first station to have a machine called a "Projectall", which was first shown to television-station operators at the NAB convention in Chicago, Illinois, in early 1949, and I have no idea what the machine was or how it worked, and I have no idea if any other Detroit television station ever had such a machine. What I know about old television shows of the 1940s and 1950s comes from information in old newspaper articles and television-program listings and old magazine articles mostly. In a way, each day, I sort of learn more about the now-forgotten television shows of the 1940s and 1950s, hunting down information, and this edition will give some information about forgotten television shows and old-time performers and will also give some information about recent television shows.
A lot of shows put on television today by the Detroit television stations are worth forgetting or are forgettable, one of which I talked about in the previous edition of Television History of Trivia, which was a talent show presented on WADL-TV. Since March 6, 2015, a few special television specials have been presented by Detroit-based television stations for Detroit-area viewers. On Sunday, March 6, 2015, WXYZ-HD, Channel 7.1, aired The Ultimate Wedding Show (which was called by the host and an announcer as The Ultimate Wedding Planning Show, which is note the title used in my files), and it was hosted by Erin Nicole. For several years, that type of show has been shown annually. This year, the program--which was a one-hour infomercial, as the others had been--was done differently for the most part. The host interviewed guests at their businesses; in past shows, the host had interviewed the guests in studio. In essence, the show is a fluff piece, showing off businesses involved in the wedding business, such as Lucido Fine Jewelry (represented this time by Vince Lucido and Joe Ludico), Roma Sposa (represented by Anna Castali Roselli), White House Chapel (represented by Maria Lavdas, Nick Lavdas, and Kris Abraham), and Emerald City Designs (represented by David C. McKnight). I was not a bad show, though it was fluff; for example, the production values were adequate. On March 25, 2015, WDIV-HD, Channel 4.1, aired a program called Detroit Sports: Unfiltered, and it was a one-hour show hosted by the sports director of the station, Bernie Smilovitz. The show was an interview show, having Brad Ausmus (the manager of the Detroit Tigers), Stan Van Gundy (the coach of the Detroit Pistons), Mike Babcock (the coach of the Detroit Red Wings), Jim Caldwell (the coach of the Detroit Lions), and a few others. One of the others was Justin Verlander (a player on the Detroit Tigers), and one topic was his relationship with Kate Upton (the model, who is related to U.S. Representative Fred Upton (of Michigan), who can be called the "light-bulb-killing man"). Detroit Sports: Unfiltered was more fluff for television viewers, and I can say that Detroit Sports: Unfiltered was more fluff than The Ultimate Wedding Show had been. Look at another topic of Detroit Sports: Unfiltered--the twittering relationship between Madonna (the musical performer) and Jim Harbaugh (the new coach of the football team at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan). Both shows probably exist on videotape today. I wonder if anyone will want to see them in sixty years. I would rather see a showing Junior Jamboree or Club Ha-Da of the 1940s or one of the dance presentations by students of Elaine Arndt's dance school [Note: More of Elaine Arndt is coming up].
The question is--Is television more filled with fluff and shallow performers than television was in the 1940s and 1950s?
When I was talking about Detroit Sports: Unfiltered and The Ultimate Wedding Show, I was talking about recent history, and I purposely delayed talking them till this edition of T.H.A.T. (since they are not that important to television history) to make a point. In a year or so, you would be hard press to it to find any information about them, especially in newspapers, such as who was on them. The reason is newspapers are rather useless publications when compared with newspapers of, for instance, the period of time between 1900 and about 1980. Newspapers carry much less information today than newspapers did years ago. To find information about old television shows and performers, such as of the 1940s and 1950s, I use old newspapers. I think I can find more information about old shows of the Detroit area in newspapers long gone, which is not necessarily a lot, than I can about shows of recent history. Will anyone care to know anything about Detroit Sports: Unfiltered and The Ultimate Wedding Show in fifty years?
In late March 2015, I spent a bunch of time looking at some more old newspapers to hunt down information about an article written about Bill Kennedy in the early 1950s by a someone named "A. Pryor," and the hunt took me on a little journey in time and television history, and it made me discover some information written by Ed Golick (of www.detroitkidsshow.com) entitled "'Lady of Charm' Edythe Fern Melrose" for the August 2009 newsletter of "Detroit Memories" (which was about the Detroit area of the past) was not right. In the past, I have talked about "Detroit Memories," especially the woman who was behind it--Eileen Trombley Glick--and I have shown the rottenness of Eileen Trombley Glick (you should see T.H.A.T. #84, which can be reached through this T.H.A.T. #84 link, and T.H.A.T. #85, which can be reached through this T.H.A.T. #85 link). Also in the past, I have shown up the bad history reporting of Ed Golick, and that has sometimes meant his work with Tim Kiska, both of whom were involved in making a special called Detroit Remember When: The History of Detroit Television, which was a defective piece of television product (for more information, you are urged to see T.H.A.T. #36, T.H.A.T. #71, T.H.A.T. #72, T.H.A.T. #116, T.H.A.T. #117, and T.H.A.T. 120, and they can be reached by going to the catalog page for editions of Television History and Trivia, which can be reached through this T.H.A.T. link). Here is where my research about the article written by "A. Pryor" took me.
