T.H.A.T.
(Television History and Trivia)from
www.hologlobepress.com
by
Victor Edward Swanson,
Publisher
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- - - T.H.A.T., Edition No. 137 - - -
When you run through the television channels--you can go from good shows to bad shows to good shows to.... That idea sort of makes up the format of this edition of Television History and Trivia. This edition goes from good to bad or bad to good sort of. There is some good stuff about television in this edition, and there is bad stuff, the latter of which begins the edition.
Between 1972 and today, I have seen the downfall of the broadcast-journalism industry, and I was right in the middle of the downfall between 1976 and 2003 while I was in the broadcast section of AAA Michigan and had weekly contact with radio stations all over the state of Michigan (Note: In addition, I was gathering information about television for my television-history files). I saw how blacks and women were given positions in broadcast jobs even though they had no good qualifications to be in the jobs--Bad people were put in jobs. That is still happening in this day and age; in the previous edition of T.H.A.T., I noted how a Kacie Hellins (a black gal) is now on the sports-reporting team at Channel 7/Channel 20, Detroit, and I noted how she is not good enough to be on the team, looking inexperienced and like a newbie. Today, there are a lot of bad so-called "journalists" on television. One of them is Jorge Ramos, who is a so-called "journalist" on Univision and Fusion. Jorge is a man who has admitted that he holds a passport from Mexico and passport from the United States of America, and he has reported that he votes in both countries. I state that a man who votes in two countries is not a good person. To which country does a person who votes in two countries have the ultimate loyalty? In addition, Jorge Ramos has publicly stated that he prefers to speak Spanish over English. Jorge Ramos's daughter--Paola Ramos--has been a student at Harvard University, a place that promotes "enslavism" forms of government, such as socialism and communism over The United States Constitution, and Paola Ramos is a member of the Hillary Clinton (who is at least a communist) presidential election team. On Tuesday, August 25, 2015, Jorge Ramos was one of the so-called "journalists" involved in questioning Donald Trump (a candidate for the job of the U.S. president) in Iowa [Note: This section is not about Donald Trump, such as whether or not he would be a good person to be the U.S. president; it is about Jorge Ramos]. During the interview process, Jorge Ramos interrupted the proceedings, speaking out of turn, and he would not let Donald Trump answer Jorge Ramos' questions or statements, and, in essence, Jorge Ramos promoted the idea that, because he was an "immigrant," he had the right to interrupt the proceedings and go ahead of other reporters, and Jorge Ramos was rude and crude and like a street thug. The event between Donald Trump and Jorge Ramos was not an event in which a professional "journalist" was working to get questions--the event came off as nothing more than a hit piece for public-relations reasons and public-relations points for Jorge Ramos, a supporter of Barack Obama. Oh, on Wednesday, August 26, 2015, a man named Vester Lee Flanagan II (whose on-air television name was Bryce Williams) used a gun to kill employees of WDBJ-TV, and he would later die; before that day, he had shown himself to be a rotten journalist--really a rotten man--through his actions in the television-news business. In 2012, Bryce Williams--while working as a television employee on the job--wore a Barack Obama campaign-endorsement button. No journalist while on the job should wear material that promotes a politician. [Remember--In October 2008, Karen Dinkins (a black gal), a reporter at WWJ Radio, Detroit, got fired by WWJ Radio for having worn an Obama T-shirt while on the job, as I noted in T.H.A.T. #55.] It must be noted that, in the past, Bryce Williams (a black gay man) made claims in court that his employer was discriminating against him, a court case that he lost. Bryce Williams--now a dead man--and Jorge Ramos are two examples of supporters of Barack Obama and bad "journalists." ["Jorge Ramos Discloses Daughter Works for Hillary Clinton's Presidential Campaign." Breitbart.com, 21 June 2015.; Allapundit. "Jorge Ramos: My 'right' to talk over other reporters and ask Trump grandstanding questions was trampled." Hotair.com, 26 August 215, 12:01 p.m.; Ashford, Ben. "EXCLUSIVE: 'He was the human tape recorder': How TV murderer was criticized by bosses for appalling journalistic standards and reprimanded for wearing an Obama badge to report on elections." Daily Mail, 26 August 015, 17:36 EST (updated: 27 August 2015, 08:21 EST).; CBS News and The Associated Press. "Gunman in deadly on-ar attack dies after manhunt." CBS News, 26 August 2015, 6:56 p.m. EDT.; Frizell, Sam, and Justin Worland. "Donald Trump and Univision's Jorge Ramos on Immigration." Time, 25 August 2015 (updated: 26 August 2015, 7:29 a.m. ET).; Hancett, Ian. "Levin: Ramos 'Racialist' 'Balkanizer', 'Pretend Journalist.'" Breitbart.com, 26 August 2015; Hoft, Jim. "Jorge Ramos: 'I've never ceased to Be Mexican and I vote in Elections in Both Countries." Gateway Pundit, 26 August 2015, 10:06 a.m.; Hoft, Jim. "STUNNER: Jorge Ramos's Daughter Works for Hillary Campaign--Supported Obama." Gateway Pundit, 26 August 2015, 8:37 a.m.; Olson, Kyle. "SURPRISE! Jorge Ramos's daughter works for Hillary campaign." The American Mirror, 26 August 2015; Ramos, Jorge. "The Nameless Many." Jorgeramos.com, 16 April 2012.; Saldana, Janet. "Jorge Ramos: Letter to Daughter Paola Will Melt Your Heart!" Latin Times, 26 May 2015, 01:32 p.m. EDT.;
