Tag: television

Calendar: April 30

A Year: Day to Day Men: 30th of April

The Mesh Pouch

April 30, 1952 was the date for the first advertisement of a toy on national television in the United States.

In the early 1940s, Brooklyn-born toy inventor George Lerner came up with the idea of inserting small, pronged body and face parts into fruits and vegetables to create a “funny face man”. Lerner would often take potatoes from his mother’s garden and, using various other fruits and vegetables as facial features, he would make dolls with which his younger sisters could play. The grape-eyed, carrot-nosed, potato-headed dolls became the principal idea behind the plastic toy which would later be manufactured.

In the beginning, Lerner’s toy proved controversial. With World War II and food rationing a recent memory for most Americans, the use of fruits and vegetables to make toys was considered irresponsible and wasteful. After several years of trying to sell the toy, Lerner finally convinced a food company to distribute the plastic parts as premiums in breakfast cereal boxes.

in 1951, Lerner showed the idea to Henry and Merrill Hassenfeld, who conducted a small school supply and toy business called Hassenfeld Brothers which later changed its name to Hasbro, Inc.. Realizing the toy was quite unlike anything in their line, they paid the cereal company to stop production and bought the rights. Lerner was offered an advance of $500 and a 5% royalty on every kit sold. The toy was dubbed “Mr. Potato Head” and went into production.

On April 30, 1952, Mr. Potato Head became the first toy advertised on television. The campaign was also the first to be aimed directly at children; before this, commercials were only targeted at adults, so toy adverts had always been pitched to parents. This commercial revolutionized the field of marketing, and caused an industrial boom. Over one million kits were sold in the first year.

In 1953, Mrs. Potato Head was added, and soon after, Brother Spud and Sister Yam completed the Potato Head family with accessories reflecting the affluence of the fifties that included a car, a boat trailer, a kitchen set, a stroller, and pets called Spud-ettes. Although originally produced as separate plastic parts to be stuck into a real potato or other vegetable, a plastic potato was added to the kit in 1964.

Calendar: March 25

Year: Day to Day Men: March 25

Brushstrokes of Light

The twenty-fifth of March in 1939 marks the birth date of Dorothy Catherine Fontana, an American novelist and television script writer and story editor. She is best known for her work on the original “Star Trek” series. 

Born in Sussex, New Jersey, Dorothy Catherine Fontana attended New Jersey’s Fairleigh Dickinson University where she graduated with an Associate Degree as an Executive Secretarial major. After graduation, Fontana relocated to New York City where she became junior secretary at the Screen Gems Studios office. She later relocated to Los Angeles where she gained employment at Revue Studios as secretary to Samuel A. Peeples, the  scriptwriter for the 1960 television Western “Overland Trail”. 

After the series was cancelled, Samuel Peeples and Fontana began work on the 1960 Western series “The Tall Man” for Revue Productions. Fontana wrote the story for episode six “A Bounty for Billy” and episode thirty-three “The Cloudbusters”. She worked with Peeples on “Frontier Circus” and, for producer Nat Holt, on “Shotgun Slade”. All of Fontana’s stories at this time were created under the name of Dorothy C. Fontana. 

In 1963, Dorothy Fontana saw an opportunity for a position on NBC’s new Marine Corps series “The Lieutenant”. She began working as a secretary for NBC producer Del Reisman who had previously edited for Rod Sterling’s “The Twilight Zone”. As one of only a few female writes at NBC, Fontana adopted the gender-blind pen name, D. C. Fontana, to prevent her stories from being prejudged. She became secretary for Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the Lieutenant series, who encouraged her writing. As the series came to an end in 1964, Fontana published her first novel “Brazos River” written in collaboration with Harry Sanford. 

In mid-1964, Gene Roddenberry began work on “Star Trek”. Encouraged by associate producer Robert H. Justman, Roddenberry assigned Fontana the task of writing the teleplay for an episode he called “The Day Charlie Became God”. She created the script for “Charlie X”, the second episode of the first season, for which she received credit for the teleplay. Fontana wrote episode nineteen of the first season, “Tomorrow is Yesterday”, that became the first “Star Trek” episode solely written by a woman. She also rewrote “This Side of Paradise”, the twenty-fourth episode in which flower spores induce Spock to fall in love. In September of 1966, Fontana was promoted to story editor by Roddenberry and the NBC network.

Dorothy Fontana worked on “Star Trek” through the entire second season as both story editor and rewriter. She was responsible for the ideas behind second season’s episodes “Journey to Babel” and “Friday’s Child”. Instrumental in the rewrite of the 1968 “The Ultimate Computer” episode, Fontana was one of four writers who made initial changes in Harlan Ellison’s “The City on the Edge of Forever”. The script was ultimately rewritten three more times by Roddenberry before it was aired. Fontana left the “Star Trek” team prior to the third season but wrote scripts for it on a freelance basis. Among these were the episodes “The Way to Eden”, “The Enterprise Incident” and “That Which Survives”.

During the 1970s, Fontana took on many roles: scriptwriter, story editor, and associate producer. She wrote the script for Roddenberry’s 1973 “Genesis II” and was both story editor and associate producer on “Star Trek: The Animated Series” which won the 1975 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children’s Series. Fontana worked briefly on the 1977 “Fantastic Journey” and wrote for several series including “The Six Million Dollar Man”, “The Waltons”, and “The Streets of San Francisco”. For the first season of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, she worked as both story editor and associate producer; however, her relationship with Roddenberry became strained so she left the series in May of 1988. 

