Today in 1925, RCA took over the 25-station AT&T network plus WEAF radio in New York, making today the birthday of the NBC radio network:
Today in 1965, the Rolling Stones made their U.S. TV debut on ABC’s “Hullabaloo”:
Today in 1966, the Doors agreed to release “Break on Through” as their first single, removing the word “high” to get radio airplay:
The number one single today in 1980:
Column A:
Column B:
If you think about it, however you feel about the results Tuesday, column A represents no real change. Flipping the state Senate from Democratic to Republican control does represent change.
What does this say?
The number one single today in 1960:
The number one British single today in 1981:
The number one British album today in 1981 was “Queen Greatest Hits”:
Ken Gardner from Facebook:
1. We must continue to oppose bad policy while offering conservative, free market, individual liberty solutions and a better vision. Obama has no mandate. We don’t have to act as if he does. …
4. As conservatives, we need to be discussing and debating ideas, not who is or isn’t “the establishment” or a “true” conservative.
5. As conservatives and GOPers, we need to be doing MUCH better with Hispanic voters. If we don’t, Darwinian selection will take over and we will become extinct. We have lost CA and NM, CO and NV are slipping away, FLA may be slipping away, AZ will soon be slipping away, and even TX might someday start slipping away (although not anytime soon). …
7. This one is going to upset the most of you, but I have to say it: the GOP needs to cut a grand bargain on the immigration issue and do it fast. Dems are using it to HAMMER GOPers and win Hispanic votes. We aren’t going to deport 12 million people back to Mexico. That’s a pipe dream. Even talking about it is political suicide for the GOP. Meanwhile, millions of Hispanics fear and distrust the GOP because of this issue — many of who would be far less Democratic but for this issue. I don’t care what you call it, we need to get the millions of people who are here illegal on a path to legal residence or citizenship or whatever you want to call it. We need to stop being the nail to the Dems’ hammer on this issue. If we don’t, see Paragraph 5 above.
8. Likewise, this one may upset some of you: the GOP needs to stop relying on the evangelical vote. It has been a declining force in American politics since 2004. It failed to come through for McCain or Romney in key battleground states such as FLA, OH, VA, even NC. America is becoming a more secular country and the GOP must incorporate that fact into its politics, especially at the national level.
9. The GOP needs to return to the ORIGINAL principles of the 2009 tea party movement, before it was hijacked by social conservatives and other movement conservatives: limited government at all levels, personal and fiscal responsibility, returning the federal government to its original constitutionally limited powers and responsibilities, free market principles. More Atlas Shrugged than the Bible.
The number one album today in 1965 received no radio airplay:
The number one British single today in 1968 was based on, but didn’t directly come from, a movie:
I am eager to see how the Nov. 6 winners are going to deal with what Megan McArdle identifies:
… I’m not sure how enduring this “Emerging Democratic Majority” will prove to be. Some reasons for my skepticism …
2. Ethnic coalitions are inherently unstable. It used to be a sort of natural law that urban Catholics voted Democratic. Then Reagan won them in huge numbers. And–contra those who are saying that the GOP now has to move left–they didn’t win by getting more liberal. Rather, the Democrats got more liberal, on crime and bussing, and the white ethnics who felt victimized by these policies fled. The more ethnic groups you have, the more likely it is that you will eventually find the goals of those ethnic groups in direct conflict. And the Democrats sure do have a lot of groups.
3. We are heading for a showdown between public sector unions and taxpayers. That’s going to put Democrats in a very tough spot. Those unions are the backbone of the Democratic political operation. But their pensions are, in many places, simply not payable. Thanks in part to the late 1990s stock market boom, and in part to really scandalously bad accounting standards, politicians made a lot of promises they didn’t pay for. Those promises now can’t be shed in bankruptcy, and all of the possible deals–which including hiking taxes to “tax revolt” levels, or shafting all the younger public sector workers–are bad for Democrats.
4. We’re heading for a showdown between the recipients of old-age benefits, and recipients of all the other kinds of benefits. Even after we hike taxes, something has to be cut. I’m betting on the oldsters to win this fight. They’re motivated, and they have a lot of time on their hands. And their middle-aged, middle class children will also freak out if you cut their benefits. They will not be nearly as upset if you slash Head Start. But those kinds of decisions are going to set off a sort of Hobbesian war of all-against-all within the Democratic coalition. And the aging of our population is an even more dramatic shift than its increasingly tan hue.
5. On social issues, Democrats are badly positioned for the future. Hold your fire–I mean politically, not morally. Gay marriage is going away as an issue, because the advocates have won. (And in the legislature, not in the courts, as they should). Not all the dominos have fallen yet, but they’re lined up the right way; it’s just a matter of time. Young evangelicals either don’t get energized about the issue, or are actively pro. The GOP knows they’re eventually going to moderate, which is why you see these fumbling, ham-fisted attempts to reach out to GOProud and the Log Cabin Republicans. On the other hand, they aren’t reaching out to Republicans for Choice, and for good reason. Evangelicals care just as much about abortion as ever, and the national trends are running towards more support for abortion restrictions, and greater identification as “Pro-Life”. Sonograms are undermining the Democratic position. So are demographics: the only group that majority-identifies as “Pro Choice” is women of childbearing age. Meanwhile, our fastest-growing demographic is retirees.
