"TV's finest hour"...
No it wasn't the guest appearances of Pauly Shore on "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee". If you saw the movie "Good Night, and Good Luck" you know what that hour was. If not, on the night of March 9, 1954 Edward R. Murrow took a stand against Senator Joseph McCarthy and the hysteria created by his Communist "witch hunt" that concluded that if your name wasn't Joseph McCarthy you were a Communist...
Murrow on "See It Now" summed up his feelings for McCarthy as follows: "No one familiar with the history of his country can deny that Congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating. But the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the junior senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly"...
Murrow used mostly recordings of McCarthy interrograting witnesses and making speeches in disputing the actions taken by the senator and his rush to judgement to illustrate his points. This was the first of many episodes dealing with McCarthy's purge. For this scene alone you owe it to yourself to see the movie and the brilliant portrayal of Murrow by David Strathairn (say that name fast 10 times). More on "TV's finest hour" and Murrow in my commentary...
More March 9 Memories...
1822) Charles M. Graham receives the 1st patent for false teeth (so how did you eat an apple if you had no teeth before that ?)...
1862) During the Civil War, the ironclad "Monitor" and "Virginia" (formerly the "Merrimac") fight to a draw in a 5-hour battle at Hampton Roads, VA...
1954) WNBT-TV (now WNBC-TV, channel 4) in New York runs the 1st local color TV commercial for "Castro Convertible" as Bernadette Castro is seen opening the bed for the 1st time...
1954) CBS Newsman Edward R. Murrow critically reviews Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. (could that be for "Red" ?) McCarthy's anti-Communist campaign on "See It Now" (feature story)...
1955) James Dean debuts in "East of Eden" (Dean will make 2 more movies, "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Giant" before his death in September of 1955)...
1959) The "Barbie Doll" is born...
1964) The 1st Ford Mustang rolls off the assembly line...
1966) The Beach Boys record "God Only Knows"...
1975) Work begins on the Alaskan pipeline...
1976) The 1st female Cadets are accepted at West Point Military Academy...
1985) "Gone With The Wind" goes on sale in video stores for the 1st time...
1986) Navy divers find the crew compartment of the Challenger along with the remains of the astronauts...
1992) Former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin dies in Tel Aviv at 78...
1996) Legendary comedian George Burns joins Gracie at age 100...
1997) Gangsta rapper "The Notorious B.I.G." (Christopher Wallace) is the victim of a drive-by shooting in L.A. (he was 24) (what ? a hip hopper shot ? What is this country coming to ?)...
2004) Convicted Washington, D.C. sniper John Allen Muhammad is sentenced to death in Virginia...
To ensure accuracy of dates and content, multiple reference sources are used in the timeline...
Happy Birthday To...
1918) Mickey Spillane...
1928) Keely Smith...
1933) Lloyd Price...
1936) Wacky comedian Marty Ingels...
1942) Paul Revere and the Raiders' Mark Lindsay...
1943) Chess champion in abstensia Bobby Fischer...
1943) "Good Morning America's" Charles Gibson...
1971) Michael Jackson playmate Emmanuel Lewis...
Commentary...
Some things you may not know about Edward R. Murrow's "See It Now":
- His March 9th broadcast provoked tens of thousands of letters, telegrams and phone calls to CBS and ran 15 to 1 in favor of Murrow's stand against Senator Joseph McCarthy...
- Even truck drivers voiced their approval to Murrow out on the street...
- The weekly version of the show ended in 1955 after Alcoa pulled its sponsorship but the show remained as a series of occasional news reports...
- As depicted in the "Good Night, and Good Luck" movie, co-producer Fred Friendly, Murrow and CBS founder William Paley had a hostile showdown. Murrow complained about "stomach aches" the show caused when they covered controversial subjects and this marked the beginning of the end of "See It Now", the last episode ending July 7, 1958...
Today is the 68th day of 2006 with 297 days left in the year, 11 days remain until spring and 23 days until opening day...
