I Love Lucy

Winners: Judy, CoffeeBill, Rosebud, Pluto, & Maddy

On a night when we celebrated Rosebud’s birthday, we also celebrated a first time happening – 5 winners! Seems that 6 wrong was the sweet spot tonight. We welcomed a few new players, including “the Goalie”, and “the Goal”, college students who may need a little more time with the books before they are competitive here. Of course, a few questions about events that took place while they were alive might help, too.

We had a nice chocolate cake with chocolate ganache icing from Copenhagen, and Rosebud blew out all the candles with one strong breath – pretty impressive.

Good Question: In 1953 what was the #1 TV show?

Answer: “I Love Lucy”

First, a bit of history.

In the 1940s, the three networks – NBC, CBS and ABC – were “networks” in name only. All of the programming originated, live, in New York. The only way the networks had to distribute the shows to the rest of the nation was to point a film camera at a television screen and convert video to film.

These 16mm films, known as kinescopes, were then duplicated and shipped to the few affiliated stations for broadcast later. By necessity, most programming was local, and cooking shows, wrestling and cartoons took up most of the broadcast day.

The networks became true networks when AT&T finished laying a system of coaxial cables from coast to coast. Coax – the now familiar cables the run from cable TV wall outlets to today’s tuners – has enough bandwidth to transmit hundreds or even thousands of telephone calls as well as television signals.

“I Love Lucy”

At 9PM on Oct. 15, 1951, I Love Lucy went on the air, and has never been off since. The sitcom centers on an unforgettable showbiz-wannabe redhead, her Cuban bandleader husband and their landlords, who also happen to be their best friends and co-conspirators.

I Love Lucy is a hit that continues to entertain millions of people the world over. Perhaps the key to its success lies within the show’s mastery of a graceful transition — from sense to nonsense. Each episode opens with a plausible situation (home economy, child rearing, post-dating a check) thrown awry with exaggerated absurdity (Lucy is starched, frozen, stuffed with chocolate, locked in a trunk and lowered to the deck of a ship by helicopter, just to name a few). Yet somehow, the show and its heroine never seem to lose touch with the audience.

While the comic brilliance of Lucille Ball and the magic chemistry of the four main characters were cornerstones of the show, I Love Lucy owes much of its success to a behind-the-scenes band of brilliant creators. The show gave birth to the rerun; was the first to use a three-camera setup before a live audience; and overcame many technical obstacles of early TV through ingenious lighting, set design and editing.

Here is a fun clip from the show:

Some more history about early TV.

In 1952 for the first time, television news was able to broadcast the Republican and Democratic conventions live from Philadelphia to the rest of the nation. Common national carriage of popular TV shows, news and sports events meant that there was a shared national experience. Regional cultural differences were ironed out. A more generalized “American” culture co-opted regional subcultures.

We think we live in an era of great technological change. How about the 1950’s. Between 1949 and 1969, the number of households in the U.S. with at least one TV set rose from less than a million to 44 million. The number of commercial TV stations rose from 69 to 566. The amount advertisers paid these TV stations and the networks rose from $58 million to $1.5 billion!

Television programming has had a huge impact on American and world culture. Many critics have dubbed the 1950’s as the Golden Age of Television.

TV sets were expensive and so the audience was generally affluent. Television programmers knew this and they knew that serious dramas on Broadway were attracting this audience segment.

So, the producers began staging Broadway plays in the television studios. Later, Broadway authors, like Paddy Chayefsky, Reggie Rose and J. P. Miller wrote plays specifically for television. Their plays – Marty, Twelve Angry Men, and Days of Wine and Roses, respectively – all went on to be successful movies.

Contrast this with today’s TV fare – “Jersey Shore”, “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”, and who can forget, “Dog, the Bounty Hunter”. Yeah, it really was better back in the old days.

sources: livinghistoryfarm.org, tvland.com,

Read Full Post »

Judy’s Bonanza

Winners: Judy and Pluto

Judy, Judy, Judy!

She just sat at a table in the corner, and very quietly answered all the questions better than anyone else. After winning the big game (with 18 players), she dominated on the $ questions and went home the big winner. Pluto somehow tied her in the big game, followed by Coffee Bill.

It was nice to see some of our regulars returning for the game tonight. Ellen rejoined us from her coast guard tour of duty on PT 109 (although daughter Jaime must still be in the witness protection program), and Inappropriate Bob joined us for a game before his busy spring / summer season of air shows. Also putting in an appearance were JohnnyG and Bobby Barcelona, but the way they played, they “shoulda stood in bed.”

We learned that the clavicle (collar bone ) is the most common broken bone in the human body (who knew?), so you rugby players better be careful out there.

Good Question!: Which state is called the treasure state?

Answer: Montana

Turns out Montana is a state with many nicknames. Most of us know it as “The Big Sky Country”, home of the Marlboro man.