First, let me make sure that you are aware of who Bill Kennedy--to whom I refer--was. Generally speaking Bill Kennedy was involved in the radio industry before World War II, and in the 1940s, he did acting in movies in Hollywood, and in the early 1950s, he came to Detroit to do television work, and then he went back to Hollywood for a few years, and then from the late 1950s to the early 1980s, he was a television movie host, working for CKLW-TV and WKBD-TV (by the way, he did the voice-over work for the opening of the Adventures of Superman television series). In the past issues of Television History and Trivia, you will find more detailed information about Bill Kennedy. And that is that.
Around 1953, Bill Kennedy was working for WWJ-TV, Channel 4, in Detroit, and one job that he did was host a daytime movie show (a show that showed theatrical movies of the past), and it was called Your Hollywood Host. I have found information that hinted many critics panned Bill Kennedy's hosting work on that series (of course, years later, he would become the most-famous movie host in Detroit television history), and it has been hinted that an article by "A. Pryor" praising Bill Kennedy in 1953 was one of the few that pushed him along.
I found the article, and while I was looking for the article, I was aware "A. Pryor" was really a woman named "Anastasia Reilly Buhl," and, really, the review was a portion of an article or column (called "Grosse Exaggerations") that was published in the Grosse Pointe News on Thursday, April 9, 1953, on page 14, and here is the portion of the article, the part that was about Bill Kennedy:
Readers who will remember our long drawn out 'romance' with Bill Silbert (in the column only!) will be glad to know that now that Willy has fled these shores for more successful fields in the East, we have at least found someone to take his place! About a month ago quite by accident we tuned in on Channel 4 at one p.m. and we liked what met our eagle eye. In short, we have 'discovered' a handsome young man named Bill Kennedy who wears so well, we haven't missed a day of his program since. Known as "Your Hollywood Host," he talks about guess what? and brings to light information about many stars of the past. If you have ever thought, wonder what became of Sadie Flickerpan, Kennedy is the guy who can and does tell you.
During the program we are shown a continued movie (good ones), then back comes Bill with a spot of chatter before signing off. Having discovered he used to be a moom-picture actor, it's not surprising that he's still movie material with a voice to match the face. Recently, the man in our life was moping around the homestead with flu so we twisted his arm and made him look at Kennedy's program. When we accertained that he LIKED Bill, we asked WHY? Our hero said: "I don't really know...except that he looks like the kind of guy you'd like to know." That was enough for us. Leave it to the male sex to hit the nail on the head without any fanfare! So there you are girls. Take a look-see but remember...we have the PRYOR-ITY.
By the way, I report now that the "man in our life" was A. Pryor's husband.
Now, here we go.
I went looking for more information about "A. "Pryor" or, really, "Anastasia Reilly Buhl" to see what I could find [Note: I do not report the sources in this edition of T.H.A.T., but I have the sources in my Detroit-files bibliography, and I can produce them quickly]. My story about Anastasia Buhl goes back to the late nineteen-teens or so. Around 1920, Anastasia, who was born on November 27, 1904, was known as "Zulieka Reilly," and she was a dancer, and in 1922, for instance, she was working for Flo Ziegfeld (a very famous showbiz man), and she was a "Ziegfeld Girl." On October 6, 1927, Anastasia Reilly (who was 22 years of age) married a businessman named Theodore D. Buhl (who was 24 years of age) at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City; Theodore D. Buhl's mother was Lulu Ziegfeld, and one theatrical show that Anastasia Reilly had recently done was Palm Beach Girl in Florida (which had gotten renamed No Foolin for the New York presentation). In essence, after the wedding, Theodore D. Buhl (who was Flo Ziegfield's nephew) and Anastasia Buhl left New York City and went to Detroit, Michigan, and she ended her showbiz career. Some years later--around 1938 (probably starting on October 20, 1938)--when in the Detroit area, Anastasia Buhl as "A. Pryor" get stories or columns regularly published in the Grosse Point Review (a newspaper, which would disappear in 1952), and those columns had roughly the name "Grosse Exaggerations" (such as "Grosse Exaggerations?"), and she did not stay long with the newspaper--when the Grosse Pointe News was started up on November 7, 1940, her column began to appear in it, and she would do the column for many years. Anastasia Buhl died on December 28, 1961, several years before Theodore Buhl would die; then she had been the president of the company that was running the newspaper, and she had been a columnist for the newspaper for most of the 21-year history of the newspaper.
It was when I was looking for information about Anastasia Buhl in old Grosse Pointe area (Michigan) newspapers that I made an unexpected discovery.
