T.V. Trivia - Triple Play!

TV DINNERS

Tricks of the trade from commercial food stylists

  * Brown shoe polish is painted onto steaks and burgers to make them look like they’re perfectly cooked.

  * Hair spray prevents lettuce and vegetables from wilting.

  * Spray deodorant is how stylists get the look of tiny, frosty ice crystals on the outside of an ice cream container. It also makes delicate fruits—particularly grapes—shine.

Beginning in 1965, NBC was the first network to have a nightly news broadcast seven days a week.

CATCHPHRASES

“Good night, and good luck.”

Tricks of the trade from commercial food stylists

Possibly the most famous sign-off in TV history, this phrase was coined by 1950s CBS News personality Edward R. Murrow. He got his start on radio during World War II, broadcasting from the rooftops of London buildings during the German blitz. Murrow used the line in an earnest attempt to reach out to the audience and provide comfort. He kept the line after the war and when he moved to TV.

Lyle Waggoner was fired from The Carol Burnett Show for posing nude in Playgirl magazine.

TAKING A SPIN (OFF)

Writer/actor Jack Webb created the cop show Dragnet in the 1950s and revived it in the late 1960s. The new show then spun off another police drama called Adam-12, which in turn begat Emergency!, about a pair of paramedics/firefighters. And a 1975 episode of Emergency! served as a pilot for yet another Dragnet-derived show. 905-Wild, as it was to be titled (based on police code for “wild animal, loose and threatening”), followed a Los Angeles animal control worker (portrayed by Mark Harmon). Most of the pilot episode showed Harmon fighting off a tiger in a grocery store and saving dogs caught in a brush fire. Apparently, the Dragnet magic didn’t transfer to the animal kingdom—NBC passed on 905-Wild.

The first experimental 3-D TV broadcast took place on April 29, 1953.

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