That is  a relatively recent nickname, originating with a 1962 promotion of the Montana State Highway Department. It is a reference to the unobstructed skyline in the state that seems to overwhelm the landscape at times. The name came from a book by Alfred Bertram Guthrie Jr., “Big Sky”. The legend “Big Sky Country” appeared on Montana license plates from 1967 to 1975. This was shortened to “Big Sky” on license plates stamped from 1976 to 2000.

Treasure State is another popular nickname for Montana. “The Treasure State” legend was featured on standard license plates from 1950 to 1966. Montana is referred to as the “Treasure State” because of its rich mineral reserves. Mining has been an economic cornerstone of the state and the state’s motto “Oro y Plata,” Spanish for gold and silver, refers to two of the minerals that gave rise to the nickname. It also happens to be on the current Montana license plate, which fact has escaped us eastern tenderfoots.

Other nicknames for Montana are: The Bonanza State, Land of Shining Mountains, The Mountain State, The Stubtoe State, and The Headwaters State. I won’t bore you with the reasons for these names, but “The Bonanza State” might lead you to believe that the TV show “Bonanza” was filmed here. Not So.

For fourteen seasons in the 1950s and 60s, fans watched the adventures of Pa, Adam, Hoss and Little Joe on the program Bonanza. The fictional Cartwright family lived on the Ponderosa Ranch at Lake Tahoe, and parts of Bonanza were filmed on its shores. The famous opening scene of Bonanza was filmed on location at North Lake Tahoe near Incline Village, and Lake Tahoe was among the outdoor locations used to film the weekly episodes. The house, both interior and exterior, was located on a Hollywood sound stage.

Perhaps the most interesting thing (and the most disturbing to idyllic childhood memories) was that Bonanza was created to sell a commercial product. Hours spent watching Bonanza, dreaming of the Wild West and swooning over Little Joe came about because RCA, NBC’s parent company, wanted to sell more color televisions!

Just for old times sake, here is the opening scene and theme song from “Bonanza”:

sources: netstate.com, gocalifornia.about.com

Read Full Post »

Subway Lore

Winner: Judy

Judy doesn’t play often, but when she plays she comes to play. Judy followed last week’s win with a second straight victory. Following close behind were Carol & Rosebud to make it an all woman’s podium finish. Rosebud gave away an easy one when she didn’t know that George HW Bush painted “Barbara” on his plane in WWII.

Good Question: What was the first city to have  a subway?

Answer: Boston

Most people think that NYC had the first subway. Certainly there are some city subway lines so poorly maintained (have you ever passed through the desolation that is the Z line on the lower east side?) that you are sure it must be the oldest subway system anywhere. This is what the interior of the first Interborough subway car looked like in 1904. Later, when the center door was added to speed the flow of passengers, the cross-seats were removed.

Oldest Subway – U.S.

The Green Line, a streetcar system run by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation authority (MBTA), is the oldest line of Boston’s subway, which is known locally as the ‘T’. The Green Line runs underground downtown and on the surface in outlying areas. The Tremont Street Subway – the oldest continually operating subway tunnel in North America – and several connecting tunnels carry cars of all branches under downtown. The Tremont Street Subway opened in stages between Sept. 1897, and Sept. 1898, to take streetcars off surface streets. Beat NYC by 7 years.

Oldest Subway – World

The first urban underground railway was the Metropolitan Railway, which began operations on January 10, 1863. It was built largely in shallow tunnels and is now part of the London Underground. It was worked by steam trains, and despite the creation of numerous vents, the smoke caused discomfort for passengers and was unhealthy and uncomfortable for passengers and operating staff.

Nevertheless, its trains were popular from the start and the Metropolitan Railway and the competing Metropolitan District Railway developed the inner circle around central London, completed in 1884.

The opening of London’s City and South London Railway in 1890 overcame the smoke problem by using electric traction and led to the development of electric underground railways in Liverpool, Budapest, Boston, Paris, Berlin, and New York City by 1904. This first electrified urban railway opened in deep tubular tunnels, leading to the term “tube”, which was eventually applied to the entire London Underground.

Budapest inaugurated the first electrified underground line on the continent, the M1, in 1896. It ran from the city centre to City Park and the local zoo, a distance of 2.3 mi. It is now part of the Budapest Metro. When you rode it, before it’s recent renovation, you thought you had travelled back to the Victorian age. Its iconic Line1, dating from 1896, was declared a World Heritage Site in 2002.

LIRR has the Oldest Subway Tunnel 

The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel is officially the world’s oldest subway tunnel.  This tunnel was built in 1844 beneath a busy street in the City of Brooklyn (Brooklyn did not become part of NYC until a half-century later).  The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel is a half-mile long and accommodated two standard gauge railroad tracks.

The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel was built in only seven months, using the cut-and-cover method; only hand tools and primitive equipment were utilized in its construction.  It was built for the previously existing LIRR route on the surface of Atlantic Avenue and to provide grade separation for early Long Island Rail Road trains that lacked brakes good enough to operate on city streets. The tunnel eliminated vehicular and pedestrian traffic conflicts and delays.

Read Full Post »