In the edition of The Grosse Pointe Review (Grosse Pointe, Michigan) for Thursday, October 1, 1931, I came across or stumbled on to a small advertisement, which had been put in the newspaper by a woman named Elaine Marie Arndt, and the advertisement announced that she recently opened up a "Dance Studio" at 919 Barrington [which was a building that had been built in 1927], and she was teaching ballroom, tap, ballet, musical comedy, acrobatic, modern German, and more (a few years later, Elaine Arndt would move to 750 Alter Road, and the business would stay at the location till at least the middle 1950s). I recognized the name immediately, and that inspired me into looking for more information about Elaine Arndt, who, I already knew, had been involved in putting on what can be called dance "specials" with some of her students in the early days of Detroit television. Elaine Arndt went to Grosse Pointe High School (which is now Grosse Pointe South High School) in the very late 1920s and very early 1930s, and on Thursday, January 22, 1931, she was graduated from Grosse Pointe High School, and around late in January 1931, she was involved in putting together the senior prom, being an assistant to the chairman, and the prom took place on January 23, 1931, and around this time, she was living with her family (her father was a doctor) in a house on Barrington Street (probably the house at 919 Barrington, which still exists today). Incidentally, Elaine Arndt was involved in performance events while in high school, though she was only an usher it seems for a production called Up in the Air involving the Grosse Pointe High School Glee Club in October 1930. I found that, in July 1931, Elaine Arndt and her sister (Geraldine) returned to the Detroit area from a little stay in New York City, New York, where Elaine had done some dance study with well-known dancers, such as a man named Ted Shawn (a vaudeville performer) and a man named Bill Robinson. Bill Robinson is more fully known as Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, a man who, for instance, danced with Shirley Temple in a movie called The Little Colonel, and, by the way, after a famous singer named Florence Mills ("The Little Blackbird") died in 1927, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson was instrumental in setting up some fund-raising events for the Florence Mills Memorial Fund, one of which was held in Chicago, Illinois, on May 3, 1928, and another one which was held at New York City at the Howard Theatre on May 8, 1928. In June 1947, real commercial television began in Detroit with WWJ-TV (the station had started out as WWDT with sort of regular broadcasting in test phase in March 1947), and Elaine Arndt, who had been operating a dance studio since 1931, was soon involved in presenting dance specials on broadcast television in the Detroit area. For instance, WWJ-TV aired a program featuring dancers of Elaine Arndt's on Tuesday, June 15, 1948, at 8:30 p.m., and it was done at the Music Hall, and the theme was "Love, Honor and--Dance." On September 28, 1948, there was a dance recital on WWJ-TV. Yet another program featuring dancers guided by Elaine Arndt was seen on WWJ-TV on Sunday, March 13, 1949, at 3:00 p.m. Hot dog! Hold it! Before WWJ-TV would become WWJ-TV, it was WWDT, and in March 1947, WWDT broadcast a dance event featuring Elaine Arndt and three of her students, and watching the program at Elaine Arndt's dance studio on that day was Anton Dolin of the Ballet Rousse, who had participated in the first dance event for television in England.
Now, my story here also includes "Doris Eaton Travis" (a woman who has been talked about in the past by me) because my seeing Elaine Arndt's name made me think of Doris Eaton Travis again--she was, for instance, the host of a Detroit-area television show of the early 1950s called At Arthur Murray's. From about 1918 to 1921, Doris Eaton was a dancer in New York City with the Ziegfeld Follies, and she had, for instance, an elder sister named Evelyn who was involved in theater work, a brother named Charlie was involved in theater work, and a sister named Mary Eaton, who--I shall say today--was more prominent in theater work than the others were, such as with the Ziegfeld Follies. Around 1921, Doris Eaton headed off to Hollywood to try to be in movies, and she would be in some films over the next decade or so, as would be her siblings, but she would not become a big name in movies, so big that she is easily remembered today, as would not her siblings; for instance, Doris Eaton was in At the Stage Door (in 1921), The Broadway Peacock (in 1922), The Valiant Slipper and Movie Struck (in 1926), and Kiss the Bride (in 1935). In the 1930s, she became a dancer with the Arthur Murray dance-teaching entity, and later, she would be involved in running and owning Arthur Murray dance schools in Michigan in the middle period of the 1900s. Doris Eaton Travis finally received a university degree--which came from the University of Oklahoma--when she was 88 years of age, and she died in 2010. Doris Eaton Travis was the last "Ziegfeld Girl" to die.
At this point, you can see that I have focused on three women, and now I can focus on Edythe Fern Melrose, which I started thinking about when I was thinking about the other three women. When I remembered Ed Golick's piece in the August 2009 issue of "Detroit Memories" newsletter, I went looking for more information about Edythe Fern Melrose's early days, especially to see what work if any she had done at WJLB radio, Detroit. Ed Golick put forth in his little piece that Edythe Fern Melrose ran WJLB radio, Detroit, in the 1930s. I went to see for sure.
