Beyond ’69

When the New York Mets took the field for the first time, America was awash in a tidal wave of promise.  The year was 1962—John Glenn had become the first American to orbit the Earth, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy had taken viewers on an unprecedented televised tour...

56 Games

Joe DiMaggio once declared, “I’d like to thank the good Lord for making me a Yankee.”  When the Yankee Clipper stepped into the batter’s box, denizens of the Bronx felt the same way. In May 1941, Americans watched the premiere of Orson...

The Chronicles of Bob Greene

In 1964, the Beatles made their first live television appearance in America on The Ed Sullivan Show. The Rogues premiered on NBC, starring David Niven, Gig Young, and Charles Boyer as con men using their skills to fool wealthy people who lacked honesty, decency, and...

The Big Three

In the 1980s, America’s three television networks changed hands. ABC to Capital Cities.  NBC to General Electric.  CBS to Loews. Ken Auletta documented the decade in his 1991 book Three Blind Mice:  How the TV Networks Lost Their Way.  It is, indeed, a fantastic...