I have an aside here. I have noted that Kacie Hellins is not good enough to be at Channel 7 in Detroit, a so-called big-market television station. If you want to see a young woman who is better than Kacie Hellins is, watch "7&4 News" (a television station of the Traverse City area of Michigan) on weekends when Courtney Curtis is on the air. I have caught Courtney Curtis anchoring newscasts on weekends, and her job has included giving sports news. Courtney Curtis does good job of talking while sports clips are being shown, unlike Kacie Hellins.
On Wednesday, August 12, 2015, I was at Rogers City, Michigan, and I stopped in at a store called Grulke Hardware, Inc. In the front window--on display--were some old things, such as an old radio, an old photographic camera, and other things. It was a special display that was going to be at the place for a few weeks. One of the items was an old television set, which was made by General Electric. I talked with Neil Grulke, the owner of the hardware store, and he told me who owned the television set, and since the set was not displayed with date material and such, I told him that the set was probably made in the late 1940s or early 1950s, and I told him that I would find out when the television set was probably made. A few hours later, I was looking for information about the television set, which had a model number of "12C109" (the "12" made me aware the picture screen was probably about 12 inches diagonally). I found several advertisements for the television set in old newspapers of 1950, hinting to me the "12C109" first showed up for sale in 1950, specifically in February 1950, and that made me think the set on display was most likely made in 1949 or 1950 (though it could have been made a little later but not long later, given television-set makers changed product very often in the early 1950s, based on changing technology). I emailed information about the television set to Neil Grulke that night. By the way, the television set, which is in a wood cabinet, has a12-and-a-half-inch picture screen (a "Black-Daylight" picture tube), 19 tubes (in the circuitry), and a 12-inch speaker. Around February 2, 1950, one store--Vertal Appliance Company (at 11 Front Street)--in Vertal, New York, was selling the television set for $314.95 (which would be $3118.63 in 2015 dollars) ["Never before anything like it!" The Vertal News, 2 February 1950, p. 3.]. Also that night, I sent an email to TVhistory.TV (Tom Genova), wondering if the place was still being run and would like a photograph of the television set that is on display, since TVhistory.TV did not have an image of the "12C109" television set on file. I learned TVhistory.TV is not a really active website--My email never reached a server for TVhistory.TV. I contacted the Early Television Foundation and Museum, which is located at Hilliard, Ohio, and Steve McVoy (the president of the entity) reported that this entity would like to have photographs of the "12C109" television set, and he noted that the main operator of TVhistory.TV (Tom Genova) was busy with his father (who is ill), so TVhistory.TV is sort an active website that is sort of on hiatus. The Early Television Foundation and Museum is open to visitors on Saturdays (from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.) and Sundays (from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.), and, for one, it has old television sets on display. I did more research on the "12C109" television set so see how much it cost originally. I found that, in February 1950, the big push to sell the television set began, especially in New York, where the set sold for such prices as $314.95 and $299.95. Around the same time, General Electric had three other "Black-Daylight" television sets for sale, and the highest-stature model was the "12C109" television set. The lowest-stature model was the "10T6", which cost about $175.75 and was a desktop model, and the two other sets were the "12T3" (which cost about $229.95) and the "12C107" (which cost about $279.95). It was advertised by General Electric that "Black-Daylight" television sets had a 140-percent better image quality over that of standard television sets (that is, the contrast between light and dark was better, especially in daylight-viewing conditions). Notice I use the term "Daylight" when talking about the four television sets. That was the term used in advertisements in newspapers. Later, in 1950, General Electric was using the term "Daylite" in advertisements for new television sets. For instance, in October 1950, General Electric was urging people to buy the new "16T5" model, and this set was called a "Black-Daylite" model. The "16T5" had a rectangular picture tube, unlike, for example the "12C-109", which had a round picture tube. It looks as if 1950 was the year that General Electric transitioned from round picture tubes to rectangular picture tubes. In October 1950, General Electric was announcing that the price for a "16T5", which was a table-top model, was $259.95 ["General Electric." The Philadelphia Inquirer, 24 October 1950, p. 24.].