Sometime in the very early 1930s--shortly before 1932 it seems--Edythe Southard became a member of the staff of WJAY radio, in Cleveland, Ohio, and there it seems she met Grant C. Melrose, who was running WJAY, at the station and fell in love, and on December 24, 1932, Grant C. Melrose and Edythe Fern married (and she became known as Edythe Fern Melrose), and on September 11, 1934, Grant C. Melrose (who had been born on August 30, 1886) died. Edythe Fern Melrose stayed with the station, and in 1935, Edythe Fern Melrose was one of only two women running radio stations around the country; Edythe Fern Melrose was at WJAY, and Joy True was at KOH, Reno, Nevada. In February 1936, Edythe Fern Melrose also took on the responsibilities of the sales manager when Clyde Wood went to join the radio department of Humphrey, Prentke & Associates (in Cleveland, Ohio). On October 24, 1936, Edythe Fern Melrose was out of WJAY, because the station was merged with WHK (really, she left a few days after the merging had taken place with both stations, each of which had been owned by the Cleveland Plains Dealer), and at the time, it looked as if she might go on to work as the manager of a group of radio stations in the Midwest. Around November 1936, Edythe Fern Melrose, who had recently been with WJAY radio, Cleveland, joined Pan American Broadcasting Co. (or Pan-American Broadcasting Co.) as the sales promotion manager, and her job was to develop and build new radio programs; she had been at WJAY as manager for about two years. In May 1937, when Edythe Fern Melrose was doing a program called Charm in Women at WMCA radio, she left Pan-American Corporation and went to work in the radio department--as the "radio director"--of Street & Finney (an advertising agency), and in 1937, at this company, Edythe Fern Melrose was putting together a program called Charm School of the Air (as the producer and editor), and the company was working to syndicate the program (which was like that which she had done at WJAY) on disks (or "records") to radio stations. By the way, in the 1930s and 1940s, it was commonplace for advertising agencies to create and run radio programs for sponsors. Incidentally, it was in November 1937, that Edythe Fern Melrose took a little time off from Street & Finney to attend the funeral of her mother at West Mansfield, Ohio. In December 1938, Edythe Fern Melrose joined radio station WJW, Akron, Ohio, as the commercial manager, and within months of joining, she was able to increase the profitability of the station enough so that she was made the manager (some time in early 1939).
I did not find any information about Edythe Fern Melrose having worked for WJLB radio, Detroit, in the 1930s, so it seems--as I note up to this point in my story about Edythe Fern Melrose--Ed Golick's information is wrong or is at least off the mark, and I note that Ed Golick erred as to what Edythe Fern Melrose was and did in the 1930s when he wrote his piece in the August 2009 issue of the "Detroit Memories" newsletter, but, then again, maybe Ed Golick is only partially to blame for the error, having gotten his information--which he thought was useful information--from the flawed book entitled From Soupy to Nuts! A History of Detroit Television, which was written by Tim Kiska, an unreliable journalist.
I am not done with my little story about Edythe Fern Melrose. In April 1940, Edythe Fern Melrose finally showed up in Detroit, and she showed up to work for WMBC-AM, Detroit, which was a radio station owned by John L. Booth Broadcasting, and she became the manager of the station. On February 25, 1941, the station went from being known as WMBC-AM (1400 AM) to being known as WJLB-AM, and, around the time, the station management was in the process of moving the studio location. I was able to find out that, in around October 1941, Edythe Fern Melrose was now working at WXYZ radio, and, on the radio station, she was considered "The Lady of Charm," an idea that she had started selling to the public while on WJAY and then later continued on with at WJW, and the idea basically focused on things pertaining to women mostly. From 1948 to at least April 1960, "The Lady of Charm" hosted and presented television programs, such as Charm Kitchen, on WXYZ-TV, Channel 7 [Note: I do not have her end date in my files yet]. In the middle 1960s, she did some work on CKLW-TV, but I am unclear as to the extent of the number of shows or the range of years at this time. Edythe Fern Melrose died on May 19, 1976, in Grayling, Michigan, at 77 years of age; earlier in that month, she had won a court-judgment award against WXYZ-TV, where she had received a leg injury while shooting a commercial about eight years previously.
I have another piece of information that I cannot fit well into the story about Edythe Fern Melrose. It looks as if she did work for WCAR-AM, Pontiac, in the early 1940s (the station would move to the Detroit area later). It was in The Radio Annual for 1942--which covered events of 1941--that it was noted that Edythe Fern Melrose worked for WCAR in 1941 at some time. I can only speculate--It looks as if Edythe Fern Melrose worked at WMBC-AM, and she may have left the station before the station became known as WJLB-AM, or she may not have, and then she did work at WCAR-AM before she went on the air at WXYZ-AM. That has yet to be figured out for sure by me.The story about Bill Kennedy is not done, so I return to Bill Kennedy (actually, this edition of T.H.A.T. could present more about Bill Kennedy). A. Pryor wrote two more articles about Bill Kennedy in 1953, one of which appeared in The Grosse Pointe News on Thursday, April 30, 1953, and the other of which appeared in The Grosse Pointe News on Thursday, October 29, 1953. The first of the two articles appeared on the Thursday following the last broadcast by Bill Kennedy under Your Hollywood Host series (which had ended on the previous Friday), and the story noted how, at about 9:00 a.m. on Monday, April 27, 1953, Bill Kennedy was ending his short newscast on WWJ-TV and he started to promote the idea that, at 1:00 p.m., viewers could see him on Your Hollywood Host, but Bill Kennedy soon realized in middle sentence that he was about to promote something that was gone, and he had to change gears and not report that he was going to be on at 1:00 p.m.. Bill Kennedy did host a movie late that day--what could be called a late-night movie.
