TV In The 1960s
Lawrence Welk Played Champagne Music On TV For 31 Years
March 11, 2021
You could depend on the Lawrence Welk Show for 31 years -- like it or not. Lawrence Welk was a bandleader and host who delivered incredibly square entertainment...
The Batman TV Wannabes Of '67: Mr. Terrific Vs. Captain...
January 10, 2021
You remember Adam West's Batman from 1966, but what about Mr. Terrific and Captain Nice from 1967? These two superhero series, both launched on the same day,...
Rudolph And The Rankin-Bass Holiday Empire: Facts And T...
December 6, 2020
Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer and other Rankin/Bass TV specials, including Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town and The Year Without A Santa Claus, are holiday sho...
1968: The 'Heidi Bowl' Pre-Empts Namath And The New Yor...
November 17, 2020
Heidi (Jennifer Edwards) bumped Joe Namath and his Jets off the air. Sources: Amazon.com; Photo by Bill Young/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images The New...
Why Star Trek? Kirk, Spock, Bones, Uhura & Sulu's Endle...
September 8, 2020
Whether you're a Trekkie, Trekker, or just along for the ride with the crew of the USS Enterprise, Gene Roddenberry's vision of a harmonious future has made ...
Yvonne De Carlo: Lily Munster Was A Movie Star Before T...
September 1, 2020
Left: Yvonne De Carlo as Lily Munster in 'The Munsters.' Right: De Carlo in 'Slave Girl.' Sources: IMDB; Donaldson Collection/Getty Images. Yvonne De Carlo wa...
Dark Shadows: Facts About The Soap Opera That Dared To ...
June 27, 2020
Jonathan Frid and Grayson Hall of 'Dark Shadows,' November 27, 1968. (Photo by Walt Disney Television via Getty Images Photo Archives/Walt Disney Television via...
Yvonne Craig (TV's Batgirl): Young, Awesome, And Everyw...
October 9, 2019
Yvonne Craig as Barbara Gordon and Batgirl on 'Batman,' 1967. Photo by Walt Disney Television via Getty Images Photo Archives/Walt Disney Television via Getty I...
One Guy Did The Laugh Track On All Of Your Favorite Sho...
September 28, 2019
You have one man to thank, or curse, for the laugh track you hear on old TV sitcoms: Charles "Charley" Douglass, a CBS sound engineer and keeper of the "Laff...
How '60s And '70s TV And Movies Made Us Scared Of Quick...
August 31, 2019
Why were we afraid of quicksand? On TV shows and in movies of the '60s and '70s, quicksand was a go-to plot twist that could be inserted virtually anywhere f...
Mr. Rogers, 'Neighborhood' Hero: Facts And True Stories
August 7, 2019
Fred Rogers, whose Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was a children's TV institution, became not just a popular TV host for kids but also a folk hero of sorts to thos...
Galaxy Conquests: Captain Kirk's 10 Hottest Star Trek G...
August 4, 2019
Space ladies: the final frontier.Star Trek's Captain James T. Kirk, played by William Shatner, was a cosmic Casanova. Every week on the show that brought us ...
1955 Lincoln Futura: The '66 Batmobile's Secret Identit...
August 1, 2019
Left: Adam West as Batman in the Batmobile, 1966. Right: The 1955 Lincoln Futura on display in a publicity photo. Sources: Walt Disney Television via Getty Imag...
Mr. Wizard, TV's Original Science Guy: Highly Experimen...
July 3, 2019
For decades, Don Herbert, better known as Mr. Wizard, wowed American youngsters with science. Watch Mr. Wizard's demonstrations of chemistry and physics, oft...
Vampira, Ghoulardi, Dr. Shock: 20 Classic Creeps Of Reg...
May 17, 2019
Left: Finnish-born actor and television host Vampira, a.k.a. Maila Nurmi, circa 1956. Source: Hulton Archive/Getty Images. Right: Dr. Shock and Bubbles on the c...
How 'Sea Hunt' Star Lloyd Bridges Got Funny In 'Airplan...
