The Daily Worker
In 1924 the Communist Party USA began publishing the Daily Worker newspaper in in New York City. At its peak, the newspaper achieved a circulation of 35,000. Contributors to its pages included: Robert Minor and Fred...
First Commercial Videotape Recorder
https://youtu.be/f0e03ScjnO4 A video tape recorder (VTR) is designed to record and play back video and audio material from magnetic tape. In 1956, Ampex Corporation introduced the first practical videotape recorder for television...
Dear Abby Advice Column
Dear Abby: Which is better? To go to a school dance with a creep or to sit home? - All Shook Up Dear Shook: Go with the creep and look over the crop. https://youtu.be/akk_67S3DUk The first Dear Abby column appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle In January 1956. The...
Popular Television Show Premieres
https://youtu.be/_teSvw34ZlY In 1955 the Mickey Mouse Club premiered on ABC. https://youtu.be/FcEbkM5Z3yA In 1955 Gunsmoke premiered on CBS https://youtu.be/XQ6OdQyYeKA In 1955 Johnny Carson Show premiered on CBS https://youtu.be/sJkmcf4gJ48 In 1955 The Lawrence Welk...
Popular TV Programs
Popular TV shows 1954 https://youtu.be/NkQ58I53mjk https://youtu.be/ojkTUIelOWI https://youtu.be/VjA4-wSjPWg https://youtu.be/2ylvWg6AV7g Top-rated primetime television series of the 1954–55 season as measured by Nielsen Media Research.[1]...
Vintage Commercials
With a shift in government spending at the end of the Korean War, the American GDP dropped by 2.2% and unemployment peaked at ~6%. Although the U.S. Federal Reserve tightened monetary policy to curb inflation, spiking interest rates decreased consumer demand. The...
The Guiding Light
https://youtu.be/egI5QDtHhC0 The Guiding Light was broadcast on NBC, then CBS radio from 1937-1956 and on CBS TV from 1952-2009. The original NBC radio series (broadcast in 15-minute episodes) was based on the personal experiences of writers Emmons Carlson and Irna...
Roy Rogers Show
The Roy Rogers Show was broadcast on NBC from December 1951 to June 1957. Before changing his name, Rogers used his given name Leonard Franklin Slye to co-found the Sons of the Pioneers. https://youtu.be/s3FclAQDCxU IMDb Set in the fictional town...
Amahl and the Night Visitors
https://youtu.be/VUKvrNeNgk8 Amahl and the Night Visitors was a one-act production by Gian Carlo Menotti that was the first opera specifically composed for television in America. The story: One night in Judea, a disabled shepherd...
Jet Magazine
Founded in 1951, the weekly magazine Jet focused on news, culture, and entertainment related to the African–American community. Jet chronicled the Civil Rights Movement including the murder of Emmett Till, the Montgomery bus boycott, and the...
Bob and Ray
Wikipedia Bob and Ray was the name of a popular American radio comedy show with Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding whose career spanned five decades. The duo typically satirized radio and television interviews, with deadpan,...
Radio Moscow
https://youtu.be/cznCttle760 Radio Moscow's interval signal. Radio Moscow (Pадио Москва) was the official international broadcasting station of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics until 1993. After the fall of the Soviet Union It was...
Armed Forces Radio Service
After WWII, the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) employed mobile radio vans and commandeered Japanese stations on the mainland, Korea, the Marianas, and the Ryukyus. After the Korean War broke out, broadcasts to Korea from Japan were transmitted from the Far...
Dragnet – Danger Ahead
Dun Da dun dun ~ Walter Schumann's ominous, four-note introduction to the TV show Dragnet was recognized by most Americans in the 1950s to signify "danger ahead." Dragnet was an American television series, based on the radio series of the same name, both created...
Ernie Kovacs Popular TV Comedian
https://youtu.be/U2AWAZ0gojY Ernest Edward Kovacs (1919 – 1962, was a popular American TV comedian, actor, and writer. Often spontaneous, his zany comedy style influenced numerous TV comedy programs for years after his death. Frequently his slapstick humor...
Victor Borge Danish Pianist & Comedian
Victor Borge (born Børge Rosenbaum) was a Danish conductor and pianist whose comic renditions of piano concerts were widely popular in the United States and Europe. Born to two concert musicians, Rosenbaum was a child prodigy pianist. After classical...
Color TV
https://youtu.be/O5tf6SQjFlQ In 1950 the Federal Communications Commission issued the first license for color TV broadcasting, to CBS. Although the field-sequential color system developed by Dr. Peter Goldmark was the first color television system to be...
George Burns and Gracie Allen
https://youtu.be/H_KNViwQScw The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show was a popular half-hour CBS television series broadcast from 1950 to 1958. Burns and Allen, vaudevillians in the 1920s, and radio stars in the 1930-40s, received Emmy Award nominations for...
Tom Corbett Space Cadet
Developed by the writer Joseph Greene, and inspired by the Robert A. Heinlein's 1948 novel Space Cadet, the TV series Tom Corbett Space Cadet first appeared on CBS TV in 1950. The series followed Corbett and other cadets at the Space Academy as they trained...
The Martian Chronicles
The Martian Chronicles was published in 1950 by Ray Bradbury as a series of 27 connected short stories about humans fleeing a devastated earth to colonize Mars where they conflict with aboriginal Martians. In 1980 NBC produced the book as a television miniseries...
Zoo Parade
https://youtu.be/IwDnUeCh35M 1950 Philadelphia Zoo TV commercial Zoo Parade, a popular Sunday afternoon TV show on NBC from 1950-57 was hosted by Zoo director Marlin Perkins. ~ The show was actually shot at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo (I couldn't find a short video)....
McMinnville UFO
McMinnvile Oregon UFO - Wikipedia In May 1950 photographs of UFOs taken on a farm near McMinnville, Oregon were published in Life magazine and nationwide newspapers. Although some skeptics believe UFOs are a hoax, many ufologists argue that the photos are...
Beat the Clock
https://youtu.be/H0cBnWgZOKg First televised by CBS in 1950, Beat the Clock was an American television game show that required its contestants to accomplish various stunts within 60 seconds. Contestants were chosen from the studio audience and usually were...
Color TV
https://youtu.be/e7hpZbGd2Uw In 1950, the first public demonstration of the RCA system for color television, the all electronic tri-color picture tube, was made at a press conference in Washington, DC. The RCA system was eventually accepted by the...
Radio Free Europe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pQh2PjdziQ&t=65s Headquartered in Munich Germany, Radio Free Europe was founded as an anti-communist propaganda platform in 1949 by the National Committee for a Free Europe (a CIA front organization). Although...