Look at what A. Pryor (Anastasia Buhl) wrote in the edition of The Grosse Pointe News for Thursday, October 29, 1953:
Before we leave radio and television, we should like to take up the case of our local Bill Kennedy. Here is a gent-of whom there is no whomer in these two fields. Whether it be newscasting or story-telling...he is tops in looks, personality and manner. Yet wot happen? It is rumored that his activities have been so curtailed on t-v that he is about to leave these parts in search of greene fields. He will be a great loss to t-v viewers as well as to the local stations. If WWJ can't see what they are losing, we are surprised that one of the other stations hasn't the sense to snap him up.
We checked and found that last summer when they took his Hollywood Host program off the air, WWJ received thousands of telephone calls and letters from fans of Kennedy's. What more do they want? If Kennedy DOES leave Detroit, the well wishes of literally thousands of his followers will go with him. We can only hope he will find the deserved success that Bill Silbert found.
He was another good guy who got this kiss of death from WWJ. 'Tis sick making.
By the way, in the future, I should have more information about Bill Silbert (or, in an upcoming edition of T.H.A.T., I should, as I should about Joe Gentile and Ralph Binge, and I note that, at one point, Joe Gentile and Ralph Binge, who worked together on radio and television in the Detroit area, such as on CKLW radio, in the middle 1900s, were a subject of the working edition of T.H.A.T. #131 and the working edition of T.H.A.T. #132, and then I got on to other things, and I decided to postpone my talk about Joe Gentile and Ralph Binge).
You can see clearly through the previous edition T.H.A.T. and this edition of T.H.A.T. that so-called television stars of Detroit television history were not beginners to the entertainment world when they got to television; such persons as Doris Eaton Travis, Bill Kennedy, Edythe Fern Melrose, and Elaine Arndt had been involved in the entertainment industry for many years before getting on television. I can say that, really, the early Detroit-area television performers had experience right when they got on the air, and I could name others, such as Dee Parker (or "Del Parker," as she was known professionally as a singer at first, who should not be confused with "Dell Parker," a female stage performer (such as in several Broadway shows) of the same time period).
[For fun, you should see the introduction to Michigan Travel Tips for May 10, 2015, which has a little bit of television history involving the Leonard Stanley Trio, George Scotti, and Club Bali (an entertainment venue in Detroit of, for instance, the late 1940s), and that edition of Michigan Travel Tips can be reached by using this link--Travel #133.]Now, here is set of bad Detroit-television-viewing moments. On Sunday, May 3, 2015, I was running through the broadcast channels, and I stopped on WADL-TV, Channel 38.1--it was about 12:45 a.m. The station was in the middle of running an episode (locally produced) of The Video Shop, and two black guys were sort of dancing like robots to some type of music (it was a segment of the show). The remainder of show had some other stuff, such as two rap videos. One portion had a bunch of guys--black rap artists for the most part and one well-known disc jockey of the Detroit area ("Mason" or John Mason)--pushing the idea in snippets of how "hot" The Music Shop is or was or whatever. I state that the promo did not match the show. The program was crappy and forgettable. The guys in the promo within the show came off as a bunch of street thugs--sloppy and difficult to understand. A few minutes later, after making stops at a few stations, I turned into WTVS-TV, Channel 56.1, and it was airing an episode of Live from the Artists Den (a nationally distributed show) that featured the musical group called "Cage the Elephant." It was more crap, if not worse than what I had seen in the rap portion of The Video Shop. The music from "Cage the Elephant" that I caught was lousy, and the leader singer--Matt Shultz--came off as a scuzzy no-talent guy who thinks he is a big deal (and, yet, the audience raved). I went back to watching episodes of the old series from the 1950s called The Phil Silver Show, which was running on the soft-launched Decades network (airing on broadcast 62.2 in Detroit), where I had been for much of the day and evening.
By the way, on Saturday, May 2, 2015, and Sunday, May 3, 2015, I did see one "sparkler" on television--on The Phil Silvers Show. In a couple episodes of the first season of The Phil Silvers Show, Billie Allen (who played WAC Billie) was in scenes in the administration office of episodes--she was the black gal--and Billie Allen's character same off as pleasant and nice--she was a "sparkler." Oh, earlier in the week, I saw an episode of the old series My Little Margie (featuring Gale Storm and Charles Farrell), in which Gale Storm's character--Margie--was dressed in what was like a Vegas showgirl outfit (the episode originally aired on CBS-TV on July 14, 1952, and was about a costume party). The showing that I caught was on the TCT Kids network. Gale Storm really did look appealing and nice and cute and sexy.