Dorothy Fontana continued to work within the “Star Trek” universe. She wrote the 1989 “Vulcan’s Glory”, a “Star Trek: The Original Series” novel published by Pocket Books. Fontana wrote the “Dax” episode of “Star Trek; Deep Space Nine”, sharing a joint credit with Peter Allan Fields. For the show “Babylon 5”, she wrote “The War Prayer”  and “Legacies” episodes for the first season as well as “A Distant Star”, a second season episode that featured her character Neroon. Fontana also created scripts for Bethesda Softworks’s “Star Trek: Legacy” and “Star Trek: Tactical Assault” video games.

A board member of the Writers Guild of America and a twice-inducted member of the American Screenwriters Association Hall of Fame, Dorothy Catherine Fontana died of cancer at the Burbank Hospital in California on the second of December in 2019. 

Calendar: March 19

A Year: Day to Day Men: 19th of March

White Anchors on Black

March 19, 1928 was the birthdate of Patrick Joseph McGoohan, an American-born Irish actor, writer and director.

In 1959, ITC Entertainment production executive Lew Grade approached Patrick McGoohan about a television series in which he would play a spy named John Drake. Having learned from bad contract experiences in the past, McGoohan insisted on several conditions in the contract before agreeing to appear in the program: all the fistfights should be different, the character would always use his brain before using a gun, and, much to the horror of the executives, no kissing. The series debuted in 1960 as “Danger Man”, a half-hour program geared toward an American audience. Production lasted a year and 39 episodes.

Patrick McGoohan was one of several actors considered for the role of James Bond in the movie “Doctor No” and later for the James Bond role in “Live and Let Die”, but turned both of them down. After he had also turned down the role of Simon Templar in “The Saint”, Lew Grade asked him if he would like to give John Drake another try. The show was resurrected in 1964 as a one-hour program, now known by the name “Secret Agent”. The scripts now allowed McGoohan more range in his acting. The popularity of the series led to McGoohan becoming the highest-paid actor in the UK, and the show lasted almost three more years.

Knowing of McGoohan’s intentions of leaving “Secret Agent”, Grade asked if he would at least work on something for him. McGoohan gave him a run-down of what would later be called a miniseries, about a secret agent who resigns suddenly and wakes up to find himself in a prison disguised as a holiday resort. Grade asked for a budget, McGoohan had one ready, and they made a deal over a handshake early on a Saturday morning to produce “The Prisoner”. Apart from being the star of “The Prisoner” in his role as Number Six, McGoohan was the executive producer, forming Everyman Films with series producer David Tomblin, and also wrote and directed several episodes, in some cases using pseudonyms.

Patrick McGoohan appeared in many films and television series: “Ice Station Zebra” in 1968, “Silver Streak” in 1976, “The Man in the Iron Mask” in 1977, “Escape from Alcatraz” in 1979, and received two Emmy Awards for his performances on the show “Columbo”. His last film role was as the voice of Billy Bones in the animated film, “Treasure Planet”, released in 2002. That same year, he received the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award for his show “The Prisoner”.

Calendar: January 19

A Year: Day to Day Men: 19th of January

Parallel Fences

On January 19, 1955, the television program “The Millionaire” premieres on the CBS channel.

The Millionaire was an American anthology series that aired from 1955-1960 and  was sponsored by the Colgate-Palmolive Company. The series, produced by Fred Henry and Don Fedderson, explored the ways that sudden and unexpected wealth changed life, for better or for worse. The show became a five season hit during the “Golden Age of Television”. The series told stories of people who were given one million dollars from a benefactor who insisted that he remain anonymous.

The benefactor was named John Beresford Tipton, Jr. Viewers heard his voice, making observations and giving instructions; they saw only his arm as he reached for a cashier’s check for one million dollars each week and handed it to Michael Anthony, his executive secretary. It was Anthony’s job to deliver that check to its intended recipient.

Invariably, The Millionaire began with a very brief opening theme fanfare behind the ascending title frame, followed by the camera’s training directly upon Michael Anthony, played by veteran character actor and radio and
television announcer Marvin Miller. The unseen John Beresford Tipton was played by another veteran character actor and voice artist, Paul Frees.

The series ran for 206 episodes, and Tipton made 206 millionaires. The beneficiaries were not always poor but could be from any social class or occupation, from secretaries and construction workers to professionals like doctors and lawyers. Nor were they always likely to find their lives changed for the better because of their sudden wealth.

Travis Fimmel

Actor Travis Fimmel

Travis Fimmel is an Australian actor and former model. He is best known for his high-profile Calvin Klein campaign, for co-starring opposite Patrick Swayze in the TV series “The Beast” and for his role as Ragnar Lothbrok in the History Channel’s series “Vikings”.

Fimmel was signed as the lead character in the television series ‘Vikings’, co-starring Jessalyn Gilsig, Katheryn Winnick and Gabriel Byrne. Premiering in 2013, the show was filmed in Ireland over 18 weeks and chronicles “the extraordinary and ferocious world of the mighty Norsemen who raided, traded and explored during medieval times.” He plays Ragnar Lothbrok who is loosely based on Ragnar Loðbrók, the legendary Viking leader who is frustrated by the unadventurous tendencies of his local chieftain and strikes out to pillage new lands.

Fimmel will be starring in “Warcraft”, a live action adaptation based on the video games of the same name.