March 2, 2019
A generation got to know Lloyd Bridges from Airplane!, the 1980 comedy film in which he played Steve McCroskey. But the generation before that already knew h...
This Man Was Jeopardy’s First Host. Who Was Art Fleming...
January 15, 2019
Left: Art Fleming in a 'Jeopardy!' publicity photo. Right: Fleming in a cameo appearance in 'Airplane II: The Sequel' (1982). Sources: (NBC/NBCU Photo Bank vi...
Batman's Adam West, And The Sexy Love Life We Never Kne...
January 8, 2019
Left: American actor Adam West, 1967. Source: (Photo by Harry Dempster/Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images). Right Frank Gorshin as The Riddler. Source:(imdb.co...
Tonight Show Guest Hosts: Keeping Johnny Carson's Seat ...
January 5, 2019
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson - Season 12 Pictured: (l-r) Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes, guest host Jerry Lewis on December 27, 1973. Source: ...
Peggy Lipton, Mod Squad's Julie Barnes, Was An Icon Of ...
December 31, 2018
Peggy Lipton in publicity photos for 'The Mod Squad' from in 1969 and 'Twin Peaks' from 1990. Photos: ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty; IMDBImages) Actress Pe...
TV Show Lunchboxes That All The Cool Kids Had
December 21, 2018
Child's lunchbox with painting of characters from the TV series 'Welcome Back Kotter' featuring Travolta, Hegyes, Palillo, Jacobs, & Kaplan. (Photo by Henry Groskinsky/The L...
McHale, 'MASH,' And Gomer Pyle: War Is Hell, And Makes ...
December 20, 2018
The U.S. military is such a huge part of our life and national culture -- it's no wonder military-themed TV shows have been a staple of television since its ...
They Say This Was The Worst TV Show Ever. Are They Righ...
December 8, 2018
There have been plenty of terrible sitcom ideas in the history of television, but the short-lived series My Mother The Car, a worst-show-ever candidate, was ...
More Than Madge the Manicurist: The Marvelous Jan Miner
November 29, 2018
Promotional portrait of American actor Jan Miner (1917 - 2004) for the radio program, 'Second Mrs. Burton,' circa 1946. (Photo by CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images) ...
Lisa Loring As Wednesday: 'Addams Family's Creepy, Cute...
November 24, 2018
Lisa Loring as Wednesday Addams in 1964, and during the 1980s. Source: ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images; thehollywoodstore.com On The Addams Family, Li...
Sitcom Catchphrases You'll Never Forget As Long As You ...
November 17, 2018
Gary Coleman as Arnold Jackson, Todd Bridges as Willis Jackson on 'Diff'rent Strokes' -- Photo by: Paul Drinkwater/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank There's nothing like a ...
Remember Romper Room?
November 6, 2018
Hostess Susan Gifford of the TV show 'Romper Room' instructing the children. (Photo by Carl Iwasaki/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images) If you are a child of the sixties or seventies, you pr...
Odd Couples And Midnight Cowboys: Dynamic Duos of TV an...
October 28, 2018
Laverne and Shirley, Butch and Sundance -- call them partners in crime or dynamic duos, a well-matched TV or movie team is comedy or drama gold. The buddy mo...
Game Shows Of The '60s And '70s: TV Winners (And Losers...
October 17, 2018
Bob Eubanks on 'The Newslywed Game,' 1969. Photo by ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images From the very beginning of television, classic game shows came out...
Brando, McQueen, Mitchum, Burton: Hollywood Bad Boys Of...
October 4, 2018
Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski in 'A Streetcar Named Desire'. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) We've always been interested in celebrity antics and m...
TV In The '60s: Three Channels, So Many Classic Shows
September 23, 2018
In the 1960s, you didn't have the deluxe package of premium channels and six ESPNs and on-demand everything -- you had three channels and programming happened on ...
“McHale’s Navy” …. They Don’t Make Them Like This Anymo...