Announcement for the novice again: To get useful television-delivered news or Internet-delivered news, go to Fox News Channel, WorldNetDaily.com, "The Drudge Report," and CNS News (which is on the Internet and which was launched on June 16, 1998), since the entities do not blindly support Barack Obama, as do CNN, MSNBC, NBC-TV, CBS-TV, and ABC-TV (to learn about bad journalism, you might tune in to CNN, MSNBC, NBC-TV, CBS-TV, and ABC-TV from time to time to see how they differ from the Fox News Channel and those mentioned with it in presenting political stories and events, and you should discover CNN, MSNBC, NBC-TV, CBS-TV, and ABC-TV avoid covering things that make Barack Obama look bad or show his true nature, which could harm you). If you are unclear of my intentions, I say in different words that you should boycott CNN, MSNBC, NBC-TV, CBS-TV, and ABC-TV and hope they lose more ratings and advertising revenues, since they are expendable, and it is time for you to find the guts to be mean and heartless and cancel them--since they are hurting you.
There have been a few changes in the Detroit-television-market news staff over the last few months, and, for instance, Tom Leydon (a sports guy) is gone from WXYZ-TV, Channel 7.1, and WMYD-TV, Channel 20.1, and Ann Marie LaFlamme is a new reporter at WXYZ-TV and WMYD-TV, and that probably means nothing to you--that is, the general quality of the local television news business will stay the same, which is pretty much useless, presented by shallow and useless people making sure to cover traffic and weather every ten minutes (if not more often) and show the latest traffic accident or killing. Really, it looks as if the Channel 7/Channel 20 group is going to provide more fluff in the mornings than Channel 2 (WJBK-TV) does; for a number of years, the morning team on Channel 2 has been larger than the morning teams of the other television stations in Detroit that have so-called morning news blocks. On April 6, 2015, the Channel 20/Channel 7 news team became--Alicia Smith (an anchor), Jeff Vaughn (an anchor), Malcom Maddox (an anchor), Keenan Smith (a weathercaster), Ann Marie LaFamme (a traffic reporter), Jennifer Bisram, Nima Shaffe, and Erin Nicole. Gone from the morning shift and the station are Rachel McCrary and Vic Faust. Recently, Meaghan Brennan left the station, too. On April 15, 2015, a company called Katz Broadcasting launched a comedy network for broadcast television (subchannel use), and it is called "LAFF", and the channel carries movies mostly, but it also has a few old (or somewhat old) off-broadcast-network comedy series, such as Ellen, Empty Nest, Spin City, and The Drew Carey Show, and the channel is now uses Channel 7.3 (replacing the Live Well Network, which I found to be a useless network, having so much crap that was available everywhere else). Also, Dr. Partha Nandi, who has done for several years a program called Ask Dr. Nandi for syndication, has become a health reporter for the Channel 7/Channel 20 group.
Normally, an edition of Television History and Trivia covers a lot of national-television subjects and only a few local-television subjects, but this edition has really hit on local television of Detroit, and here is more that fits in the latter category. At 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 3, 2015, WTVS-HD, Channel 56.1, aired a special called Detroit Remember When: Made in the Motor City. Bill Kubota was the editor, writer, and director of the special, and I know nothing about him, such as how good he is as a historian, working to present correct facts. At the moment, I have to say that the historical value of the special seems to be good, and, generally speaking, the production was good quality. The main goal program was to give a bit of history of companies based in Detroit (roughly) over the years or decades and their beloved products, such as Better Made Potato Chips, Velvet Peanut Butter, and Sanders Candy. The show had a parade of local celebrities offering recollections. The title of the program did not quite suit the program, because it was not strictly about products made in the Detroit area. For instance, one long segment was about Gratiot Auto Supply, and the segment presented information about the early days of drag racing in the Detroit, such as by talking about The Ramchargers and the Bernella Racing Team (with, for instance, Della Woods, who was a "Funny Car" driver), and such a segment would have made a better stand-alone show or would have been better in a show with other car-related topics. In addition, the segment about WRIF-AM and the "D.R.E.A.D." card was sort of out of place, not really covering a product that was made in Detroit. At the end of the special, the host--Erik Smith--lamented not having enough time to talk about other real "products" made in Detroit. If the special did not have the car segment, for one, Erik Smith could have been talking about other products that he missed out on talking about. The show is worth seeing, despite the few bits of drifting off the main subject.
Where I am in the Detroit area, the Daystar Network disappeared recently from Channel 23.1 (and the carrier wave is now gone), and the Daystar Network appeared on Channel 48.1 (W48AV).
