Due to a personal matter I won't be updating the site this week. I hope to resume daily updates on Monday, February 1st. Thank you for your understanding. While I'm away, why not take the time to read some articles you might not have gotten around to yet? Here are a few suggestions:

This sitcom, based on a radio show of the same name, aired for thirteen episodes during the summer of 1956 on CBS. Larry Blyden and Nita Talbot starred. But there’s more to this show than just a short run. It was supposed to premiere in September of 1955 but was pulled at the last minute. A half-dozen completed episodes were thrown out and a new producer was brought in. It almost got on the air in January of 1956 and again in March of 1956. But it wasn’t until June of 1956 that it finally made the CBS schedule. Mike Wallace, after spending years working in radio and television, began an interview series call The Mike Wallace Interview in April of 1957 on ABC. Controversial nearly from the start, it drew lawsuits, network retractions, charges of censorship and more, all in the span of 15 months. One broadcast was cancelled at the last minute by the network. Wallace was direct and occasionally confrontational and there were those who wouldn’t even consider appearing on his show, fearful of what he would ask. That didn’t keep him from interviewing senators, authors, actresses, politicians and a Klansman. CBS planned to broadcast Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film Psycho in September of 1966. Following the tragic murder of Valerie Jeanne Percy just days before the movie was set to air, the network postponed the broadcast due to concerned Midwestern affiliates. Although the network insisted it would eventually show the movie, which it had already edited for content, it never did. Prior to September 4th, 1951 (when President Truman opened the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco) television in the United States wasn’t truly a national medium. There was no way for viewers on both coasts to watch the same program at the same time. Network broadcasting was originally confined to the East Coast before expanding to the Midwest and, finally, coast-to-coast. This article focuses on the various NBC and DuMont networks of the 1940s and the East-Midwest connection that took place on January 11th, 1949. On July 1st, 1941, commercial television broadcasting officially began. In New York City, three stations (representing CBS, NBC and DuMont) were on the air. Only NBC had a commercial license but it was CBS that offered the programs on a weekly basis while DuMont primarily broadcast tests. Read about some of television’s earliest shows, including Thrills & Chills Everywhere, Men at Work, Fashion Discoveries in Television and more. Mystery writer Patricia McGerr created the character of Selena Mead in October of 1963 in the pages of This Week magazine, a newspaper supplement. Short stories starring the lovely lady spy were published in This Week throughout 1963 and into 1964. In November of 1964, CBS announced it was turning McGerr’s short stories into a television series starring Polly Bergen as Selena. The half-hour series was scheduled and then pulled when James Aubrey was replaced as president of CBS. Producer William Dozier struck gold for ABC with Batman in January of 1966 and hoped to repeat his success with The Green Hornet during the 1966-1967 season. During the summer of 1966, Dozier began work on another potential series, this one based on Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy comic strip. A pilot film was produced and NBC considered picking up the series as a mid-season replacement during the 1966-1967 season and then later as a fall entry for the 1967-1968 season. But the failure of The Green Hornet and declining ratings for Batman kept Dick Tracy from selling.

You can already read an entire 1948 issue of Television Forecast and now you can look through an entire 1949 issue of this early television guide in my latest exhibit: Full Issue of 1949 Television Forecast. I've scanned the entire August 20th, 1949 issue. Here's the cover:

If you have any comments, please add them to the main exhibit page.