How much do you know about TV Firsts? | Quiz

Answer: the opening ceremonies of the NY World's Fair

The first small-scale 'experimental' broadcast was of the opening ceremonies of the New York World's Fair with Franklin D. Roosevelt. The telecast was only shown to a very small audience consisting of research institutions, certain companies and a few rare individuals who owned a television set in 1939. Coincidentally, movies had become main stream and two great movies, "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone with the Wind", both opened that same year.

As for the modern Olympic Games, they were only held every 4 years, i.e., even-numbered years and, in fact, were cancelled in both 1940 and 1944 due to the outbreak of World War II.

Answer: CBS and NBC

The two stations were based in New York and were affiliates of radio networks CBS (WCBW) and NBC (WNBT). How TV in its infancy covered the "day that will live in infamy", just months after TV's proverbial birth, was interesting. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese took the U.S. by surprise by bombing Pearl Harbor, Hawaii early on that Sunday Morning.

It was early afternoon on the East Coast: the CBS station, WCBW, did not operate on Sundays, which left only NBC's WNBT to transmit one of the most important events of the century. WNBT had only one program on its daytime schedule, i.e., "Millionaire Playboy"; the announcer broke in with news of the attack...and the rest is history!

Answer: Bulova watches

On WNBT's first full day of programming on July 1, 1941, they advertised Bulova watches. What was being 'watched' was a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies. The amazing part was the cost for the airtime; it was $4! For those born into the new millennium, I have to tell you that, way back in those days, TV shows usually had only one sponsor, not like the seemingly endless lists of advertisers today.

Some of those early sponsors were Lucky Strike (with dancing cigarette packs), Philip Morris (and Johnny, the bellboy), Westinghouse and Richard Hudnut (a cosmetics manufacturer).

Answer: 1950

On August 19, 1950 at 7 a.m., ABC debuted a one hour block of shows exclusively for children. The 'block' consisted of two shows: "Animal Clinic", which showed live animals and explained interesting facts about them; the other show was a variety show hosted by two acrobats called "Acrobat Ranch".

It was a long way from 'Sesame Street" and "The Electric Company" and, probably, nowhere near as educational and as much fun as "Schoolhouse Rock", but it was a start and certainly better than the old cartoons that seemed to always show Farmer Brown trying to drown cats.

Answer: The Drew Carey Show

On November 17, 1999, "The Drew Carey Show" simulcast an episode called 'Drew- Cam' on TV and over the internet. American Broadcasting Company (ABC) worked together with Warner Bros. to show the 'Drew-Cam' episode, where Drew plays a salesman for 24 hours a day on a website created by Cleveland's Winfred-Louder Department Store where Drew worked.

The website had almost 2 million visits and 650,000 streams, and was viewed by approximately 11.2 million viewers; it did far better than the two other webcasts that year, i.e., "NetAid" and "Victoria Secret".

Answer: Sammy Davis Jr. and Nancy Sinatra

How many of you got this one wrong? I know I did! In 1967, on Nancy Sinatra's variety show, "Movin' with Nancy", Sammy Davis Jr. made a guest appearance and they kissed (on the cheek - like when Sammy kissed Archie Bunker in 1972). The first fictional interracial characters to kiss were Kirk and Uhura, but that was on "Star Trek" in 1968.

As far as the other two choices, Tyson and Scott worked together on a TV drama called "East Side/West Side" (1963-1964) but they were just colleagues; the same holds true for Diahann Carroll who played a nurse to Lloyd Nolan's crusty old doctor on "Julia" (1968-1971).

Answer: Wanted: Dead or Alive

Did you ever hear of the TV Western "Trackdown"? From 1957-1959, Robert Culp played a Texas Ranger named Hoby Gilman. The pilot of "Trackdown" itself was aired on "Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater" in May 1957. Culp played a 'cool' lawman who would use his gun to 'track down' wanted criminals. Steve McQueen appeared in an episode of "Trackdown" as bounty hunter Josh Randall which served as the pilot episode for "Wanted: Dead or Alive".

In the 1960s, TV Westerns were very popular but did not usually spawn spin-offs; although "Maverick" did inspire "Young Maverick" and "Brett Maverick", and Chuck Connors was in both "Rifleman" and "Branded", and "Gunsmoke" was on forever.

Answer: The Tournament of Roses Parade

It was NBC, the 'peacock' network, which televised the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California 'in living color' on January 1, 1954. This was also filmed by 20th Century-Fox Movietone News. The float theme was 'Famous Books in Flowers', with the color being supplied by the flowers and the narration by actor Dan Dailey. Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and William Boyd as "Hopalong Cassidy" were guest riders in the parade which ended up at the Rose Bowl Stadium.

Answer: Today

The "Today" show first aired on NBC on January 14, 1952. Dave Garroway (1913-1982) was the founding host and anchor of the show from 1952 to 1961. After a stint in the Navy during World War II, Dave became a disc jockey in Chicago, and later hosted a series of radio programs.

It was Garroway who started the fad of having the audience snap fingers instead of clapping (which became a part of the 'beat' culture of the 1960s). He was one of the pioneers of the TV talk show and introduced us all to J. Fred Muggs, a chimpanzee who became "Today's" mascot.

His calm demeanor belied his internal turmoil and, in 1982, he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Answer: Leave It to Beaver

Yes, it was on the very first episode of "Leave It to Beaver" in 1957 which first showed this household necessity. However, in the 1950s, that was a very provocative subject (like married couples sleeping in the same bed or saying the word "pregnant" on TV), and the episode was shelved for several weeks by the network censors. (Do we still have network censors and do they actually censor anything anymore?) When the episode finally aired, it showed Wally and 'the Beav' trying to keep a baby alligator in the toilet tank; pretty tame by today's standards - unless they started a trend where grown alligators wound up inhabiting city sewer systems...