Today in 1968, Britain’s W.T. Smiths refused to carry the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Electric Ladyland” …
… with its original album cover …
… although a different cover was OK:
The number one single today in 1983:
Besides the end of the War to End All Wars (which didn’t end all wars but led directly to the next war) and the day Americans remember and honor those whose service and sacrifice allow me to freely write this and you to freely read this, what else happened Nov. 11?
Today in 1954, Bill Haley got his first top 10 single, “Shake Rattle and Roll,” originally a Joe Turner song. Haley had changed the name of his band, the cowboy-motif Saddlemen, to His Comets.
Imagine what the Transportation Security Administration would have done with this: Today in 1969, the FBI arrested Jim Morrison for drunk and disorderly conduct on an airplane. Morrison and actor Tom Baker had been drinking and harassing stewardesses on a flight to Phoenix. Morrison and Baker spent a night in jail and were released on $2,500 bail.
Today in 1972, an era when pretty much everything would go in rock music, listeners got to hear the first example of what might be called “yodel rock”:
The number one single today in 1958:
The number one single today in 1975 …
… the day of this event commemorated in music:
The number one British album today in 1979 was Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk”:
What do these things have in common?
The first is from “Hawk,” a 1966–67 ABC-TV series about a New York City police detective, played by Burt Reynolds. “Hawk” was replayed in the summer of 1976 on NBC, in order to capitalize on Reynolds’ popularity, and because, well, NBC had nothing better to show at the time.
The second is from “NYPD,” a 1967–69 ABC series about a group of New York City police detectives. I remember seeing “Hawk” on NBC, and years later in syndication. I have never seen “NYPD,” one of TV’s last half-hour dramas, anywhere except YouTube.
From those two series lies a tale from the Classic TV History blog about how Hollywood operated in the 1960s. Long story short: “Hawk” lasted only one season for various reasons, even though …
Hawk was a cop show that debuted on ABC on September 8, 1966. It had a simple premise. John Hawk (Burt Reynolds) was a tough young plainclothes detective who caught killers, thieves, and other felons. There were two gimmicks. One, Hawk was a full-blooded Native American. Two, he worked the night shift. Hawk never saw daylight, and neither did the viewer.
Let’s look again at the credits of the Hawk pilot, which was titled “Do Not Spindle or Mutilate.” Hubbell Robinson was one of television’s most respected independent producers, a former CBS executive whose championing of Playhouse 90 (which he created) and other quality television had damned him as, perhaps, too cerebral for the mainstream. The writer was Allan Sloane, a recent Emmy nominee for an episode of Breaking Point. Sam Wanamaker, who had spent his years on the blacklist as a distinguished Shakespearean actor in England, directed. Kenyon Hopkins, composer of East Side / West Side’s brilliant, Emmy-nominated jazz score, wrote the music, and The Monkees impresario Don Kirshner is in there as a “music consultant,” whatever that means. Oh, and the guest villain, the guy who bundles up a bomb in a brown paper wrapper before the opening titles? Gene Hackman.
And what about that missing name? He had some Emmys on his shelf, too. The producer of “Do Not Spindle or Mutilate,” the one who’s not mentioned in any reference books or internet sites, was Bob Markell, fresh off a stint producing all four seasons of The Defenders. The Defenders won multiple Emmy Awards every year it was on the air, including the statue for Best Drama (which Markell took home) during the first two seasons. Hawk was only Markell’s second job following The Defenders. So why was his name expunged?
“There are a lot of well-kept secrets about me,” said Markell in an interview last month.
The story is interesting, particularly because of what replaced “Hawk”:
Markell’s highlight reel sold the stripped-down N.Y.P.D. pilot to the network. Superficially, the new show was similar to Hawk. Both spilled out into the streets of Manhattan, updating the grimy, teeming urban imagery of Naked City and East Side / West Side with a burst of color. But Hawk courted a film noir sensibility – John Hawk was the lone wolf, hunting at night – and N.Y.P.D. was about the institution, the process. It followed three detectives of varying seniority as they plowed methodically through the drudgery of police work: legwork, surveillance, interrogation. …
Hawk ran on Thursdays at 10 PM, N.Y.P.D. on Tuesdays at 9:30. But it seems likely that ABC had only one “slot” for a stylish Manhattan police drama on its schedule, and that N.Y.P.D.’s pickup had been contingent upon Hawk’s cancellation. And the network probably told Markell as much.
What do all these series have in common? For one thing, they look and sound (as in their soundtracks) great from the beginning:
They all had a gritty view of New York before New York’s nadir in the 1970s and 1980s. (Did art imitate life, or did art precede life?) They were all in the Television Code days, before words you couldn’t then but can now say on TV, before things (and body parts) you couldn’t show then but can now show on TV.
It’s not as if we can go back, but one wonders why TV producers can’t combine the best of both worlds today.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 