• Early Tv Shows 1940s 1950s

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / OBSCURE 1960s CLASSIC TV CHRISTMAS EPISODES by Billy Ingram Here's a sentimental episode of Lassie - 'The Christmas Tree - that aired on Christmas Day in 1960. This is one of the more memorable of the second Lassie run (1957-1964) when the collie was living on a farm with his pal Timmie and his family. The crew of McHale's Navy were enlisted to save the holiday in 'The Day They Captured Santa', airing December 27, 1962. IMDB: 'Santa' McHale must practice some psychological warfare, when he, the crew, Binghamton, and a war correspondent are captured by a Japanese patrol, while on a mission to bring some Christmas joy to the children of a nearby orphanage. Bob Hope was a TV staple at Christmastime, here's his first color Christmas special from 1965 featuring Janet Leigh, Nancy Wilson, Bing Crosby and Jack Benny: It's Rat Pack Christmas! The Dean Martin Show devoted the December 21, 1967 to a musical comedy celebration of the Yuletide spirit with special guest Frank Sinatra - and his kids.

Early Tv Shows 1940s 1950s

Also seen are Dean's offspring and wife. Julia was the first television sitcom to portray a working black mother in a realistic and dignified manner. The series ran 3 seasons, here's the holiday episode entitled 'I'm Dreaming of a Black Christmas' from 1968. My World and Welcome To It was a highly acclaimed sitcom based loosely on the works of James Thurber.

This show was a flop with the at-home audience, lasting only one term despite some of the best scripts of the 1969-70 season. The Ghost & Mrs.

Muir was another short run sitcom (1968-1970) that starred Hope Lange, Edward Mulhare, Reta Shaw and Charles Nelson Reilly. This Christmas half-hour came during the second season when the production moved from NBC to ABC and the show took a more juvenile tone - with Capt. Cregg (mostly) losing his ghostly powers and becoming more sitcom dad-like. The colors were more saturated during year 2 as well.

Credit: © Frank Martin/ Getty Images Like radio before it, the spread of TV had a huge cultural impact. Beginning with the 1948 campaign, it made itself felt in U.S.

One wonderful effect was that it made speeches shorter. Politicians and commentators alike began to think and speak in “sound bites” that fit the medium.

By 1960, the televised debates between candidates Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy were considered a crucial element in Kennedy’s narrow victory.

TV also helped make professional and college sports big businesses, and sometimes provided excellent comedy and dramatic shows to vast audiences that might not otherwise have had access to them. But even to its mildest critics, much of what was on the often-aptly nicknamed “boob tube” was mindless junk. It was designed to sell products, it homogenized cultural tastes to the point of blandness, and it created feelings of inadequacy in some, who felt their real lives should compare with the insipidly happy characters they saw on shows like Leave It to Beaver. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Newton Minnow called it “a vast wasteland.” Nonetheless, it was a popular wasteland. Comedian Milton Berle’s show was so loved, for example, that movie theaters in some towns closed down Tuesday nights because everyone was home watching “Uncle Miltie.” And in 1954, the Toledo, Ohio water commissioner reported that water consumption surged at certain times because so many people were simultaneously using their toilets during commercial breaks on the most popular shows.