September 5, 2018
Ernest Borgnine And Jean Willie In 'McHale's Navy 'Claudine Longet, Ernest Borgnine and Jean Willie all close for a photograph in a scene from the tel...
Genius Slogans And Jingles From The '60s and '70s
August 29, 2018
Many advertising slogans and jingles of the 1960s and '70s are still with us today, for better or worse. Even if the companies that used them have moved on to other v...
'Green Acres:' Country Living With Eva Gabor And Arnold...
August 27, 2018
Eva Gabor and Eddie Albert embrace in a publicity still for the CBS series Green Acres. Eddie and Eva play husband and wife on the show. Source: Getty Images/Be...
Donna Douglas As Elly May Clampett: A Hillbilly Honey i...
August 22, 2018
American viewers had plenty of bombshells with comedic chops to choose from on 1960s sitcoms -- one of the national favorites was without a doubt Donna Dougl...
'Hogan's Heroes' Cast Included An Actual Holocaust Surv...
July 25, 2018
On Hogan's Heroes, Bob Crane's Col. Hogan and his international band of prisoners-of-war had a cozy, though adversarial, relationship with their captors, in ...
Hollywood's Leading Men Who Defined The Art Of Cool
July 24, 2018
Hip, macho, athletic, outdoorsy, musical, and smooth…the men of the sixties were a lot of things, but above all, they were COOL. This collection of photographs will remi...
Adam-12: On The Beat With L.A. Cops In Changing Times
July 18, 2018
Kent McCord as Officer James A. Reed, and Martin Milner as Officer Peter J. Malloy in the TV show Adam 12 (ran 1968-1975). Undated. Source: Bettmann/Getty On the T...
Elizabeth Montgomery And 'Bewitched:' Behind The Scenes
May 31, 2018
Elizabeth Montgomery of 'Bewitched,' circa 1960; Paul Lynde as Uncle Arthur on 'Bewitched.' Source: Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images; IMDB. On Bewitched, El...
What Kinds Of Toys Were Kids Playing With In The 1960s?
March 27, 2018
Dad on the floor playing w. his 3-yr-old son who is sitting in the middle of circular toy railroad track, watching an electric train go around in living room at th...
Cartoon Characters From The '50s And '60s: Which Was Yo...
February 14, 2018
With so many channels and on-demand everything, kids are flooded with as many cartoons as they can stand these days -- but in the pre-cable days it was a dif...
Dick Clark: Decades Of American Bandstand's (And The Wo...
January 22, 2018
Dick Clark and Connie Francis on 'American Bandstand.' Airdate January 28, 1958. (Photo by Walt Disney Television via Getty Images Photo Archives/Walt Disney Te...
The Munsters - A Mini Documentary
January 11, 2018
The Munsters originally aired on CBS from 1964 to 1966. It was a sitcom about a family of monsters who lived amid a non-monster world. Although the Munster family couldn’t personally ...
Will It Be A 'Jetsons' Future? Predictions For The Year...
January 11, 2018
The Jetsons was a Hanna-Barbera cartoon that originally aired on prime-time television from September 23, 1962 to March 17, 1963 for a total of only 24 episo...
'The Brady Bunch:' Little Known Facts About The Family ...
December 26, 2017
Left: Greg Brady tries on his 'Johnny Bravo' identity. Right: Maureen McCormic circa 1976, on 'The Brady Bunch Variety Hour.' Source: bradybunchreviewed.blogspo...
'Love, American Style:' Romantic Sketch Comedy And 'Hap...
December 25, 2017
Left: John Astin and Carol Wayne on 'Love, American Style.' Right: Ron Howard as Richie Cunningham on the 'Love And Happy Days' episode. Sources: Walt Disney Te...
Phyllis Diller: Standup Comedian Was The Original Despe...
December 20, 2017
THE PRUITTS OF SOUTHAMPTON - Gallery - Shoot Date: April 5, 1966. (Photo by Walt Disney Television via Getty Images Photo Archives/Walt Disney Television via Ge...
The Beauties of Hee Haw!
