Radio, Baseball, and the Gipper

Before he treated a chimpanzee named Bonzo like a child, pleaded the Notre Dame football team to win just one for the Gipper, and told Mr. Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall, Ronald Reagan was a baseball announcer. Reagan called baseball games for WOC in...

Thursdays at 10

For nearly 30 years, from 1981 to 2009, NBC defined quality television programming in the 10:00 p.m. time slot.  Hill Street Blues debuted in 1981 and changed the production of television drama. Story lines became story arcs, lasting several episodes.  Moving cameras...

The Larry Sanders Show

With Stephen Colbert entering the late night talk show wars, audiences have another choice to wind down their day.  Late night, a programming block invented by NBC with Broadway Open House in 1950, spurred a slew of hosts. Steve Allen debuted Tonight, later...

Aaron Sorkin and the White House

Before he became the architect of the fictional Bartlet presidency on The West Wing, Aaron Sorkin wrote the 1995 film The American President.  Sorkin’s story depicts the end of President Andrew Shepherd’s first term.  Shepherd, a democrat, is a widower...

Ad Men

Prime time television offers a plethora of advertising agencies.  Bewitched boasts McMahon & Tate with Darrin Stephens, a good-natured, smart, creative advertising executive with a wife who’s a bit bewitching.  Some sources use McMann as the spelling of the...