For fun, I decided to see whether or not I could figure out what was the first television set that my mother and father had, which they got in the 1950s. The family had the television set in much of the 1950s, and it may have been in the house in the early 1960s. I did research, my tracking technique. I only had to search for photographs of old RCA Victor television sets that had a small screen and were table-top models (or desk-top models). I looked at images at TVhistory.TV of old television sets, and I looked at old advertisements in newspapers. Around 1949 or 1950, RCA Victor had such sets on the market as the Model T-100, which I have a photograph of while it it on a stand that looks like the stand that our family television had, the Model 9T246, and the Model 9T256, and one of those was probably the type of television set our family had. The three sets look closely the same, but the least likely possibility is the 9T256, because a photograph that I have of it hints that it was not. The best that I can say is that the first family television set was a 9T246 or a T-100, and I think it was the T-100, since the photograph that I have of the T-100 on a stand has a stand that looks like the one that our family had, and the photograph--a weak quality photograph--that I have of the 9T246 shows a different type of stand than that which was with our family television set.
Oh, "for the record," I note that I have a "tube checker" (a portable unit). Certainly from the 1940s to about the 1970s, "tube checkers" were regularly set up at stores where tubes could be bought around the country. Good luck finding a tube checker today.
From September 1974 to September 1982, Melissa Gilbert--as a girl--was one of the performers in the television series entitled Little House on the Prairie, and, later, she appeared in other television productions. Melissa Gilbert lives in Michigan, and since the days of Little House on the Prairie, Melissa Gilbert has grown up to be a highly rotten woman. In early August 2015, Melissa Gilbert announced that she was going to become a politician, announcing she was running to get the seat for the 8th District (Michigan) of the U.S. House of Representatives as a "Democrat." The "Democratic Party" is a political party focused on "enslavism" forms of government, such as communism, socialism (which is temporarily restrained communism), and Sharia. Yes, Melissa Gilbert grew up to be, for example, a communist, and when you see her on television, you should see a communist, a rotten person. One of her statements related to why she is running is---"...I believe building a new economy is a team effort, and we need to bring fresh voices to the table to get the job done....". That is bullshit! Governments do not build economies that work well for regular people. People--though actions that can take months and years and decades--build an economy, and at times, there are set backs, and government is one regular hindrance. So another jackass entertainer--following behind a number of others, such as the hard-line communist and former comedian from Saturday Night Live Al Franken--thinks it is time to get involve and push more communism! Yet another little American-citizen girl grew up to be shit! [Spangler, Todd. "Ta issue dogs actress in new bid for Congress." Detroit Free Press, 11 August 2015, pp. 1A and 3A.]
Announcement for the novice again (reworked in August 2015): To get useful television-delivered news or Internet-delivered news, go to Fox News Channel (which has to be treated as wishy-washy and suspect, showing signs of mostly supporting the Republician Party establishment, which is rotten), 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 (Note: 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 better places 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. [Note: The Republican Party establishment has shown itself to be socialistic and communistic within the last few years, and only a few of the rotten people are U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, U.S. Senator John McCain, U.S. Representative John Boehner, Jeb Bush, and Chris Christie.]