December 19, 2017
Hee Haw was a variety show featuring country music and cornpone-humor. Although it only aired from 1969 to 1971, it remained popular in syndication until 1997. Despite the fact that the premi...
The Munsters: Was TV's 'Other' Spooky Sitcom A Better S...
November 30, 2017
Left: Fred Gwynne (1926 - 1993), as Herman Munster, and Yvonne De Carlo (1922 - 2007) as Lily Munster in a publicity still for the comedy-horror TV series 'The ...
Jay North, TV's Dennis the Menace: The Untold Story
November 29, 2017
From 1959 to '63, Jay North was TV's Dennis the Menace on the sitcom of the same name, based on Hank Ketcham's daily one-panel newspaper comic. When the series bega...
Hee Haw With Roy Clark And Buck Owens: The Hosts, The H...
November 21, 2017
Hee Haw, hosted by Roy Clark and Buck Owens, was a variety show featuring country music, cornpone-humor, and a cast of attractive young ladies known as the H...
The Original Dating Game: A Classic Game Show!
November 15, 2017
Chuck Barris was a game show genius. He was thought to have a “dangerous mind,” especially when it came to game shows. He was very creative and was known to be an entert...
'Get Smart's Agent 86, The Original Man Who Knew Too Li...
November 13, 2017
Barbara Feldon and Don Adams as agent 99 and Maxwell Smart in a scene from Get Smart the TV series. Source: Getty Images / Bettmann On Get Smart, Maxwell Smar...
“The Mod Squad," Cool Cops!
November 3, 2017
The Mod Squad was a crime/drama television series that ran from 1968 to 1973. At the time, the show pushed the limits on what we, as a society, were willing to accept and buy into. Ame...
Was Barbara Eden Of 'I Dream Of Jeannie' The Queen Of '...
October 31, 2017
Midriff bared and peppy as the day is long, Barbara Eden on I Dream Of Jeannie seemed out of place on TV during the show's run, which lasted from 1965-70. Te...
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
October 17, 2017
From 1967 to 1969, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour provided subversive entertainment disguised as a standard variety show. Tommy and Dick Smothers, the mild-mannered hosts, were th...
'Laugh-In's Catchphrase Comedy Socked It To The '60s
October 10, 2017
With all the weird and wonderful things happening in the late'60s, America needed a new kind of comedy to help us figure it out. That show was Rowan & Martin’s Lau...
The Mike Douglas Show: Muppets, Tiger Woods And More
October 3, 2017
Left: Roger Moore and Mike Douglas on 'The Mike Douglas Show.' Right: Tiger Woods. Sources: Photo by Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images; Pinter...
It's A Family Affair
September 29, 2017
In 1966, the sitcom Family Affair won the hearts of TV viewers when three cute orphaned children from Indiana come to live with their well-to-do Uncle Bill and his British butler, Mr. French, in ...
Would Anyone Watch A Cartoon In Prime Time? Ask Fred Fl...
September 25, 2017
Wilma and Fred Flintstone. (Photo by ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images) When it premiered in September 1960, The Flintstones was the first animated prim...
Hey Hey, It's The Monkees! The Story Of The Pre-Fab Fou...
September 20, 2017
The Monkees, left to right: Peter Tork, Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith. (Photo by GAB Archive/Redferns) The story of The Monkees, a television show...
Having A 'Ball' On The Lucy Show And Here's Lucy!
September 19, 2017
Two years after her divorce from Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball returned to TV in 1962 with her own wacky sitcom, “The Lucy Show”. The series ran for six seasons and becaus...
What Happened To The Variety Shows Of The '60s And '70s...
September 15, 2017
Left: Cher (center) and the popular musical group the Jackson 5 in prehistoric garb for a skit on the television variety show 'The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour,' 19...
How Elizabeth Montgomery Worked Her Magic: 'Bewitched' ...
September 11, 2017
Elizabeth Montgomery on Bewitched, 1964. Photo by ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images The '6os sitcom Bewitched, with Elizabeth Montgomery in the lead rol...