Oh, when I am in the Detroit area, I like to watch The Avengers (the 1960s series from England) on weeknights on Cozi television (20.2)--I miss a lot of episodes while being away. On Monday, April 13, 2015, I watched for the first time the 1998 movie called The Avengers, which features actors Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman, and the movie was presented on the GRIT network (which usually has better movies for viewers during the daytime than in prime time). The 1998 movie was based on the 1960s series. It was not a good movie. Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman had no chemistry together, and, by the way, Uma Thurman is not a pretty woman by any means (especially when compared with Diana Rigg of the 1960s, when she was a main performer in The Avengers television series), and, generally speaking, the leads in the movie presented a monotone delivery throughout the movie--there was a lack of variation in delivery. The character called "Mother" looked sinister (though the character was supposed to be a good guy). Ralph Fiennes lacked sauveness and was stiff. Most of the scenes were dark, not brightly lighted. The incidental music was like it was leftover from another production, like that which had been heard before. The open scene of the movie in which John Steel (played by Ralph Fiennes) takes on a bunch of adversaries (though fake) came off a cheap, and during the movie, there was no real suspense, that stuff that makes a viewer wonder how a person caught in trouble was going to get out of the trouble. The movie even rehashed a theme from, for example, an episode of the television series called "The House That Jack Built," in which Emma Peel (played by Diana Rigg) found herself in a house where no matter what hallway that she took to get out of a room, she always ended up in the same room (so the writer of the movie got off easy, stealing from the past). I say that the casting was flat, the direction was poor, and the story was poor and very predictable.
While yet on the subject of Detroit-area television, I should mention that some people in the Detroit area can see the Channel 14 group, the history of which can be traced to Flint (Michigan) television. Channel 14.1 has or has had it seems, the Soul of the South network (which I cannot get or was not there when I last ran a scan), and Channel 14.2 has Retro TV, which has old movies and television shows (such as from Canada), and Channel 14.3 has "The Bob", which is an infomercial channel, and Channel 14.4 has TUFF TV," which airs programs mostly aimed at men, and Channel 14.5 has Corner Store TV and Jewelry TV, which can be said to be a channel aimed at women mostly.
It looks as if the channels that I will most use when in the Detroit area will be 20.2 (for Cozi TV), 62.2 (for Decades), 2.2 (for Movies!), 13.2 (for Retro), 4.2 (for this), 38.2 (for Antenna TV), 7.2 (for Bounce), 7.3 (for LAFF), and 18.3 (for TCT Kids), and then I will see if the other channels have anything worthwhile, such as an episode of Elementary.
We have reached the point where people in the Detroit area, especially older persons, need not get cable service, since there are some likable broadcast channels offering programs from the better/nicer days of television history, such as My Favorite Martian, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Sherlock Holmes (from Sheldon Reynolds), Mission: Impossible, Murder, Zorro, The Roy Rogers Show, The Cisco Kid, The Danny Thomas Show, I Spy, Doctor Who, The Lone Ranger, Maverick, The Avengers, The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, Peter Gunn...., and old movies.
Since I published the previous edition of T.H.A.T., I saw one of the early modern-day broadcast made-for-TV movies on Grit (a network not available in the Detroit area). The movie was The Outsider, which featured Darrin McGavin as David Ross, a private investigator. The movie was first seen on NBC-TV on November 21, 1967, and the plot involves murder and embezzlement, and some of the other performers in it were Sean Garrison, Shirley Knight, Nancy Malone, Edmond O'Brien, Ann Sothern, Joseph Wiseman, Ossie Davis, and Audrey Totter. The movie was--as I list it in my files--the twelfth modern-day made-for-TV movies; the first of which had been See How They Run (a "Project 120" movie) of 1964. The Outsider has ties to another early TV-movie, The Movie Murderer. It is not that both have ties to Universal Studios, which drove the made-for-TV movie push in the 1960s, in association with NBC-TV, even though both were from Universal Studios. It is not that both movies were shown under the umbrella title called World Premiere, which they were. There was no story connection between the movies or character cross-overs. The Movie Murder, which aired on NBC-TV on February 2, 1970, and which featured such performers as Arthur Kennedy, Tom Selleck, Norma Crane, Henry Jones, and Warren Oates (as, for instance, Alfred Fisher), was about the search for the person who wants to destroy all the copies of a movie called Winter Scape One. In The Outsider, there was a scene with a jazz-type band that plays some music, and that music ended up also being used in The Movie Murderer for the background music in Winter Scape One. Hey, there is an odd piece of television trivia. If Grit runs The Movie Murderer, watch it--it is fun.
Here is a national piece of television, if not a national piece of crap television. On Tuesday, March 31, 2015, WTVS-TV, Channel 56.1, aired a program called Can Eating Insects Save the World?. The idea hinted at with the title made me think when think the show was pushing the "liberal" crap ("communistic crap" from the United Nations) about not eating meet and such, especially beef, because animals expel methane, and methane from animals, such as cows, is what pushers of the fake idea of manmade-global-warming are trying to say is killing the planet, which I know is a bullshit idea. Man must reduce the numbers of cows in the world to save the world--this rotten idea is being pushed by a lot of rotten people. If "man" went to eating only insects, man would probably help kill the planet, since planets need insects to survive and insects may eat other insects to survive. The title of the program--and the program mostly certainly aired elsewhere in the country--really did hint at idiocy.