On July 30, 2015, a new subchannel network showed up in the Detroit area, and that subchannel network is MeTV, and it is on Channel 4.3 (which is related to WDIV-HD television in Detroit). Actually, programming on MeTV did not show up until July 31, 2015. The MeTV network has such old television series as Emergency!, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Peter Gunn, The Big Valley, Gunsmoke, Mr. Lucky, Batman, Gilligan's Island, Adventures of Superman, and Perry Mason, and it has many more old series.
Now, people in Detroit who are disgusted with cable networks and the big-name broadcast networks can tune in to such subchannel networks as Retro, MeTV, Antenna TV, this, Movies!, Grit TV, Get TV, Buzzr, Decades, Cozi TV, Escape, Laff, and Bounce.
On Saturday, August 15, 2015, around 9:30 a.m. (Detroit time), I happened to be tuned into the Retro television network (which exists on channel 14.2), and I saw an episode of The Ghost Busters. No, it was not the theatrical movie of 1984, and it was not the cartoon series of 1986, which was called Ghostbusters. The Ghost Busters was the forerunner to all the other stuff, and it was aired on CBS television (on Saturday morning) in the fall of 1975. The series--a live-action series recorded on videotape--featured Larry Storch as Spencer, Forrest Tucker as Kong, and Bob Burns as Tracy (the gorilla). The team of three ran a company called "Spenser, Tracy & Kong", and, in the episode that I saw, the guys battled a witch (played by Ann Morgan Guilbert), and another actor appearing in the program was Huntz Hall (of, in the past, the Dead End Kids movies, the East Side Kids movies, and Bowery Boys movies, and more). Hold it! Did you catch the a problem? I shall clear it up. The opening credits of the series had "Spencer" listed as the name of the character that was played by Larry Storch, and the lettering on the door to the office (out of which the guys worked) had "Spenser" listed. By the way, Larry Storch and Forrest Tucker were the main actors in the 1960s television series called F Troop, which, for example, is being run on MeTV. I also learned on Saturday, August 15, 2015, that Retro is airing the old stop-motion-animation series called The New Adventures of Pinocchio, which was in syndication originally around 1960. I saw it originally in the 1960s I believe on Channel 9 (CKLW-TV), Windsor, Ontario, Canada (the city is across the Detroit river from Detroit, Michigan, the United States of America) when I was a little boy. The series is made up of segments that run a few minutes, and five segments can be used to make up a half-hour block of programming--one complete story. Retro is using The News Adventures of Pinocchio to fill small gaps of time between programs.
So how is the "syndication" business doing in the United States of America today? I think I shall give a rough history of syndicating of television programs in the next edition of Television History and Trivia. I shall say here that the heyday is past.
On Wednesday, August 26, 2015, NBC-TV aired two episodes of a new sitcom in prime time called The Carmichael Show. I watched only the first episode shown, not wishing to then see any more episodes of the series after watching the first episode. The series features a black cast, headed by Jerrod Carmichael. The first episode came off as a political piece and not an entertainment piece (for the sake of entertainment). Basically, it opened with a long-segment that, ultimately, was used to promote Barack Obama as good; for instance, one character wore an Obama T-shirt. Because the show as designed to be a political-based piece, there was little that was actually funny for the sake of being funny--the audience laughter came off as fake and staged. In fact, the entire episode looked staged and unnatural since the performers were working to sell politics and not things that were actually funny, and it looked as if the performers were working--noticable working--to get through the scenes. Remember--NBC-TV is a communistic television network and it promotes communism.
Commentary: One of the few broadcast-network television shows that I watch regularly is Elementary, even though I am aware one of the main performers in the program--Lucy Liu--promotes rotten political ideas. On August 29, 2015, the Detroit Free Press made me aware through an article that Lucy Liu is a new mom [Graham, Janet. "Names+Faces: 'Lucy Liu new mom to a baby boy.'" Detroit Free Press, 29 August 2015, p. 3C.]. One section of the article was--"...The actress took to Instagram and Twitter Thursday to reveal that the 46-year-old is a new mom to Rockwell Lloyd Liu, 'brought into the world via gestational carrier.' He is her first child and a publicist said both 'are healthy and happy....". If the birth involved a "gestational carrier', why does Lucy Liu have any reason not to be 'healthy and happy"? Lucy Liu really did not do crap to bring the child into the world!
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: September 10, 2015The Hologlobe Press
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The United States of America
To see the next edition of T.H.A.T.,
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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.###