The Platinum Age of Television

National Public Radio's Television critic David Bianculli has written an excellent, expansive book that is very detailed when it comes to looking at the history of Television. The Platinum Age of Television: From I Love Lucy to The Walking Dead, How TV Became Terrific examines all genres of TV, starting in the earliest days of the medium, the late-1940s/early 1950s. This is a long book. The audio version of it is 24 hours in length!

One of the most pivotal and influential shows from the early days of television was NBC's weekly sketch comedy show, Your Show of Shows (1950-54). Like Saturday Night Live, this was a weekly 90 minute comedy show that was broadcast live. Unlike SNL, no prompter of cue cards were there to help the stars to recall their lines. Key players in the show were Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris and more. Writers included Neil Simon and Mel Brooks.

The chapters in the book are broken down by TV genres, such as western, soap operas, miniseries, drama, medical, crime, comedy, and more. There are several chapters looking at different types of situation comedies, such as family comedies (The Cosby Show or Family Ties), work comedies (Cheers or Taxi), family/work comedies or "split-coms" as Bianculli called them (The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Andy Griffith Show), and comedies headed up by unmarried females (Murphy Brown, The Mary Tyler Moore Show).

The book has in-depth profiles of important people in TV such as Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Bob Newhart, Norman Lear, Carol Burnett, Louis CK, Larry Wilmore, James L. Brooks, Matt Groening and others.

Bianculli feels that the platinum age of television is from about 1998 until now. There are many more avenues for viewing TV, such as countless cable networks, Netflix, Hulu, You Tube, Amazon video, etc. Many times the best shows are not coming from ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox, but from HBO, FX, IFC, AMC and other fringe networks. Look at the abundance of outstanding TV shows that we have seen over the past 20 years or so: Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Mad Men, Portlandia, Louie, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Wire and many more. I think that at one point, there was a stigma against working in TV. Film stars looked down on TV stars. But that is not the case anymore. Some of the very best writing, acting and technical feats are coming from the small screen.

I liked how the chapters were organized, by TV genre. One can skip chapters with no loss in continuity. I skipped chapters on westerns and crime dramas since I do not like those type of shows. My only criticism is that there is no chapter looking at the rich history of late night TV, from pioneers like Steve Allen and Ernie Kovacs, to current stars like Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel.

TV History Profile: Fred Silverman

TV executive Fred Silverman worked for all of the major broadcast networks in the 1970s and made his mark on the history of television.

As the head of the programming department at CBS, in 1971 he called for the purge of all of the rural shows. These included Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, Hee Haw and Mayberry RFD. He was behind many spin-off shows such as Maude and The Jeffersons, which were based on characters from All in the Family.

At ABC, Silverman developed The Love Boat, Eight is Enough, Three's Company, Fantasy Island and the groundbreaking miniseries, Roots, based on the Alex Haley novel.

In 1978 he became the president of NBC. He discovered the talents of David Letterman and gave him his own morning show in 1980. The show was critically acclaimed and won an Emmy. But the ratings were poor and the morning was not a good time slot for Dave's quirky humor. In 1982, Letterman moved his show to 12:35 am, following Johnny Carson. he hosted his Late Night show until 1993, when he left for CBS. Silverman was not a fan of Tom Snyder's Tomorrow show, which followed Carson for many years. Silverman and Carson had a rocky relationship, and at one point, Johnny came close to leaving the network. Fred wanted the original host of the Tonight Show to return to the network. His desire was to have Steve Allen follow Johnny Carson's show, but that never happened. At NBC, Silverman developed memorable sitcoms such as Diff'rent Strokes, The Facts of Life and Gimme a Break. He had some failures at the peacock network as well, with the development of flops like Hello Larry, The Big Show, Pink Lady and Jeff, and Supertrain. He was also in charge during the period where Lorne Michaels left as the executive producer of Saturday Night Live.

Click here for an interview with Fred Silverman as he looks back on the accomplishments during his career.

* Information from en.wikipedia.org and carsonpodcast.com.