Here’s the schedule for NBC’s experimental station W2XBS in New York City for the week beginning Sunday, March 31st, 1940. I’ll be writing more about the very first televised collegiate debate, “Resolved, That the Dust Bowl Situation Requires That the United States Take Extraordinary Measures for its Improvement,” tomorrow. That’s some title.
The week included a lot of films, some sporting events and two television plays. Plus a parade!
Sunday, March 31st, 1940
3:30-4:40PM – Film, “Man in the Mirror.”
8:45-10:30PM – Finnish Relief Fund track meet, at Madison Square Garden.Wednesday, April 3rd, 1940
4:00-5:30PM – Baseball: Columbia University vs. C.C.N.Y., at Baker Field.
6:45-7:00PM – News, Lowell Thomas.
8:30-9:00PM – Debate: “Resolved, That the Dust Bowl Situation Requires That the United States Take Extraordinary Measures for its Improvement,” Columbia vs. Bucknell, at Radio City.
9:00-9:10PM – Spinning Wheel Singers.
9:10-9:30PM – Play, “A Marriage Proposal,” by Anton Chekhov.
9:30-9:40PM – Television Reporter.Thursday, April 4th, 1940
3:30-4:30PM – Films, “Circus Days”; “Washington Cherry Blossoms,” travelogue; “Sport of Fencing”; “Shakespeare,” travelogue; “Air for G String”; “Western Whoopee.”
6:45-7:00PM – News, Lowell Thomas.
8:30-8:50PM – Film, “March of Time.”
8:50-9:30PM – Minstrel show.Friday, April 5th, 1940
3:30-4:35PM – Films, “Stone Age Romance,” an Aesop fable cartoon; “Texas Gun Fighter.”
6:45-7:00PM – News, Lowell Thomas.
8:30-9:30PM – Comedy drama, “Ode to Liberty,” by Sidney Howard.Saturday, April 6th, 1940
2:15-4:00PM – Army Day parade on Fifth Avenue.
8:30-9:30PM – Film, “Our Daily Bread.”
Sources:
“Notes on Television.” New York Times. 31 Mar. 1940: 132.
W2XBS continues to “simulcast” Lowell Thomas’ nightly NBC radio news and commentary program (for Sunoco) at 6:45. “Our Daily Bread” was King Vidor’s 1934 film about “collective farming” during the Great Depression [starring Karen Morley and Tom Keene] that was independently produced and directed by Vidor, and released through United Artists {again, they were among the few Hollywood outlets that allowed W2XBS to telecast some of their older films on an “experimental” basis}.
“Stone Age Romance”(1929), shown on Friday, was among the Van Beuren cartoon studio’s “Aesop’s {Sound} Fables” that were produced between 1928 and ’33 [“Western Whoopee” (1930), seen the previous night, was another in the series]. By the time most of the Van Beuren cartoons were telecast in New York in 1940, the studio itself had been out of buisness for almost four years.