Satellite-Sam

I’m a history buff that has a huge breadth of knowledge. I know a bit about nearly every period in history and I know more than a bit in subjects that fascinate me. I’ve considered media history to be one of those areas where I’ve gone in pretty deep. I know about the radio wars and that ABC was spun off from NBC because of antitrust concerns. I know that cable TV was originally just a way for people in the boonies to get the over the air channels blocked by mountains and other geographic features. I know that TV was originally filmed live and that I Love Lucy was one of the first TV shows to record the episodes and ended up birthing syndication. The commercials were also done live and that’s the whole point of the Vitameatavegimin episode. What I didn’t know until I recently heard an episode of WNYC’s On The Media is that there was a fourth TV station way before Fox. This TV station was called The Dumont Network and it was directly responsible for The Honeymooners. In the same way that The Simpsons was born from The Tracy Ulman Show, The Honeymooners was born on Cavalcade of Stars which aired on The Dumont Network. This OTM segment also revealed that The Dumont Network invented daytime television. NBC, ABC, and CBS also owned radio stations and wanted people to listen to the radio during the day so they didn’t have daytime programming. The Dumont Network didn’t have radio stations, so they came up with the talk show and many other staples of daytime TV. They even invented a proto-PBS with a program that was supposed to entertain your kids and then make a loud sound when that was done so you would go and get your kids again. ...

Satellite Sam #1 The AMAZING Matt Fraction ( see today’s post in which Kari explores his teamwork with Aja on Hawkeye) will be teaming up with Howard Chaykin for a new black and white series called Satellite Sam. I’m extremely excited for this series both because of Fraction’s involvement and because of the time period in which it takes place: 1951 in the early stages of television becoming one of the most powerful forces on the planet until the advent of the Internet. I’m a history junkie and especially so when it comes to media. Additionally, I’ve been wishing more people would realize that the 1950s weren’t as perfect as we assume when we watch TV and movies from that time period. So this description just got me so excited: ...