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Lucy Goes to the Candy Factory
Second-season premiere, “Job Switching” (airing September 14, 1952), in which Lucy and neighbor Ethel Mertz get jobs at a candy factory and fight a losing battle against a very fast conveyor belt of chocolate.
Photo Credit: CBS -
The Kennedy/Nixon Debate
If anyone should’ve known the political power of television, it was Nixon. Yet he didn’t fully grasp the importance of his mere appearance when he met rival John F. Kennedy on September 16, 1960, in the first televised presidential debate. Those who listened on the radio thought Nixon had won. But on television,
the poised, handsome, and well-rested Kennedy was the clear winner; Nixon looked nervous and sweaty.
Photo Credit: CBS -
Walter Cronkite Denounces the Vietnam War
He didn’t make a practice of voicing political opinion, but after the 1968 Tet offensive, Cronkite chose to speak out. At the conclusion of a February 27 special on Tet, Cronkite gave an editorial in which he stated, “I’m more certain that ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate.” President Lyndon B. Johnson reportedly turned off his set at the conclusion of the broadcast and said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.”
Photo Credit: CBS -
The Apollo 11 Moon Landing
John Glenn’s first orbit in 1962 was televised in its entirety, and when the crew of the Apollo 11 landed on the moon on July 20, 1969, the networks covered the event for 30 straight hours. On the CBS desk was Walter Cronkite, rubbing his hands with glee and able to say little more than “Oh, boy.” Cameras on board the Apollo 11 captured this highlight of human achievements — and beamed it to a spellbound world’s televisions.
Photo Credit: CBS -
Roots
The power of the medium to both educate and entertain has seldom been as well employed as in 1977, when Alex Haley’s book-length exploration of slavery and his own family tree was adapted into the 12-hour TV movie Roots. Aired over consecutive nights and giving birth to the “mini-series,” for ABC, which aired it in the week before “sweeps” to prevent their experiment from damaging ratings. Roots sparked a national debate on this less-inspiring portion of American history.
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M*A*S*H: “Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen”
t ran 135 minutes, considerably longer than not only an average
episode (30 minutes) but most feature films. It was appropriate, though, as “Goodbye” had the depth, nuance, and pathos of a very good movie; it dealt, as the show’s best episodes had, with the genuine psychological horrors of war, but with grace, wit, and emotion. And viewership was astonishing: the show was watched by 125 million viewers, with 77% of all sets tuned to CBS that night.
Photo Credit: CBS -
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” commanded Ronald Reagan in June of 1987, and two years later, the job was done. Gorbachev’s radical notions of perestroika and glasnost changed thinking in the Eastern Bloc, and in 1989, after months of protests, the East German government unexpectedly opened up the lines of free travel between East and West Germany.
Photo Credit: CBS -
Johnny Carson’s Final Tonight Show
At the end of the hour, in a lovely farewell that he wrote
himself, Carson told his audience, “It has been an honor and a privilege to come into your homes all theseyears and entertain you. And I hope when I find something I want to do and I think you will like, you’ll be as gracious in inviting me to your home as you have been. I bid you a very heartfelt good night.”
Photo Credit: CBS -
The September 11th Attacks
Initial word was that it was a small passenger plane, but it was soon revealed as a commercial airliner, and when another smashed into the second tower, it was clear that a coordinated attack was underway. That, the attack on the Pentagon, and the crumbling of each tower all happened on live television, with not only cable news channels but broadcast networks going to continuous coverage and viewers across the nation riveted to their televisions for hours, days, and weeks.
Photo Credit: NBC
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Hurricane Katrina
As New Orleans’ levees broke, thousands of residents pleaded for help from news cameras, and reporters on the ground relayed stories of heartbreak and fear from the streets, the roofs, and the New Orleans Superdome — sometimes telling those stories to politicians on their air. In the frustrations of those reporters, Katrina became another story where mere “objectivity” wouldn’t do; the story was a shared experience, and an infuriating one.
Photo Credit: NBC