Here is more national television stuff. On Thursday, April 16, 2015, I watched the episode of Elementary presented on CBS-TV in prime time. I saw crap while watching the show. There was this commercial, which featured two young black boys and their mother. The commercial was for Clorox bleach. It seems the boys were involved in seeing who could piss in to the toilet from the farthest distance. Such as crappy idea the commercial was--it was gutter stuff--and it was something no one would have done for a commercial in the 1940s, 1950s, or 1960s.
On Friday, April 24, 2015, ABC-TV and Diane Sawyer showed off a sickness to the American people through two-hour prime-time "special"--officially, "A Diane Sawyer Special." The sad event was called Bruce Jenner--The Interview. Bruce Jenner became well-known as a decathlon participant for the United States of America in 1976 Summer Olympics, and he actually won the decathlon. Since then, something has gone wrong in Bruce Jenner's mind, or the mind was always a bit wrong and things have gotten worse. There was a time when people with mental problems were not praised--they were considered people who need help of some type. Bruce Jenner wants to be seen as a woman and become a woman. Of course, no matter what is physically done to his body, he will always be a man. And some people in the United States of America watched the program and probably felt everything was right with Bruce Jenner, and, by the way, the famous "Dr. Phil" was one, as I found out through a promotion piece that I caught on some station before the special would be run. I avoided the special, making me think of the old theatrical movie called Network, which focused on the television business in the future, particularly a television network, and all the lengths to which the network would go to attract an audience (the movie was released in 1976). ABC-TV reminds me of that fictional network of Network.
And on Saturday, April 25, 2015, the Mayor of Baltimore--Stephanie Rawlings-Blake--held a press conference, and I wonder if your favorite television newscast showed off a good piece of dialogue that shows that she is a rotten woman, particularly a rotten black woman. During the press event, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said--"...I work with the police, and I instructed them to do everything that they could to make sure that the protesters were able to exercise, ah, their free speech. Ah, it's a very delicate balancing act because while we're trying to make sure that they were protected from cars and other things that were going on, uhm, we also made those who wished to, to destroy safe to do that as well....". Stephanie Rawlings-Blake showed off how much of a rotten woman she is. One purpose of a government body is to protect the property of good citizens and the community from bad people. "Free speech"--it does not give a person the right to break the things of others. Yet, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake showed that she felt people should be free to break the things of others and that she felt government should keep such protesters safe. That is rottenness. [Note: To learn about others like Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, you should see my document entitled Idiot Thought: A Collection of Nonsense Comments and Ideas from Democrats (such as Communists and Supporters of Sharia) and Others (such as "Republicans" Who Are Actually "Rhinos" (Fake Republicans) or Are Not "Conservatives"), which can be reached by using this Idiot link.]
Remember: The Prisoner with Patrick McGoohan was a television show that was produced across the pond and shown on CBS-TV in the late 1960s, and I urge you to find The Prisoner on DVD, maybe from a library, and watch it, and you should show it--all the episodes--to teenagers, or buy it as a present for teenagers.
Stay well!
Vic
copyright c. 2015
Date published: May 10, 2015The Hologlobe Press
Postal Box 5263
Cheboygan, Michigan 49721
The United States of America
To see the next edition of T.H.A.T.,
click on: T.H.A.T. #134.
To see the previous edition of T.H.A.T.,
click on: T.H.A.T. #132.
To see the catalog page for T.H.A.T. editions,
click on: T.H.A.T..
To see information about the news business in
the country and its failures and its betrayal of
the American public, click on: T.H.A.T. #55.
To go to the main page of The Hologlobe Press,
click on: www.hologlobepress.com.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled Never Forget These Media Darlings ? --
A Guide for the Individual in the United
States of America, which can reached by
using this link: Media.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled Film and Television Production
Tax Credits: The Bad Side of the Issue,
which can be reached through this link:
Tax Credits.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled THOUGHTS AND STATEMENTS
ABOUT THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA for the individual woman and the
individual man, which can be reached by
hitting this link: Thoughts.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled THOUGHTS AND PIECES OF
LOGIC for the individual woman and the
individual man, which can be reached by
hitting this link: Logic.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled Political Lessons for the Individual Woman
and the Individual Man in the United States of
America, which can be reached by hitting this
link: Lessons.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled Nonsense Statements and Quotations
of Barack Obama, which can be reached at
this link: Quotes.
For further reading, you should see the document
about censorship, Fairness?: A Guide for the
Individual Woman and the Individual Man
in the United States of America, which can be
reached at this link: Fairness.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled National Health Care and Mass Failure:
The Reasons it is a Dead Issue, which can be
reached at this link: Health.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled A Collection of Words--Just Words--
That Show Dangerous People, which can be
reached through this link: Words.Keep in mind: T.H.A.T. documents and Michigan
Travel Tips documents published since the middle
of 2008 contain more quotations and statements
of Barack Obama's that you should see. To see
the editions of Michigan Travel Tips, you should
go to the catalog page, which can be reached by
hitting this link: Travel.###