Throughout December, I’ll be re-posting features on some holiday TV favourites. Today’s salute is to A Charlie Brown Christmas, which first aired in December of 1965. The following post first ran four years ago, on the 50th anniversary of the special. Good grief! Has it really been 50 years since I first watched, along with
I was seven-years-old when Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer first landed on television. The time was December of 1964. The Beatles had broken big on Ed Sullivan that year and men were circling the Earth. The Toronto Maple Leafs were closing in on their third-straight Stanley Cup win. After 97 years as a nation, Canada was
Today’s post is brought to you by the letter S — as in Sunday will make the 50th anniversary of the premiere of Sesame Street. The groundbreaking series is produced by Sesame Workshop (formerly known as the Children’s Television Workshop) and funded by the U.S. Office of Education, the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation.
Snuff out the Tiki torch and toss away the Doritos. Rudy Boesch has left the island. The grizzled Navy SEAL veteran and inaugural Survivor contestant passed away Nov. 1 at 91. Boesch and the 15 other Survivor originals were a sensation when the reality show premiered in the summer of 2000. I was in my
In the summer of 2003 I joined several dozen TV critics at a party at Robert Evans house. It wasn’t like I knew the notorious Hollywood producer, who died Saturday in Beverly Hills at the age of 89. I just happened to be among those shuttled from the Television Critics Association’s hotel that July to
It’s not an overstatement to say that the most influential sitcom in the history of television premiered 68 years ago today — I Love Lucy. Lucille Ball, a one time RKO chorus girl who stood out in a string of feature film dramas and comedies in the late ’30s and ’40s, became TV’s biggest star
I referenced the passing of Rip Taylor this morning on The Humble & Fred Radio show. Taylor being a much bigger deal in the ’70s, “Humble” Howard Glassman suggested I explain exactly who Taylor was. So here goes. Before Donald Trump, there was Rip Taylor. Trump stole Taylor’s act, right down to all the shouting
I don’t recall Julia as being a remarkable show back when it first premiered in 1968. What did I know; I was 11, growing up in Etobicoke, Ontario. This was not a show about a witch, or being lost in space, or a superhero crime fighter such as Batman. It was about a nurse, a